Many patients seek support or treatment of R/S organizations or healers/leaders before seeing physicians or other conventional health care providers. Patients often have R/S treatments simultaneously, as a complement to orthodox treatments. Recent studies have also shown the positive impact of R/S intervention on mental health.

Given most Humanity has some form of R/S and it has implications for prevention, diagnosis (e.g., differentiation between spiritual experiences and mental disorders), treatment, and outcomes in mental health, R/S needs to be addressed whenever dealing with mental health. It follows bellow some topics of the WPA Position Statement on Spirituality and Religion in Psychiatry of interest to patients, relatives and the population as a whole:

•    A tactful consideration of patients’ religious beliefs and practices as well as their spirituality should routinely be considered and will sometimes be an essential component of psychiatric history taking.

•    The approach to religion and spirituality should be person-centered. Psychiatrists should not use their professional position for proselytizing for spiritual or secular worldviews. Psychiatrists should be expected always to respect and be sensitive to the spiritual/religious beliefs and practices of their patients, and of the families and carers of their patients.

•    Psychiatrists, whatever their personal beliefs, should be willing to work with leaders/members of faith communities, chaplains and pastoral workers, and others in the community, in support of the well-being of their patients, and should encourage their multi-disciplinary colleagues to do likewise.

—Dr. Alexander Moreira-Almeida, MD, PhD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Brazil. Chair of the Section on Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry of the World Psychiatric Association