This study investigates two facets of the relationship between mental health and religion. The first is an investigation into the effects of psychologist's and psychiatrist's religious belief on their assessments of a religious client. Previous research has argued that non-religious mental health workers display bias against their religious clients (Houts and Graham, 1986; and Jones, 1994). Other research has suggested that extrinsically religious indivi~uals and indiscriminately religious individuals tend to be more prejudiced than non-religious or intrinsically religious individuals (Donahue, 1985; and Richards and Bergin, 1997). The second facet of this study is an investigation into the differences between ministers of religion and mental health workers (psychologists and psychiatrists) in their assessment of a religious client. The DSM IV (APA, 1994) suggests that mental health workers should consider the cultural appropriateness of an individuals "symptoms" or behaviours before diagnosing them. It is argued here that psychologists and psychiatrists do not give due regard to the cultural appropriateness of their client's religious beliefs and the ministers of religion offer a gauge of what is culturally appropriate. To investigate these questions a group of mental health workers (consisting of 19 psychologists and 9 psychiatrists) and a group of Christian ministers of religion (consisting of 13 Pentecostal ministers and 17 mainstream ministers) was asked to complete a questionnaire based on a hypothetical case study. The hypothetical case study was constructed to have ambiguous religious characteristics, to allow the respondents to interpret the information according to their own biases. The questionnaire included Allport and Ross's Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) (Wulff, 1991). Data were analysed using Mann-Whittney U-tests and Kruskal Wallis H-tests. Significant differences were found between ministers of religion and mental health workers on most variables, with the greatest differences being evidenced between Pentecostal ministers of religion and psychiatrists. This suggests that mental health workers perceive religious clients as more mentally ill than ministers of religion do. However, no differences were found between mental health workers of different religious orientations according to the ROS and other measures of religiousness. This implies that mental health workers are not biased based on their own religious faith, but all mental health workers may be indiscriminately biased against religious individuals. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

The outbreak of the first psychotic episode disarrays the person's everyday experience and of significant others. This work takes the notion of experience as the key mediating variable to understand how the cultural and social frame affects the experience of psychosis. Culture contributes to the articulation of the experience of psychosis through its influence on individual, family, and community reactions. I focused on the first psychotic experience of low-income youth living in Sao Paulo, Brazil because one can see more clearly the role played by the cultural and social dimensions, since the process of experiencing psychosis is not yet totally settled. / I emphasized the basic strategies created by psychotic patients and their families to reorganize their experience of themselves and of the world, and the dynamics and underpinning of these strategies in relation to cultural signifiers. I particularly explored how psychotic patients and their families appropriate, borrow and transform cultural signifiers, and more specifically religious signifiers, in their attempt to cope with psychosis. Religious signifiers are pervasive and diverse in Brazilian culture; furthermore different people may or may not resort to or be affected by religious idioms and signifiers in a similar way. A wide range of variation in the use of religious idioms and signifiers can be expected among patients, at different moments of their life history, and when the experiences of patients and significant others are compared. Religion can have a positive impact over the experience of psychosis, a negative, or even a neutral impact depending on the person and circumstances. / My work also demonstrates that psychotic patients are subjected to a double-process of marginality due to their poor living conditions and to urban violence; and to the fact that their marginality is further accentuated by the psychotic episode. People's reactions also vary and change in relation to the kinds of behaviours manifested by psychotic patients, in addition to the social role of each family member and the family dynamics at play. More generally, people's reactions work in a kind of "feed-back loop," since family reactions modify the subjective world and reactions of patients, while patients' reactions modify family attitudes and behaviours.

This empirical study explores if, and how, religion and spirituality are relevant subjects for those experiencing mental distress in Northern Ireland (NI) and how, if at all, the subject is engaged with in mental health social work practice. Although there is some controversy in United Kingdom based research regarding the apparent benefit of religion and spirituality within mental health, service user research and literature suggests its importance within recovery. Literature on religion, spirituality and social work practice suggests the need to examine the social and political processes which persist around this subject in social work practice (Henery, 2003; Wong and Vinsky, 2009). This examination is appropriate given the role of religion within the political conflict in NI, the impact of the conflict upon social work practice (Campbell et al, 2013), the high incidence of mental ill health in NI and the apparent role of religion and spirituality within mental distress. This study considers how mental health social workers may engage with this subject within their practice not only as an aspect of service users’ identity but also within post conflict Northern Ireland. The study methodology and design drew upon narrative theory and grounded theory. I interviewed twelve mental health service users and twelve mental health social workers, and half of the participants from each group also took part in a follow-up telephone interview. All of the participants were invited to bring an object which expressed what religion and spirituality meant to them. Analysis explored the views and experiences of mental health service users and social workers about religion and spirituality, within specific aspects of the wider social field. Service user and social worker participants’ accounts suggested that whilst the role of religion and spirituality within mental distress was recognised, its inclusion in mental health social work practice was marked with questions of legitimacy. Some of these questions were explicitly framed within the conflict, whilst others were less so. The study found that although religion was associated with politics, sectarianism and violence, its role, and that of spirituality, as an aspect of identity and meaning-making, appeared to be underdeveloped. Two key findings are of particular note. 10 Firstly that service user participants had their own ‘hierarchy’ of religious and spiritual expression, which on occasion appeared to result in their being critical of other service users’ expressions. Secondly, some service users preferred to keep their spirituality to themselves as a strategy of empowerment. In addition the study also found that service users viewed the mental health professional relationship as focusing upon medical aspects of their care, for example physical health and medication management, with no scope to explore religion, spirituality and mental distress. Thus questions of legitimacy focused around the notion of privacy and whether talking about religion and spirituality within the mental health service user and social worker relationship was too sensitive, given its association with sectarianism. Furthermore, mental health service users were concerned about how a disclosure of religion and / or spirituality within mental distress would be viewed by the mental health professional: would it be viewed as indicative of deteriorating mental health? Overall the study identified a significant gap between how service users draw upon spirituality and / or religion within mental distress, and the space given to this within mental health social work practice. This gap is due to a myriad of factors ranging from the social worker’s biography, to wider issues around how religion and spirituality are conceptualised in contemporary society. This study also highlights the continuing impact of the Northern Ireland conflict on frontline social work provision. There is a need for policymaking to acknowledge the ambivalence that exists around spirituality and religion in mental health social work practice due to the conflict and other relevant factors. Finally, support is needed for practitioners and service users to acknowledge this aspect of mental well-being in a manner that gives service users choice about its inclusion in their mental health care.

Orientador: Paulo Dalgalarrondo / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T23:25:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Moraes_PauloAugustoCostivellie_M.pdf: 81784882 bytes, checksum: f16e045d8c51eae7735517cc074fd3f2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: A religião voltou a ser considerada uma questão importante para a sociedade contemporânea. Fenômeno bastante complexo é atualmente considerado um elemento extremamente significativo para a sua vida sócio-cultural. Atribui-se à religião um papel fundamental para as pessoas encarceradas, atuando como fator protetor da Saúde Mental e incentivando a recuperação do infrator. Existem poucos estudos que relacionem saúde mental e religiosidade em presidiárias . Também não se conhecem pesquisas e estudos que enfoquem a religiosidade das mulheres presas e a forma como esta é experienciada no cotidiano de uma prisão de segurança máxima e as conseqüências nas vidas destas mulheres. Objetivos: Verificar o perfil de Saúde Mental e a relação entre religião e Saúde Mental. Analisar também como a Saúde Mental e a religião influenciam a vida das presidiárias e como lhes fornecem maior suporte psíquico e emocional. Descrever o cotidiano da penitenciária durante o período em que ocorreu a pesquisa, o perfil das presas e o ambiente em que vivem. Investigar alguns aspectos da experiência subjetiva das detentas enfocando os aspectos relacionados à espiritualidade (enfatizando-se as manifestações religiosas de origem pentecostal e neopentecostal), conversão religiosa e ao sofrimento. Método: Foi utilizado um questionário de autopreenchimento que incluiu dados sócio-demográficos, religiosidade (atual e anterior ao aprisionamento), Saúde Mental e perfil criminal. Para os aspectos psicopatológicos foi utilizado o General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Foram entrevistadas 358 mulheres, detentas da Penitenciária Feminina da Capital - São Paulo - SP de Março de 2003 a Dezembro de 2004. Foram feitas análises estatísticas descritivas e bivariadas, comparando-se todas as variáveis com o GHQ-12. Foi utilizada também a análise de regressão logística multivariada para as respostas dicotômicas para as variáveis que possivelmente interagiram com a Saúde Mental. / Abstract: Nowadays religion is an important issue for the modern society, a complex and fundamental socio-cultural phenomenon. There is evidence that religious commitment tends to correlete positively with the mental health. The religion seems to have an important role or the mental health of jailed women. It provides psychological and emotional support, bringing them comfort, meaning and hope. This study intents to verify the mental health profile and the relation between religion and mental health, to analyse how mental health and the religion influence the life of jailed women as well, and to provide more psychological and emotional support. It describes too, the quotidian of female detainees, their profiles and the prisional enviroment where they are living and investigates some aspects of their subjective experience. A self-filling questionaire was used wich includes social, demographic, religious (present and before jailing), mental health and crime profile data. Concerning the psychopathologic matters General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was used. 358 women were interviewed from "Penitenciária Feminina da Capital" (São Paulo, SP - Brazil ) from March, 2003 to December, 2004. Descriptive and bivaried statistcs analysis was accomplished comparing all the variables with GHQ-12. Multivaried regression logistic analysis was used to get the dichotomic answers to the variables that would possibly interact with mental health. A bigger persona' religiosity was associated to better mental health. Associations between crime type and mental health were not found. / Mestrado / Saude Mental / Mestre em Ciências Médicas

Evidence is cited in this paper which suggests religion is gaining in influence on American life. Although interest in religiosity is increasing, mental health research into the area is meager. As psychological researchers grow cognizant of the impact of social systems on the individual, it becomes important to examine the impact of religion and religious belief on the emotional health of the individual. The literature also suggests that attitudes toward death and the individual's perception of power/helplessness, which are elements closely associated with religious belief, are also important factors in determining one's state of psychological well-being. This study is an attempt to look more closely at the role of religion, attitudes toward death, and perception of power/helplessness in a psychiatric population as compared to a nonpsychiatric population. The major variable under consideration, religious orientation, was measured with the Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religious Orientation Inventory which measures the nature of one's involvement with religion. The individual with an intrinsic orientation toward religion is believed to exhibit a healthier adjustment than the individual with an extrinsic orientation toward religion. It was hypothesized that healthier religious adjustment would be related to lower death anxiety, as measured by the Death Anxiety Scale, and lower locus of control scores, as measured by the Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. Further, it was assumed that whether or not one's religious belief system includes a belief in punishment after death would exert some influence on death anxiety. The information obtained in this study suggests that the most important factor of concern to psychiatric patients in the area of religious orientation and death anxiety is belief in punishment after death and its relationship to locus of control. Death anxiety was greatest in psychiatric patients who believed in punishment after death. Overall subjects who believed in punishment after death tended to exhibit higher external locus of control scores. Implications of these findings are discussed.

O objetivo dessa pesquisa consiste em analisar aspectos peculiares aos distúrbios mentais psicológicos e emocionais das mulheres diagnosticadas como histéricas na década de 1950, no Hospital de Alienados, na cidade do Recife. A partir daí, entender os discursos produzidos pelos intelectuais das instituições sociais responsáveis pelo destino dessas mulheres, dentro da sociedade. Esse estudo considerou como relevante para essa análise os acontecimentos de um Brasil que absorvia novas ideias oriundas do modelo americano, e vivia em plena efervescência econômica, política e cultural, os chamados Anos Dourados. Nele, o conceito de religiosidade, adotava uma nova configuração. Novas propostas religiosas e também práticas espíritas se multiplicavam e se afirmavam especialmente nas periferias das grandes cidades, para minimizar os conflitos existenciais que atingiam a sociedade, em especial, as mulheres pobres. Embasada nesses aspectos, a pesquisa aponta as mulheres nervosas e confinadas como alvo constante de um sistema político-social discriminatório e repressor que atuava silenciosamente dentro da sociedade. Tais afirmações são demonstradas através dos comoventes relatos transcritos nas suas histórias de vida, Neles, os problemas afetivos econômicos e sociais dessas mulheres se sobressaíam, e as tornavam extremamente vulneráveis aos surtos histéricos. Ressaltamos, também, a importância e o significado das amizades construídas na vizinhança dessas mulheres, que, por sofrerem com a exclusão social e o desamparo das políticas públicas, se identificavam e se apoiavam nas dificuldades surgidas no dia a dia, tendo, na maioria dos casos, a miséria como pano de fundo / This research aims al analyzing the peculiar aspects regarding to women‟s mental psychological and emotional disturbs diagnosed as hysterics in 1950 decade, in the Hospital de Alienados- Hospital for lunatics- in Recife city. Hence fonhards, one must understand the discourses made- produced by the social institutions intellectuals responsible for these women‟s fate- destination- withein society. This study- work-has considered has viewed as relevant for this analysis events concerning a certain Brazil- a Brasil‟s type. That was absorbing new ideas arisen from the American way of life and was living in full economical political and cultural effervescence: the so-called the golden years In that model. The concept concerning religiosity was used to adapt a new configuration. New religions proposils as well on spirit practices reproduced- multiplied themselves and adquired their affirmationaffirmed. Themselves specially in the great cities peripheries, in order to minimize the existential problems that affected society, mainly poor women. Based on in these aspects, this research points out the nervous women and the confirmed ones as a constant target for a discriminatory and repressing political-social system that actuated silently within society these affirmations statement are shown up through touching reports transcribed in their life stories. In these reports, their-women affective economical and social problems jut out and made them vulnerable, to hysterical outbreaks. One must emphasize, as well, also the friendships importance and meaning constructed, build up in these poor women‟s neighborhood who as they suffer a lot on account of their social exclusion and public policies abandonment, they identify them selves and give support each other in their difficulties arisen in their day by day lives, having in the majority of their cases misery as a background

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:12:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_lucia_mascena.pdf: 1539343 bytes, checksum: 97affa054bfa0a3e71aa97904911c40b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-11 / This research aims al analyzing the peculiar aspects regarding to women‟s mental psychological and emotional disturbs diagnosed as hysterics in 1950 decade, in the Hospital de Alienados - Hospital for lunatics- in Recife city. Hence fonhards, one must understand the discourses made- produced by the social institutions intellectuals responsible for these women‟s fate- destination- withein society. This study- work-has considered has viewed as relevant for this analysis events concerning a certain Brazil- a Brasil‟s type. That was absorbing new ideas arisen from the American way of life and was living in full economical political and cultural effervescence: the so-called the golden years In that model. The concept concerning religiosity was used to adapt a new configuration. New religions proposils as well on spirit practices reproduced- multiplied themselves and adquired their affirmationaffirmed. Themselves specially in the great cities peripheries, in order to minimize the existential problems that affected society, mainly poor women. Based on in these aspects, this research points out the nervous women and the confirmed ones as a constant target for a discriminatory and repressing political-social system that actuated silently within society these affirmations statement are shown up through touching reports transcribed in their life stories. In these reports, their-women affective economical and social problems jut out and made them vulnerable, to hysterical outbreaks. One must emphasize, as well, also the friendships importance and meaning constructed, build up in these poor women‟s neighborhood who as they suffer a lot on account of their social exclusion and public policies abandonment, they identify them selves and give support each other in their difficulties arisen in their day by day lives, having in the majority of their cases misery as a background / O objetivo dessa pesquisa consiste em analisar aspectos peculiares aos distúrbios mentais psicológicos e emocionais das mulheres diagnosticadas como histéricas na década de 1950, no Hospital de Alienados, na cidade do Recife. A partir daí, entender os discursos produzidos pelos intelectuais das instituições sociais responsáveis pelo destino dessas mulheres, dentro da sociedade. Esse estudo considerou como relevante para essa análise os acontecimentos de um Brasil que absorvia novas ideias oriundas do modelo americano, e vivia em plena efervescência econômica, política e cultural, os chamados Anos Dourados . Nele, o conceito de religiosidade, adotava uma nova configuração. Novas propostas religiosas e também práticas espíritas se multiplicavam e se afirmavam especialmente nas periferias das grandes cidades, para minimizar os conflitos existenciais que atingiam a sociedade, em especial, as mulheres pobres. Embasada nesses aspectos, a pesquisa aponta as mulheres nervosas e confinadas como alvo constante de um sistema político-social discriminatório e repressor que atuava silenciosamente dentro da sociedade. Tais afirmações são demonstradas através dos comoventes relatos transcritos nas suas histórias de vida, Neles, os problemas afetivos econômicos e sociais dessas mulheres se sobressaíam, e as tornavam extremamente vulneráveis aos surtos histéricos. Ressaltamos, também, a importância e o significado das amizades construídas na vizinhança dessas mulheres, que, por sofrerem com a exclusão social e o desamparo das políticas públicas, se identificavam e se apoiavam nas dificuldades surgidas no dia a dia, tendo, na maioria dos casos, a miséria como pano de fundo