Are religious practices involving seeing visions and speaking in tongues beneficial or detrimental to mental health? Do some cultures express distress in bodily form because they lack the linguistic categories to express distress psychologically? Do some religions encourage clinical levels of obsessional behaviour? And are religious people happier than others? By merging the growing information on religion and mental health with that on culture and mental health, Kate Loewenthal enables fresh perspectives on these questions. This book deals with different psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, manic disorders, depression, anxiety, somatisation and dissociation as well as positive states of mind, and analyses the religious and cultural influences on each.

This book provides a selection of contemporary research on the development and examination of psychometric measures for the assessment of mental health, religion and culture. This book was originally published as two special issues of Mental Health, Religion & Culture.

Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) represent a very important factor of daily life for many individuals across different cultures and contexts. It is associated with lower rates of depression, suicide, mortality, and substance abuse, and is positively correlated with well-being and quality of life. Despite growing academic recognition and scientific literature on these connections this knowledge has not been translated into clinical practice. Part of the expanding Oxford Cultural Psychiatry series, Spirituality and Mental Health Across Cultures is a timely exploration of the implications of R/S on mental health. Written and edited by 38 experts in the fields of spirituality and mental health from 11 countries, covering a wide range of cultural and geographical perspectives, this unique resource assesses how mental health relates to world religions, agnosticism, atheism, and spiritualism unaffiliated with organised religion, with a practical touch. Across 25 chapters, this resource provides readers with a succinct and trustworthy review of the latest research and how this can be applied to clinical care. The first section covers the principles and fundamental questions that relate science, history, philosophy, neuroscience, religion, and spirituality with mental health. The second section discusses the main beliefs and practices related to world religions and their implications to mental health. The third reviews the impact of R/S on specific clinical situations and offers practical guidance on how to handle these appropriately, such as practical suggestions for assessing and integrating R/S in personal history anamnesis or psychotherapy.

This resource provides evidence-based guidance on the implications of religion and spirituality on mental health.

Are religious practices involving seeing visions and speaking in tongues beneficial or detrimental to mental health? Do some cultures express distress in bodily form because they lack the linguistic categories to express distress psychologically? Do some religions encourage clinical levels of obsessional behaviour? And are religious people happier than others? By merging the growing information on religion and mental health with that on culture and mental health, Kate Loewenthal enables fresh perspectives on these questions. This book deals with different psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, manic disorders, depression, anxiety, somatisation and dissociation as well as positive states of mind, and analyses the religious and cultural influences on each.

This is the definitive textbook on global mental health, an emerging priority discipline within global health, which places priority on improving mental health and achieving equity in mental health for all people worldwide.

Research has indicated that spiritual and religious factors are strongly tied to a host of mental health variables, both positive and negative. That body of research has significantly grown since publication of the first edition 20 years ago. The second edition of the Handbook of Spirituality and Religion and Mental Health identifies not only whether religion and spirituality influence mental health and vice versa, but also how and for whom. The contents have been re-organized to speak specifically to categories of disorders in the first part of the book and then more broadly to life satisfaction issues in the latter part of the book. Hence 100% of the book is now revised with new chapters and new contributors.