Is there a link between religion and mental illness?

[damnedifIknow]

* 99.8% ofprison inmates are theists and more than 80% of them Christian. (1) A recent in-depth study shows that religiosity correlates negatively with societal health. (2) Teen pregnancy is highest in states with the most evangelical Christians. (3) Divorce rates are highestamong evangelical Christians. (4)
In addition to general social problems connected to Christianity, there is a whole gamut ofmental illnesses related to religion. Hyper-religiosity is a recognised mental illness – an obsession with religion to the detriment of the rest of the individual’s needs. (5) Religious scrupulosity – an anxiety disorder in which people agonise over their every action, concerned that they may have been committing a sin, until they can no longer live anormal life is a form of anxiety disorder for which psychiatrists are consulted. (6)

Most common of all is thought to be religious OCD although it is hard to know how many cases of this there actually are because it is unethical for psychiatrists to diagnose someone with a mental illness if their fears are supported by scripture or doctrine. Sufferers will be unable to prevent themselves thinking blasphemous thoughts, denying the holy spirit or imagining having sex with Christ and will then feel the compulsion to pray endlessly or recite bible verses multiple times to repent of the thought. "

*This is the problem in a nutshell –‘ the sufferer is not aware of the inappropriatenessand strangeness of their actions nor their unreasonable nature’ because all of this seems real and normal to the individual brought up to believe they are inherently sinful, that they are being judged at all times by an omnipotent being and may be cast into eternal torture. To be a thoughtful, devout Christian who accepts all the tenets ofChristianity is to accept the strange and the inappropriate and the unreasonable and toattempt to live your life by it.

How can this possibly lead to mental health?"

http://lifeafter40.net/2014/11/01/is-there-a-link-between-religion-and-mental-illness/

[defacto7]

1. In my opinion there's no doubt.

There are many reasons for mental illness, many of which are not related to neurotic pain orientation. But if there is one dominating source of mental illness due to forced or learned neurotic behavior, it would be religion in any form that demands belief in its particular ideology as a prerequisite to being an acceptable human. This plays on every evolutionary or mimetic vulnerability human have and stems basically from the need to be accepted. Imagine forcing yourself to see something you really can't see just to survive eternity. Maddening.

[Cartoonist]

2. When you substitute reality with myth

what do you expect?

[theHandpuppet]

5. Probably something like this...

... and no, it's not from The Onion.

Catholic News Agency
November 6, 2014
Exorcisms on the rise: Occult activity sparks 'pastoral emergency'
By Mary Rezac

Rome, Italy, Nov 6, 2014 / 04:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic experts say occult activity and the resulting need for exorcisms has reached a critical level.

Just prior to the season of all things supernatural, the International Association of Exorcists (AIE) met for their 12th annual conference in Rome, from Oct. 20-25.

According to AIE spokesperson Dr. Valter Cascioli, an increasing number of bishops and cardinals asked to participate in the conference due to an increase in demonic activity.

“It’s becoming a pastoral emergency,” Cascioli told CNA. “At the moment the number of disturbances of extraordinary demonic activity is on the rise.”....

MORE at http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/exorcisms-on-the-rise-occult-activity-sparks-pastoral-emergency-18264/

[Cartoonist]

8. Nothing like starting the day

with a hearty laugh.

They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

I got nothing to top that with.

[trotsky]

15. Whoa, that sounds like pretty important religious news.

It should probably be posted in the Religion group!

[theHandpuppet]

18. Perhaps I should

Considering the nature of this emergency!

[trotsky]

21. Good call! n/t

[RussBLib]

20. it's probably just another manifestation of ....

....hating Obama. No doubt a bunch of preachers have been calling Obama the devil incarnate and the sheeple eat it up and go crazy.

[kairos12]

34. In addition to religion, you just described the Raygun Presidency.

[Warpy]

3. No, but getting messages from god used to get people packed off to a mental hospital

I have a godless cousin who sends messages to the CIA wrapped in tinfoil so the aliens can't read them and thinks he's being followed by spies when he goes down the rabbit hole.

Whether it's angels and demons or spies and CIA agents, the mentally ill often adopt some sort of framework to try to make sense of all the random stuff they're seeing and hearing.

I don't think belonging to any sort of organized religion is a predictor of mental illness. It's just a predictor of what sort of identity a patient will assign to the overwhelming input in their heads.

[Tobin S.]

4. You've got it right, Warpy.

I've never been a religious person, but I do have a mental illness and I have experienced psychosis. It has been said that the human brain is a pattern recognition machine. We have to be able to recognize highly complex patterns just to navigate through our normal lives. A person experiencing acute mania or psychosis is hyper-aware and tends to see patterns where there are none- the pattern recognition machine is working overtime to create an alternate reality in the mentally ill person's mind. Examples of this are thinking that seemingly random images in advertisements are connected is some way and trying to communicate a message to you, thinking that the people on the radio and the TV are talking directly to you in a code that you have to figure out and actually deciphering the code, and that people aren't really saying what they actually mean and are communicating in a code that you have to figure out.

Mental illness is a biological problem, a result of physical abnormalities in the brain. The medications that mentally ill people take alter the chemistry of their brains to resemble that of people who are healthy. That's what makes mentally ill people see reality again. If a religiously oriented mentally ill person shuns religion but doesn't get help for the mental illness, he or she will resemble your cousin.

[Warpy]

22. Exactly, I've worked a lot of psych as an RN

and I come from an extended family with a lot of bipolar disease.

I know what I'm talking about, too. I'm sorry you are coping with mental illness. The brain is the one organ that is considered to be a character flaw when it malfunctions. We're still in the dark ages in so many ways.

You're still a lot saner than the average Republican.

[Cartoonist]

9. angels and demons or spies and CIA agents

The CIA doesn't have an exorcism squad. It's bad enough that some people have mental health issues, they don't need the church to reinforce them.

[Warpy]

23. It's not that the church reinforces them

It's more that there's a delay in recognizing a person just aint right rather than being pious.

[AlbertCat]

30. It's not that the church reinforces them

It's that exorcists get paid for their useless service, not to mention making movies about it.... and the church supports them....

[Warren Stupidity]

6. The DSM struggles valiently to draw a distinction between religious

beliefs and delusions, but fails. Ultimately, if enough people share the same delusions they are not delusional.

[Act_of_Reparation]

36. I don't agree that it fails

The DSM is designed to diagnose mental illness, which by definition must have a measurably negative effect on one's socio-occupational functioning. Superficially, it seems like a cop-out; if enough people share a crazy belief, then it ceases to be crazy. But it isn't a cop-out. Through a variety of means, of which socialization is the most common and notable, you can get people to believe virtually anything with great vigor. That doesn't make them mentally ill... just gullible.

On the other hand, delusion (in the mental health sense of the word) is an emergent property of imbalanced neurochemistry, and is unique to the afflicted individual. They may borrow religious themes and languages, but their delusions are never constructed in a such a way that they make sense, even within the context of the channeled religion.

A person who strongly believes, for instance, in the official dogma of the LDS church is no more mentally ill than a person who believes wholeheartedly in the principals of North Korean Juche. A person who believes demons have possessed their children, and that stabbing them repeatedly with a butcher's knife is the prescribed treatment for such a condition, is fucking nuts.

[Warren Stupidity]

37. I am not quarrelling about the "mental illness" stigma.

But the fact remains that the DSM cannot define "delusion" in a way that excludes religious beliefs without a ridiculous and obvious exception. I'm fine with "if enough people hold the same delusion it isn't a mental illness", if you are fine with Nazi Germany not being an example of mass insanity.

Or Jonestown. Or the Heaven's Gate mass suicide over the comet Hale-Bopp. Or the Manson Family. Or.....

At what population size does a shared delusion become "normal"?

[Act_of_Reparation]

38. It's difficult to demonstrate without getting into the nuts and bolts of social psych.

But, no, I don't consider Nazi Germany an example of mass insanity, either. Nor Jonestown. Nor Heaven's Gate. Nor the Manson Family.

Studies have taught us a lot about obedience and conformity, and how the desire to fit into a peer group--particularly a powerful peer group--will often trump honesty and rationale. This doesn't make people delusional. More frighteningly, it makes them normal. More than anything else, the aforementioned movements are more examples of how a few very powerful people can use normative human social cognition to their political advantage.

If you're unfamiliar with them, I would suggest taking a look at a few experiments: Solomon Asch's conformity study (1958), Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment (1961), Festinger and Carlsmith's Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance (1956), and, of course, Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (1971). In a very general kind of way, all of these experiments show how completely sane people can do or believe very wrong things under the requisite social pressures.

I realize I'm getting off-track here, but, in short, I don't think you can separate the DSM's definition of delusion from the wider issue of mental health. The book exists to diagnose mental illness; if one can believe wrong things, however vehemently, without being mentally ill, then any explanation for those beliefs beyond mental illness must be excluded from the diagnostic criteria. It's simply the sensible thing to do.

[Warren Stupidity]

40. "how completely sane people can do or believe very wrong things "

I'm familiar with those studies, I object to the characterization quoted above. I think it is fairly obvious that humans are wired to behave like this, and that the thought processes engaged in when people are tossing humans into gas chambers, committing mass suicide or mass murder, are indistinguishable from individual delusional thinking, other than the fact that the numbers are greater than one, or some small number less than whatever it takes to be called "normal".

The DSM gets brought up because alleged experts here claim that there is no possible way religious beliefs could be confused with delusions when in fact the frequently edited acrobatics in the DSM to make some distinction belie that position.

The point isn't that religious believers or neo-nazis ought to be treated for psychosis, it is that they are holding delusional beliefs, and having N fellow delusional believers doesn't make it less delusional.

[Act_of_Reparation]

41. Let's take a step back for a second

I didn't mean to imply that you were conflating religious belief with mental illness. If that's how I came across, I do apologize.

My issue is with the statement that the DSM "fails" to adequately differentiate between what it considers "delusion" and vehement religious belief. To that, I simply say: the DSM is merely a tool specialized to the diagnosis of mental illness. The expurgation of religious belief from the diagnostic criteria is not acrobatic or arbitrary, but necessary to facilitate accurate identification of delusional mental disorders.

The point we should be making, therefore, isn't that the DSM is somehow faulty, but that it simply doesn't apply unless we're discussing diagnosis of a very specific subset of mental disorders. If we're simply talking about people who believe shit that just isn't true, then the person who drags the DSM or its definition of delusion into the argument is guilty of either a composition fallacy (confusing mental illness as a subset of delusion) or an equivocation (confusing the psychiatric definition of delusion with the colloquial definition), or both.

In any event, this is just a very roundabout way of saying it's the Usual Suspects that are the problem, not the DSM.

[theHandpuppet]

7. Could bicameralism have given rise to religion?

Last edited Fri Nov 7, 2014, 12:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Just wondering how many of you believe Jaynes' hypothesis regarding the bicameral mind and whether it might explain the rise of religion on a global scale.

[Brainstormy]

11. James?

Do you mean Jaynes? As in The Rise of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind? Or is this someone else I don't know about, but should?

[theHandpuppet]

14. Yes, you're correct

Sorry. Not paying attention this morning.

[Warpy]

24. I tend to think it's more a variant of the Third Man Factor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Man_factor

Too many otherwise rational people who believe wholeheartedly in their religion have told me they have had direct experience of an "other" that they call god.

It's led me to believe this stuff is largely hard wired. i just don't share it.

[AlbertCat]

31. It's led me to believe this stuff is largely hard wired. i just don't share it.

But you DO feel and interact with that "3rd person" don't you? I do! I talk to myself and so on.... But I KNOW it's not a real person, it's just me doing what my brain physiology does.

I think these things like the 3rd man factor are just hijacked by religious ideas.... which I think comes from the natural tendency we have of anthropomorphizing things....which is related to our evolved social instincts where we try to figure out other's motivations and action. We do it with the dog, with the weather, with the car. I think gods come from anthropomorphizing nature. Then that is applied to trying to understand the mostly random things that happen to us. Many today still go back to the ancient default mode rather than think of what science might have to say about it all.

If you woke up very early in the blue-grey light of predawn, and on your way to pee.... you saw the ghostly figure of your uncle that just passed away and you miss terribly..... how many would go to the default : "It's my uncle's spirit!" and how many would go to "I'm still half asleep and saw a hallucination cause by drowsiness and complex shadows.". I think most people go with the ancient, told time and time again, default ghost position rather than the rational one. And of course when you remember it even a little later, you enhance what you really experienced to support the ghost story. It's a much better narrative than the scientific one. You get to be special (I saw a ghost!) instead of just mistaken.

Religion is like that.

I have a friend who watches all these possession and exorcism shows on cable (there is some channel full of them!) and I noticed all the victims (the most religious one) also save the day somehow.... freeing the family from the tyranny of the devil/ghost/ spirit. The more serious and grave the medium acts (manipulating the victims), the more I think they are full of it and know exactly what they are doing....grifting.

[trotsky]

10. Unfortunately this topic is nearly impossible to discuss on DU.

Merely asking about a link, or asking how we distinguish between mental illness and sincere religious belief, is generally met with a chorus of "ZOMG YOU FUCKING ATHEIST BIGOT, HOW DARE YOU CALL ALL BELIEVERS MENTALL ILL?!?! WTFBBQ!!!"

However in this group reason can prevail. It seems pretty clear that some kinds of mental illness can find a structure or justification within religious beliefs. Believing in demons, etc. is reinforced by the largest single Christian denomination on the planet. How you draw a line, then, between sincere religious belief and the delusions of mental illness, I don't know. But to ignore the fact that the line is blurry does a great disservice to actual mental illness, I think.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. By the same people who then turn around and call atheist here explicitly

delusional or otherwise mentally impaired. Or applaud those doing that.

[mr blur]

39. Indeed, there's even a...person in the Other Group,

who claims to have dealt with others as delusional as us in his real world and has offered to help cure us. Because, well because Jesus. Or something.

[theHandpuppet]

26. I was doing a bit of research on what the church qualifies as demonic possession

Frankly, according to their guidelines most of the prophets in the Bible and Jesus himself would be considered possessed.

[cleanhippie]

12. Is there a link between chickens and eggs?

[amuse bouche]

19. Indeed

[onager]

28. You mention eggs, I find PROOF of Gawd's existence!1!

Well, not exactly. I found one of those Sophisticated Theologians over at Uncommon Descent (an Intelligent Design propaganda site).

Ye gawds and little fishies. Sometimes I make fun of the Thrift Store Philosophers in That Other DU Group, with their incredibly long and tedious TL;DR posts.

They're downright terse compared to this guy.

Title is "On not putting all your theological eggs into one basket."

No I didn't read the whole thing. I have a finite life span. But it's fun to notice the great big dodge in one paragraph:

...conclusively establishes the existence of the God of classical theism.

So not Allah, Zeus or Jupiter, then...

First para and some more examples:

If you had to summarize your reasons for believing in God in ten words or less, how would you do it? Here’s what I’d say: “The world is contingent, complex, fine-tuned, rule-governed, mathematical and beautiful.” For me, these features of the world point towards a Being Who is necessary (or self-explanatory), perfectly integrated, and limitlessly intelligent, creative and bountiful – a Being in Whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)...

The “tall claim” that Thomist philosopher Edward Feser makes is that each of Aquinas’ Five Ways, when suitably fleshed out and properly understood, conclusively establishes the existence of the God of classical theism. This is borne out by what Professor Feser has to say about metaphysical demonstrations in his recent book, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (Editions Scholasticae, 2014):

"For Aristotle and Aquinas, the truths of philosophical theology may not be expressible in mathematical language and are not based on specific predictions or experiments, but that does not make them less certain than the claims of physics. On the contrary, they are more certain, because they rest on strict demonstrations which begin from premises that any possible physical science must take for granted. (2014, p. 12, emphasis mine – VJT.) "

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-not-putting-all-your-theological-eggs-into-one-basket/

[AlbertCat]

32. strict demonstrations which begin from premises that any possible physical science must take for gra

Uh huh.....

Omnipresence, por ejemplo, is based on "strict demonstrations which begin from premises that any possible physical science must take for granted."....or maybe not...

[RussBLib]

13. no doubt in my mind

Religion itself is a form of mental illness and mass hysteria: sometimes very mild, sometimes severe and debilitating. Believing in things that do not exist and altering your behavior (sometimes in radical ways) for imaginary reasons is not healthy.

Mental illness exists independently of religious belief of course. Religious belief puts one foot into crazy town. How seriously you take religious belief determines how far (off the deep end) you go.

I do not, however, think religious belief should be outlawed. Let people believe what they want, but keep religion and religious concepts out of government. Once you open the door to government acting on behalf of religious custom or belief, you are subject to all kind of crazy shit. One mans religious custom is another mans insanity.

[Arugula Latte]

16. There are obviously a lot of addictive personality types in prison.

They are hardcore drug users, for example, get imprisoned, are forced to give up drugs, and then replace drugs with Jeeeeesus. These people obviously can't function without some sort of altered mental state, whether the source is opiates or mythology.

[FiveGoodMen]

25. Remember: ALL christians teach their children that burning to death is too good for them.

ALL.

That's the starting premise of the belief system.

A fate worse than horrible death awaits them and they deserve it. Since they were born. A perfect god will inflict it on them unless they have the right understanding of his dramatic suicide on their behalf.

Even then, it doesn't make them good people; their get-out-of-hell card is a "free" -- and undeserved -- gift.


Think that might produce a bit of mental illness?

[Curmudgeoness]

27. I don't think that belief in religion is a mental illness

but I think that it can definitely lead to a mental illness if you let it rule your life. I know that it would make me a bit unstable if I worried about God watching me all the time and going to Hell just for being human.

[beam me up scottie]

29. I don't think there is a link.

But when I read comments like these (in response to the article Why Catholic exorcists are seeing an uptick in requests), I have to wonder what causes this kind of disconnect:

juergensen says:
November 4, 2014 at 6:12 pm

More sodomites and more abortions means more minions of Satan who need to be exorcised. It really is that simple.

Clinton R. says:
November 5, 2014 at 12:54 am

There has always been an need for exorcists and they will be until Our Lord comes again. Satan is the prince of this world and so many have fallen under his influence. It is quite telling this quote in the article: “The church in many ways wants to be seen as a modern religion…” The problem is that the Church has bent over backwards to please man that in doing so, too many souls have drifted away from God and have dabbled in activities that bring about evil entities. What good is a modern religion? The True Religion is the Catholic faith, and the Lord gave His Apostles the authority to cast out demons, and this has been handed down the ages to the priests of our time. So I pray for those priests who conduct exorcisms. This milieu of modernism that plagues us is doing no good for the souls of those possessed who are in desperate need. May St. Michael pray for us in battle.

Linda Maria says:
November 5, 2014 at 6:36 pm

It is deceptive and dangerous, to get involved in the “Black Arts,” of the occult– and it is a SIN, for this reason, in the Catholic Church! There have been, historically, many great and gifted Catholic saints, as well as Old Testament heroes, who have been blessed by God, with healing and prophetic gifts, very similar to the ones we hear of, in the occult practices. However– these great people were all very religious, and deeply dedicated to God! It is well-known, that Satan loves sin! How very sad, that the dirty, immoral hippies and social activists of the 1960’s, failed to understand that they were inviting Satan to come into their lives, and to reign there– when insisting on destroying our country, mindlessly demanding acceptance of their sinful behavior as “normal!” Satan just loves lawless sex acts, drugs, rock and roll music, filthy language, alcohol abuse, and all kinds of crimes, and lying about it– as people now do! They LIE and LIE– demanding that SIN be viewed as “acceptable!” How HORRIBLE!!

[AlbertCat]

33. Are there more "sodomites", %-wise, than before?

....or do we just KNOW about more of them?

[mr blur]

35. Isn't delusion a type of mental illness?