Spirituality/Medicine Interface Project
Section Introduction: Spirituality, Depression & Suicide
Abstract
The depressive disorders, among all the psychiatric disorders, have been most closely correlated with ordinary spiritual experience. And the burden of depression is increasing throughout the world.1,2 Patients who struggle with depression find themselves reaching to the very core of their faith traditions. In some faith traditions, even a severe depression is perceived to be an adaptive component, beneficial to the self and to others. For example, in the Christian mystic tradition, St. John of the Cross writes powerfully of the “dark night of the soul” as a key to spiritual growth.3 One reason for the tight intertwining of depression and spirituality is the blurred distinction between clinical depression and normal problems of living. Major depression, viewed primarily as a biologic illness, has been especially challenged as a diagnosis too narrowly conceived.4–6This content is limited to qualifying members.
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References
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2. World Health Organization. World Health Report 2001: Mental Health, New Understanding, New Hope. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2001.
3. St. John of the Cross. Dark Night of the Soul. New York, Image Books, 1959.
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9. Good B, Good M, Moradi R. The interpretation of depressive illness and dysphoric affect. In: Kleinman A, Good B, eds. Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985, pp 369–428.
10. Juthani N. Hindus and Buddhists. In: Josephson AM, Peteet JR, eds. Handbook of Spirituality and Worldview in Clinical Practice. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Press, 2004, pp 125–138.
11. Underhill E. Mysticism. New York, Dutton, 1961, pp 380–395.
