Partnership Between Psychiatrists, Faith Leaders Untapped Key to Expanding Reach of MH Care

In 2020, an estimated 1 in 5 U.S. adults aged 18 or older (or 52.9 million people) reported having a mental illness, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Among these people, 30.5% (or 16.1 million) said they felt they needed mental health services but were unable to access such services due to cost, the belief they could handle the problem without treatment, or uncertainty about where to go for care.

“Mental health is too important to leave to only psychiatrists or nonphysician mental health clinicians,” meeting co-chair and APA past President Paul Summergrad, M.D., told the attendees. To reach people with mental illnesses who are in need of care requires bringing together our communities and a variety of professions to offer support, he said. “One of the places we hope this can happen is through faith leaders and communities.”

Summergrad is the Dr. Frances S. Arkin Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and psychiatrist-in-chief at Tufts Medical Center. He was the president of APA when the first Mental Health and Faith Community Partnership met at APA headquarters in 2014 (APA Hosts Meeting to Build Bridges Between Faith, Mental Health Communities). Out of this meeting, the APA Foundation created two resources: Mental Health: A Guide for Faith Leaders and the companion Quick Reference on Mental Health for Faith Leaders. The 23-page guide and two-page quick reference tool (both available for download at psychiatry.org/faith) cover such topics as how to distinguish a spiritual problem from a mental illness, the overlap between mental illness and physical illness, and common treatments.

This year’s meeting provided an opportunity to examine successful models of collaboration between the mental health and faith communities and discuss tools that might help facilitate future partnerships.

“When we talk about medical leadership for the mind, brain, and body, we don’t want to forget about the soul,” said APA Foundation Executive Director Rawle Andrews Jr., Esq., opening the meeting.

“For people seeking care for mental health and substance use disorders, faith and community can play a huge part in their healing,” said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A. “We want to normalize mental health and substance use disorders.” Faith leaders can play an important role in helping people recognize mental illness as a disease that can be managed with treatment, just like other diseases, he said.

The HOPE (Healing On Purpose and Evolving) Center in Harlem, N.Y., is one of several programs discussed at the meeting that demonstrates the reach that faith leaders can have in normalizing mental illness and connecting people with mental health care. The freestanding mental health clinic was established in 2016 by the Rev. Michael Walrond Jr., M.Div., the senior pastor of First Corinthian Baptist Church, a predominantly Black church in Harlem with more than 10,000 members. Walrond has preached from the pulpit about his personal experience with depression, anxiety, and treatment.

The center offers a variety of free services to support the mental well-being of individuals and families from First Corinthian Baptist Church and the Harlem community. These services include psychotherapy, a 24/7 text crisis line, and workshops, said HOPE Center Executive Director Lena Green, D.S.W., L.C.S.W. The programs are supported by psychiatrists, ministers, licensed psychologists and social workers, psychiatry residents, and more.

Psychiatrist Sidney H. Hankerson, M.D., M.B.A., who studies how to reduce stigma and increase access to mental health care, noted that part of the HOPE Center’s success stems from the recognition that the church is a trusted and central institution in the community. Hankerson is an associate professor and vice chair of community engagement in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. When Hankerson and colleagues asked adults who used services at the HOPE Center about their decision to seek care, many credited the positive messaging of the senior pastor and other staff at First Corinthian Baptist Church. The researchers published these and other findings on the facilitators of receiving care at the HOPE Center in Psychiatric Services in 2021.

Other presenters at the meeting discussed collaborations with leaders from Muslim and Jewish traditions, which have led to such programs as the annual Muslim Mental Health Conference and such resources as the Blue Dove Foundation’s conversation guide Mi Sheberach Shabbat: Mental Health Awareness at the Friday Dinner Table.

“We know that research shows that people turn to their faith leaders in times of crisis. They also turn to the medical system,” the Rev. Jermine Alberty, M.Div., the executive director of Pathways to Promise, told Psychiatric News. “When the two are in sync, it makes for a better, more holistic treatment strategy.” Pathways to Promise provides training and consultation for faith groups across the country on how to build a circle of support around people with mental illness and their families.

Meeting attendees discussed several ways that psychiatrists and mental health professionals can gain insight into patients’ faith/spirituality and its role in their distress and/or healing.

Finnegan-Hosey cautioned that while there is a need for spiritual and religious literacy among mental health professionals, “faith and spirituality don’t work like a checklist item.”

He continued, “What mental health professionals and faith leaders share is that we are about healing. We have different approaches, and we use different language. I see the work of holding space for stories as being a shared calling.”

Psychiatrists and faith leaders bring “complementary and overlapping knowledge, training, and awareness to the care of individuals they work with,” meeting co-chair Mary Lynn Dell, M.D., D. Min., told Psychiatric News. Dell is a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, an ordained Episcopal priest, and the chair of the APA Caucus on Religion, Spirituality, and Psychiatry. “The good news is that today, even more so than in 2014, many accept and agree that spirituality and faith is an important area to explore with patients,” she said.

The participants spoke enthusiastically about the variety of resources aimed at building partnerships between the two professions that they had learned about over the course of the daylong meeting. They suggested that APA consider ways to curate these resources on its website so that faith leaders, psychiatrists, and others can easily access them.

Others spoke of the importance of continuing the conversations started at the meeting. They noted that mental health professionals might benefit from additional training in how to incorporate faith and spirituality into their practice settings and how to partner with faith leaders in their communities.

Going forward, the APA Foundation will be looking for ways to continue to improve linkages between psychiatrists and faith communities through educational resources and other tools.

“If a psychiatrist doesn’t see faith as a strong asset, it could be left out to the detriment of the patient,” Alberty said. Similarly, if a faith leader does not recognize that a community member needs additional mental health support, “that could be to the detriment of the person.”

He continued, “It’s so important that neither see the other as a threat, but as a partner. That’s why the APA Foundation event was so valuable.” ■

“Mental Health: A Guide for Faith Leaders and the companion Quick Reference on Mental Health for Faith Leaders”

Information about the HOPE Center.

The Psychiatric Services article “Mental Health Perspectives Among Black Americans Receiving Services From a Church-Affiliated Mental Health Clinic.”

Information about the Muslim Mental Health Conference.

Information about Pathways to Promise.