CPXtra

I have three close friends who suffer long-term depression. Periodically they become prisoners of their own minds, struggling to maintain career and family life. When things are bad, the world closes in around them leaving them isolated even among friends.

All three of them are Christians. They are loved and prayed for. Many people hope they will get better. So far, they have not.

I wonder what they, and others in their lives, might make of a study out of the US this year reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. The study found that “belief in a personal and concerned God” significantly improved responses to the medical treatment of major depression. Those who scored in the top third of the Religious Well-Being scale were 75% more likely to get better with medical treatment for clinical depression.

These findings come on the back of a growing body of research that indicates strong positive correlations between religious belief and practise and good health outcomes. People like Harold Koenig from Duke University believe that clinicians need to be aware of the role of religion in their patient’s lives. Only then can they give comprehensive treatment and care.

It’s hard to say what these studies mean. It would be easy to overstate their significance and leave the impression that you just have to ‘get religion’ and you’ll be on the way to health and happiness. That’s clearly not the case. But the sheer number of them calls for some reflection.

A certain darkness surrounds my three friends and it’s clear that religious faith hasn’t shielded them from that. But I’m interested to know to what degree their belief, assuming it hasn’t been crushed completely, might bring them shards of light and hope and eventually contribute in some way to their healing.

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C P X | Wednesday, March 17, 2010 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink