Working with patients with religious beliefs1

Mental health professionals in Western societies are generally less religious than their patients and receive little training in religious issues. Using case studies, the author discusses issues involved in working with patients who hold religious beliefs: problems of engagement; countertransference; religious and spiritual issues not attributable to mental disorder; problems of differential diagnosis; religious delusions; religion and psychotherapy; psychosexual problems; and religiously oriented treatments. The article ends with a discussion of the various ways in which religious themes can be incorporated into mental health work, especially the need to involve religious professionals and develop collaborative patterns of working together with mental health professionals. Simon Dein (Princess Alexandra Hospital, The Derwent Centre, Hamstel Road, Harlow, Essex CM20 1QX, UK. E-mail: [email protected]) is a senior lecturer in anthropology and medicine in the Centre for Behavioural and Social Science in Medicine. He is the editor of the journal Mental Health, Religion and Culture, and runs an MSc course in culture and health. He has published a number of papers on religion and health, and has specifically studied the health of Hasidic Jews in London. Box 1 Antagonism towards religion Many psychiatrists see religion as: • primitive • guilt-inducing • a form of dependency • irrational • having no empirical base 1. For an invited commentary on this article see Sims (2004, this issue: pp. 294–295).