Peter Verhagen & Herman M. van Praag 
Religion and Psychiatry 
Beyond Boundaries

Religion (and spirituality) is very much alive and shapes the
cultural values and aspirations of psychiatrist and patient alike,
as does the choice of not identifying with a particular
faith. Patients bring their beliefs and convictions into the
doctor-patient relationship. The challenge for mental health
professionals, whatever their own world view, is to develop and
refine their vocabularies such that they truly understand what is
communicated to them by their patients. Religion and
Psychiatry provides psychiatrists with a framework for this
understanding and highlights the importance of religion and
spirituality in mental well-being.

This book aims to inform and explain, as well as to be thought
provoking and even controversial. Patiently and thoroughly,
the authors consider why and how, when and where religion (and
spirituality) are at stake in the life of psychiatric
patients. The interface between psychiatry and religion is
explored at different levels, varying from daily clinical practice
to conceptual fieldwork. The book covers phenomenology,
epidemiology, research data, explanatory models and theories.
It also reviews the development of DSM V and its awareness of the
importance of religion and spirituality in mental health.

What can religious traditions learn from each other to assist
the patient? Religion and Psychiatry discusses this,
as well as the neurological basis of religious experiences.
It describes training programmes that successfully incorporate
aspects of religion and demonstrates how different religious and
spiritual traditions can be brought together to improve psychiatric
training and daily practice.

* Describes the relationship of the main world religions with
psychiatry

* Considers training, policy and service delivery

* Provides powerful support for more effective partnerships
between psychiatry and religion in day to day clinical care

This is the first time that so many psychiatrists, psychologists
and theologians from all parts of the world and from so many
different religious and spiritual backgrounds have worked together
to produce a book like this one. In that sense, it truly is a World
Psychiatric Association publication.

Religion and Psychiatry is recommended reading for
residents in psychiatry, postgraduates in theology, psychology and
psychology of religion, researchers in psychiatric epidemiology and
trans-cultural psychiatry, as well as professionals in theology,
psychiatry and psychology of religion

Über den Autor

Peter J. Verhagen is a graduate of the School of Medicine
(1983) and the School of Theology (1988) of the University of
Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 1988 he was registered as a
psychiatrist. He is a practicing psychiatrist and theologian, group
psychotherapist and supervisor (2002) of the Dutch Association for
Group Dynamics and Group Psychotherapy. He is Director of the
Program for the Treatment of Personality Disorders, Meerkanten GGz
Ermelo/Harderwijk. He is also co-founder and present chair of the
WPA Section on Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry, founded in
2003, and Secretary of the Dutch Foundation for Psychiatry and
Religion. He is lead editor of the Dutch journal, ‚Psyche
& Geloof‘ (Psyche & Faith).

Herman M. van Praag is Professor Emeritus of the Dutch
Universities of Groningen, Utrecht, Maastricht, and the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA. He established the
first department of biological psychiatry in Europe (Groningen) and
became the first European Professor of Biological Psychiatry in
1968. He is well known for his extensive research on the biological
determinants of depression and depressive symptoms for which he was
decorated many times. He chaired the WPA Section on Religion,
Spirituality and Psychiatry.

Juan J. López-Ibor, Jr is Professor and Chairman of
Psychiatry and Director of the Institute for Psychiatry and Mental
Health of the San Carlos Hospital of the Complutense University in
Madrid. He is also Director of the World Health Organization
Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Mental Health,
Spain, and Fellow of the Royal National Academy of Medicine of
Spain, Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Academy of Medicine of
Zaragoza, and Honorary Fellow of the Spanish Medical Chirurgical
Academy. He has been Secretary General, President-Elect and
President of the World Psychiatric Association. He is author, alone
or in collaboration, of 53 books and of 219 chapters in monographs
by other authors. He has published more than 330 papers in
scientific journals and has presented more than 1, 500 papers and
communications in scientific meetings.

John L. Cox is Professor Emeritus at Keele University and
Visiting Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, London.
During his period as President and Dean of the Royal College of
Psychiatrists, he encouraged greater emphasis on international
mental health, and the bridging of arts and science. He is the
Immediate Past Secretary General of the World Psychiatric
Association. He has a longstanding interest in the relationship
between religion, spirituality and mental health, and was the lead
editor of a book based on the work of Paul Tournier. He co-authored
Modern Management of Perinatal Mental Disorder, and has published
widely in perinatal mental health and transcultural psychiatry.

Driss Moussaoui is the Founder and the Chairman of the Ibn
Rushd University Psychiatric Centre in Casablanca, Morocco, a WHO
Collaborating Centre in Mental Health since 1992. He is the
President-Elect of the World Association of Social Psychiatry and a
member of the French Academy of Medicine. He is the Vice-Chair of
the World Psychiatric Association Section on Spirituality, Religion
and Psychiatry. Driss Moussaoui has published (or edited) 10 books
and hundreds of papers in international journals.