“Religion in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy?” A Pilot Study: The Meaning of Religiosity/Spirituality from Staff’s Perspective in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy

Journal Title: Religions - Year 2011, Vol 2, Issue 4

Abstract

This study examined: (1) the spirituality of staff; (2) its relationship with staff‟s attitudes towards religiosity/spirituality of patients; and (3) with staff‟s integration of religious and spiritual contents in the patient‟s therapy. Method: An anonymous survey distributed to the staff in the department of psychiatry and psychotherapy at the Freiburg University Hospital. The main predictor variable was the spirituality of staff using DRI (Duke Religion Index). The main criterion variables were the relevance of religiosity/spirituality of patients and staff‟s attitude towards religious/spiritual contents during their therapy using the questionnaire of Curlin et al. Results: The spirituality of staff was 6.91 on a scale of 12.0. There was no significant relationship between variables. Staff regarded the influence of religious/spiritual contents generally positive to patients. However, the staff did not use religious/spiritual elements in their therapy methods. Frequent reasons were insufficient time/occasion and insufficient knowledge. Conclusions: Religious/spiritual contents have not been integrated yet in therapy methods, although they are regarded as important for patients. Further studies and discussion about religious/spiritual matters are essential for their integration into psychiatric therapies in order to overcome these inconsistencies.

Authors and Affiliations

Eunmi Lee, Anne Zahn and Klaus Baumann

Keywords

Related Articles

Religion and Genocide Nexuses: Bosnia as Case Study

Social scientists have been involved in systematic research on genocide for over forty years, yet an under-examined aspect of genocide literature is a sustained focus on the nexuses of religion and genocide, a lacuna t...

Flexible Catholicism, Religion and the Church: The Italian Case

What is taking place in the religious field in some Western societies not only seems to reflect a crisis situation or irreversible decline in the church and dominant religious institutions. More than might be imagined,...

Teaching Augustine—Introduction

This introduction to the Special Issue “Teaching Augustine” summarizes the volume’s essays and discusses the conference at which they were initially presented.

Saving Renaissance and Reformation: History, Grammar, and Disagreements with the Dead

Renaissance and Reformation used to serve historians as the main terms with which to refer to European history from roughly 1300–1600. Today those terms are commonly replaced with early modern history, and the periodiz...

Climate Weirding and Queering Nature: Getting Beyond the Anthropocene

Though many scientists and scholars of the environmental humanities are referring to the current geological era as the anthropocene, this article argues that there are some problems with this trope and the narrative th...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP25213
  • DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel2040525
  • Views 352
  • Downloads 15

How To Cite

Eunmi Lee, Anne Zahn and Klaus Baumann (2011). “Religion in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy?” A Pilot Study: The Meaning of Religiosity/Spirituality from Staff’s Perspective in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. Religions, 2(4), -. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-25213