The Fraught History of Psychiatry and Christianity
This chapter draws from a wide range of primary and secondary source literature to illustrate how Christians, physicians and otherwise, have understood the spiritual dimension of “madness.” Beginning with the New Testament and extending to the present day, it explores the way Christian physicians and clergy have understood mental illness and its treatment. Even early on, the church understood that psychological distress could be a natural phenomenon with a spiritual dimension. Many also held that supernatural forces could influence mental states. The origins of more recent tensions date to the emergence of the nineteenth-century philosophical naturalism as a factor in psychiatric thinking. In the twentieth century, as psychotherapy became a more significant part of psychiatric care, there emerged a potential conflict between the role of the psychiatrist and the role of clergy. As psychiatric research has become more multidisciplinary, new attention has been given to the role of spirituality, Christian and otherwise, in behavioral healthcare.
