Spirituality and Religion: A Treatment for Depression?
Faith has shaped most of my life, though I'd never describe myself as a zealot about it. I take most scientific findings seriously while keeping my beliefs intact, which leaves me with a question I keep circling back to: can religion actually treat depression? A number of researchers and psychologists argue that it can, at least for some people. Dr. R.Y. Langham's article, Treating Depression with the Power of God, lays out that case in detail. According to Langham (2015), individuals who believe in a God or some higher power tend to recover from depression more readily than those with no such belief. Prayer, along with the act of handing over one's burdens, is what Langham points to as the mechanism that helps religious believers climb out of a depressive state quickly.
Parts of that ring true to me. As someone who believes in Christ, I trust in the power of prayer and in the teachings of Jesus, including passages meant to carry a person through the worst stretches of life. Still, you have to pair belief with ordinary good judgment. My own view is that God gives us the common sense to make reasonable choices, and I stop short of calling religion a form of treatment. Langham skips over the people walking around depressed who don't recognize the depression in themselves. And faith alone cannot be the whole answer. There are many distinct conditions here: major depressive disorder, anxiety, bipolar disorder. Those call for medication and the care of a licensed professional, not scripture.
Where religion does earn its place is in coping. People who believe in God or a higher power often handle stress better than those convinced that existence amounts to meaningless pain. A belief in prayer can shift how someone understands reality, sometimes for the better and sometimes into territory that makes no sense. Picture a person praying for relief from money trouble while refusing to make a budget or plan ahead; the prayer isn't going to balance the checkbook. Plenty of religious communities don't treat depression as a disorder at all and distrust modern psychotherapy. The advice tends to be pray, meditate, or just snap out of it. I've seen this firsthand in my own community, which is African-American.
Then there's the opposite finding. Dr. Persaud and Dr. Bruggen, in their article Being Religious or Spiritual Is Linked with Getting More Depressed (2013), report no evidence that religious belief works as a treatment for depression. They lean on a study run by Professor Michael King, who tracked roughly 8,000 participants across seven European countries and a range of economic backgrounds. King and his colleagues followed those people for six to twelve months and found that strong religious belief went hand in hand with a higher likelihood of depression, and with more depressive episodes than non-religious participants reported (2013).
How does that square with the idea of faith as humanity's salvation? I think the explanation is fairly plain. We're wired to want to belong to a group, and religion is about the fastest route into one. So while faith can be a useful tool for someone with a deep religious background who is struggling, it isn't a cure. Depressed people may rush toward religion hoping for relief, discover their pain hasn't eased, and in doing so push the apparent rate of depression inside religious communities higher than it would otherwise look.
Speaking for myself, my faith and my belief in the teachings of Jesus give me peace, particularly during hard seasons and genuine tragedy. My faith has changed my temperament, the way I move through stressful moments, the way I deal with difficult people. It has made me a better person. Does that mean a fundamentalist religion could stand as the only treatment for depression? No. Depression is a mental disorder that first requires a person to admit they're depressed, then to seek medical care scaled to how severe it is. Religion, as I see it, is a coping mechanism. Once someone can manage their symptoms, faith can offer comfort and a framework for a more productive life. It is not the cure.
- Heather Browning, MBA
Bruggen, P., Persaud, R. (September 15, 2013). Being Religious or Spiritual Is Linked with Getting More Depressed. Retrieved January 20, 2015. Langham, R. Treating Depression with the Power of God. Retrieved on January 20, 2015.