Contemporary psychiatry and psychotherapy’s engagements with religion/spirituality in Europe and North America

Abstract

The history of psychiatry can be seen as a drawing of boundaries and negotiation of entanglements between religion and what in today’s medical terminology is called mental illness. This chapter explores some of these developments in Europe and the US. The contemporary ‘spiritual turn’ manifested in psychotherapies with religious concepts and practices, and psychotherapeutic training courses that include spirituality is part of a therapeutization of society. Influential examples are Transpersonal Psychology and the concept of posttraumatic growth with regard to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). We argue that it is important to differentiate between psychotherapy that itself works with religious/spiritual concepts and practices and psychotherapy that takes the patient’s religion/spirituality seriously. The latter can be seen as a logical next step in increasingly patient-oriented approaches to psychotherapy.