Religious patients in psychotherapy

1
Religious patients in psychotherapy how can we
minister to their special needs?
Dr. Samuel Pfeifer

• Aarhus 2003

2
The needs of religious patients

• Acceptance of a person in his or her specific
  religious world of assumptions and values.
• Validation of stabilizing factors in personal
  faith and the religious structures, where a
  person is looking for help.
• Helping to understand major psychological crises,
  combining Biblical aspects and models of
  scientific psychiatry.Example 1 - Depression
  despite faith Examples of depression in Biblical
  figures.Example 2 - delusional distortion of
  religious values.

3
A systemic view

• Supporting the family systemic view, including
  relatives improvement of their understanding,
  helping them to support the patient with
  patience.
• Empathic working through with respect for
  personality factors and socio-cultural context.
  Strengthening stabilizing aspects of religious
  culture.

4
Dealing with pathological faith

• Knowledge about negative (pathomorphous)
  influences of religion with false premises
  distorted images of God. IMPORTANT
  Understanding subcultural peculiarities of
  religious styles.
• Creative discussions of irrational causal
  attributions (Has God taken his blessing from
  me? Is this psychosis a demonic
  manifestation?)
• Dealing with religious defenses -- TRANSFERENCE
  AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE.

5
Integrating religious elements

• Encouragement to seek help through familiar
  religious rituals and forms of counseling, e.g.
  prayer, word of wisdom, the Lords supper, laying
  of hands, anointment etc. -- cooperation with a
  counselor of the patients church.
• Admit your own limitations of understanding
• Acquire personal experience with positive faith
  which stabilizes and conveys meaning to human
  suffering.

6
Guidelines for religious interventions

• Informed consent includes religious intervention
• Assessment
• Relationship of trust
• Establishing the indication
• Describe interventions before applying them
• Respectful approach
• Value framework
• Flexible approach
• Seeking spiritual guidance

Scott Bergin 1997, p. 256
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Heart Religion in Therapy

• I plead not for a religious psychotherapy or a
  psychotherapy only for the religious, but rather
  for a therapy that takes the phenomenon of
  religion seriously as one of the specifically
  human forms of expression. I plead for a therapy
  that does not merely take note of the patients
  confession of faith or denomination or inquire
  perfunctorily into his or her orthodox beliefs.
• Rather, therapy should try to explore in detail
  an individuals very personal, often very
  unorthodox religion, which usually undergoes
  great changes in the course of a lifetime the
  patients heart religion. (Hans
  Küng, p.155)

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Healthy Religion (Hans Küng)

• We should work for a religion
• that supports self-acceptance without regression
• that can serve the individuation of the
  individual with its symbols, convictions, and
  rites
• that can provide spiritual guidance and ethical
  standards
• that guarantees freedom of decision, identity and
  dignity
• that is able to conquer fears and to justify
  trust, understanding, and respect -- the basis
  for friendship and love
• that encourages and guides sensitivity and
  emotionality, thus promoting creativity and more
  humanity