Spirituality as a Coping Skill for Mental Illness

Spirituality as a Coping Skill for Mental Illness

                                        By

                        Anthony Joseph Hopkins

Mental illness alone is very challenging for more than 40 million people living in the United States. People who struggle with the diagnosis of a mental illness find themselves struggling to make it. Frankly, there are people, who turn to their faith in God just to make it. Personally, I suffer from schizoid affective disorder. I have been suffering from a mental illness for almost 23 years now. Why having a serious mental illness would is so difficult?

 For me, I hear voices that are not the Holy Spirit. In my report, I have found that spirituality is an often overlooked resource in mental illness recovery. My assessment of religious or spiritual beliefs are under researched, and in most cases, it is laughed at by the Mental Health Community. Honestly, most psychiatrist refuse to actually listen to their patients. Many psychiatrist and therapist that I have consulted with during the past 22 years, feel that my spirituality is pointless.

I will admit that I have benefitted from pastoral counseling more than consulting with a psychiatrist and therapist. There are three main reasons how people with a mental illness cope with their problem. First, through spirituality, as well as relying on a power that is greater than the person themselves. As for me, I attend Fort McKinley United Methodist Church. The address to the church is 3721 West Siebenthaler Avenue Dayton, Ohio 45406. I have attended Fort McKinley Church for 7 years now.

 It helps me to cope much better with a mental illness by attending church as well as Bible study during the week. I feel a whole lot better when I am at church. Second, there are over 50 million people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness and a substance abuse problem. This statistic comes from the National Institute of Mental Health. People who suffer from a mental illness, at least some of them drink alcohol or self-medicate themselves just to cope with their problem. Third, another coping mechanism that some people have used is suicide. I remember on February 13, 2010; I tried to kill myself because I was responding to internal stimuli.

The voices that I was hearing told me to kill myself. Smolak, Gearing, Alonzo, Baldwin, Harmon, and McHugh (2013) reflected and reviewed 43 original research studies over the past 30 years. These people have discovered that patterns that were related or pertaining to religious beliefs and a patient's recovery from a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia.

 This observation found that religion and spirituality have a mostly positive association with mental illness recovery. However, the intensive observation indicated that spiritual perceptions of family, caregivers, the community at large, and professionals affiliated to the mental illness saw tremendous progress.

 The results pointed out that religious themes were often evident in the perception of disease etiology, that family members and caregivers used religion as well as religious based professionals over mental health professionals. I would admit that working with a Pastor each week is much more feasible than dealing with a psychiatrist on a monthly basis. However, this report has better reflections of the patient.

 It also has a better understanding of a patient's spiritual and religious beliefs as it assists in improving coping with a mental illness better than relying on medication. Religion and spirituality in conjunction with mental illness recovery remained historically under emphasized and minimized by mental health professionals. This means that spirituality will have to be emphasized by the patient themselves as a means to better cope with their mental illness.

The report finished with the idea of how enhancing the treatment provider's awareness of a patient's religious and spiritual interaction may improve treatment outcomes. I would like to say that religion and spirituality is not emphasized during an average consultation or therapy session. The majority of professionals prefer the use of medication to eradicate mental illness. Corrigan, McCorkle, Schell, and Kidder (2003) studied a total of 1,824 patients living with serious mental illness, who also had significant functional disability, but did not engage in substance abuse.

The information pointed out that the self-reporting of spirituality and religion as well as measured outcomes in psychological well-being, psychiatric symptoms, and life goal achievement such as employment and housing. This study determined whether religion and spirituality yielded similar benefits in the lives of people challenged and suffering from a serious mental illness, but also determined if those same people benefitted differently from religion. The patient's themselves participated in community activities and common ways of worshipping versus spirituality defined as thinking about one's self as part of a larger spiritual force. (P. 488). This study found that patients who self-identified as religious or spiritual has a much greater sense of well-being, better coping skills, and diminished psychiatric symptoms.  There was also no difference in quality of life as far as employment and/or housing.

People who suffer from a serious mental illness usually advocate and assert that religion and spirituality serve essential recovery roles in that they may provide useful coping skills to help with stressors.  Also, as previously noted, mental health professionals tend not to be very religious; therefore, the differences between professionals and patients may lead to a gap in treatment as professionals fail to ask about beliefs.

This could lead to a failure to explore religion or spirituality as a means towards a therapeutic end.  There are conclusions from this study.  The raw facts suggests there may be a need for faith based programs to be integrated into recovery programs for people with serious mental illness.  In the future, more research is needed to determine the role of faith based programs and to more thoroughly examine the causes and effects of spirituality in the lives of people who suffer from mental illness.

In all cases, this study and examination serves to remind mental health professionals of the central role religion or spirituality often play in the lives of patients and to the fact that sensitivity to the patient’s needs in this area lead professionals to helping the patient find appropriate services and resources.

Women and minorities struggles with mental illness are much more intense than other races.  These patients were more likely to be religious and more likely to turn to their faith as a means of coping, getting better, and staying healthy.  These patients length of stay in a psychiatric ward was significantly shorter for patients who attend worship services or used religious thoughts and activities as one of the most important strategies to deal with their mental illness.

An initial spiritual assessment should focus on determining how patient’s spiritual beliefs and practices influences their functioning and recovery.  By doing so, mental health professionals will likely uncover strengths and resources that can be utilized to foster recovery.  Mental Health Professionals can also help patients focus on their capabilities and resilience as well as accessing and using other positive recovery oriented narratives drawn from the patient’s spiritual worldview in order to address their problems more efficiently.

Spiritual Assessment within the mental health area is under researched and given that spirituality and/or religion is identifiably a magnificent and positive part of serious mental illness recovery.  This needs to be a more widely researched and utilized avenues of social science.  In a society where mental illness can be isolating and stigmatizing label; spirituality can be a core identity to which almost everyone can find a community or ways to help make life with serious mental illness worth living.

References

1.  Corrigan, P., McCorkle, B., & Kidder, K. (2003). Religion and Spirituality in the lives of people with serious mental illness.  Community Mental Health Journal, 39(6) 487-99

2.  Smolak, A., Gearing, R. E., Alonzo, D., Baldwin, S., Harmon, S., & McHugh, K. (2013). Social Support and Religion: Mental health service use and treatment of schizophrenia. Community Mental Health Journal 49(4) 444-50