Symptoms and Beliefs

Abstract

Religious belief and psychiatric symptoms are distinct and separate phenomena. They occur in different realms of experience. However, they may occur individually or together and it may be difficult to decide which is which. When a person describes his own experience as religious and another observes this as mental illness they are unlikely to be commenting on precisely the same phenomena. The first person is describing an internal experience whilst the latter is inferring from observed behaviour. It is important for psychiatrists and mental health professionals to recognize that there is a spiritual dimension for their patients (and for themselves), and for pastoral theologians to form a concept of mental illness. The approach of phenomenological psychopathology is useful in making the distinction.