Culture and religion in mental health

This chapter details the relationship of religion and spirituality with mental health and the way mental health is shaped by our understanding of various socio-cultural identities. The goal is to present mental health in a revised light whereby there is a greater space for pluralism and dialogue through belief-systems and world-view perceptions. A historical account of psychiatry is fraught with multiple perspectives and theories about the changing turn in the approach to mental illness following the enlightenment. A cross-sectional study of American adults identified the multifaceted ways that religious ways of coping affects the ability to manage life-stressors. Spirituality and religion are the basis for understanding distress and suffering in many contexts around the world and the spiritual positionality plays a role in creating and maintaining a person’s situatedness in their sense of self and surrounding world regardless of the location of the suffering in the person’s past.