For many, spirituality is the best (and only) means to combat their mental health challenges. But what does the science say?
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Mental illness, as defined by the WHO(World Health Organization), is a clinically significant disturbance to an individual’s cognitive ability, emotional regulation, and behavior. Globally, over 12% live with mental disorders, while that number rises to 15% in Ethiopia. Given that many such conditions in our community often go undiagnosed, this number is an underestimate. Despite being among the oldest recorded human illnesses, the scientific treatment of mental issues is not put to good use.
Circumstances worsen in developing countries, where psychiatric treatments are the last resort for many. Culturally influenced, mental illness is taken to be too spiritual for modern medical intervention. While the Western world focuses on psychosocial and biological factors, the rest see it in psychic light. Signs of mental instability are considered supernaturally influenced if not induced. Family and friends rush for the holy water or go to traditional healers.
Spirituality: The Only Medicine?
A study conducted in an Ethiopian region found that none of the subjects thought there was medical help for mental disability, epilepsy, or schizophrenia. Ignorance, misconceptions and mistrust hamper people from seeking assistance. Unaware of the pervasiveness of their conditions and the support available, they suffer unnecessary distress. Certain myths, such as treatment is bound to medications that have dire consequences and the like, also cripple people from reaching out and persisting in their search for help.
As spiritual exposition dominated mental illnesses, it remained in the shadows, away from scrutiny. However, these interpretations are susceptible to stigmatising mentally struggling individuals as illness is attributed to sin, lack of faith, or wrath from God. It not only judges victims for their situations, but also makes them sink deeper into depression from low self-worth and helplessness.
The problem doesn’t end with judgmental attitudes against the mentally ill. Spiritual healing could also expose people to further trauma. There is a widespread lack of accountability in what goes down in the process of ‘healing’. Paradoxically, patients, not practitioners, are blamed for the ineffectiveness of methods. Some practices are seriously degrading and might even cause physical injuries, which makes matters tangled. There are even so-called ‘healers’ who take advantage of all sorts of these vulnerable people at their weakest. A person could end up sicker after ‘healing’.
Healed, they say.
Cleansing rituals and exorcisms are a common approach to dealing with mental illness. The basic concept of demons being behind the condition as the archenemy of the human race drives the practices. Classified as pathogenic or executive possession, healing is administered accordingly. Across Christianity and Islam, prayers, holy water, holy oil, and herbal medicines are commonly applied. People, at their own admission, report having been freed from their situations or at least improved.
In today’s predominantly practiced psychiatry, however, these religious explanations of possession are disregarded. The psychiatric term coined to describe the condition is possession syndrome, a dissociative disorder manifested in episodes of altered consciousness. Denouncing such ubiquitous beliefs might obstruct efforts to improve lives, which science is ultimately supposed to accomplish. In cultures largely enmeshed with spirituality, society thrives in inscribing explanations where science fails to. Maybe modern medicine fails to understand where the community stands.
A non-scientific dimension
Spirituality is as old as humanity, with religion coming just a bit later. The former was more of an individualistic means to meld with the paranormal, while religion is communal and systemic. They have carved social structures, philosophies, and civilisations around the world. Evolved through the years and surviving ideological defiances, they remain significant in human history. There is a reality that people can’t be forced to deny just because it’s scientifically inexplicable. Inevitably, mental illness is experienced within these frames of reality.
If the goal is to help the struggling, indigenous resources are indispensable. There are papers showing that religion-accommodative counselling proved more effective than standard care for depression. Designing biomedical practices in a fashion that doesn't suppress components of the patient's identity is the most holistic outlook. Essentially, mental illness, as a derivative of environmental, social, biological, and psychological elements, is experienced differently by everyone.
