Sections
Basic Definitions and Relevance to Care | Religious and Spiritual Diversity in North American
Culture | Religion, Spirituality, and Culture in Assessment
and Treatment Planning
Excerpt
For centuries, patients, faith communities, and a majority
of clinicians have recognized the importance of religion and spirituality
in health, illness, and medical and psychiatric care. There is recent
renewed interest in the relationships among religion, spirituality,
culture, and psychiatry and medicine. In a sense, religion and spirituality
can be considered as a subset or category of culture. On the other
hand, unlike other cultural elements, this topic transcends diverse
societies and deals with individual and collective values, norms, core
beliefs, and relationships with the divine—matters of "ultimate
importance" to members of a culture. This unique role of
religion and spirituality in virtually all cultures and their pervasive
influences on mental health and illness merit special consideration.