Religion and Spirituality in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Care: Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists' Experiences of Call and Vocation
Mary Lynn Dell, M.D., D.Min., Director of Psychosomatic Medicine, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Nationwide Children's Hospital and The Ohio State University
Margaret L. Stuber, M.D., David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is the primary professional guild for child and adolescent psychiatric physicians. Beginning at the 1999 annual meeting, the authors have co-led a 90 minute breakfast session on religion and spirituality in clinical practice. The event has sold out for seventeen consecutive years, with 255 total attendees. Though >50% of attendees have been from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, all major world faith traditions have been represented and the religious and cultural backgrounds of the clinicians attending the breakfast have become increasingly diverse over the years, reflecting the increasing diversity of AACAP members and the patients and families they serve. Recurrent themes raised by the psychiatrists at the round-table style discussions include: 1) the importance of religion/spirituality to patients; 2) the need for factual knowledge of about major faith traditions represented by their patients; 3) the lack of attention to this area in their training; 4) discerning possible religious/spiritual elements in psychopathology, such as psychosis, severe mood disorders, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder; and 5) the ethics of introducing and/or working with religious/spiritual issues within the limits imposed by modern psychiatric practice, especially brief medication management appointments. More recently, discussion increasingly has turned to the effects of religious conflict on children of all traditions, religious/spiritual considerations in suicide, violence, and abuse.
While the subject content of the breakfast discussions on religion, spirituality, and clinical practice is always interesting, even more so are the challenges of monitoring the always lively discussions. Over the course of seventeen years, the authors have been impressed by the attendees’ dedication to their chosen medical specialty and their patients and families. They are even more dedicated to their own religious and spiritual values and beliefs, are committed to their own spiritual health and grown, and are deeply committed to their personal faith communities. Indeed, these psychiatrists speak of their work in the same terms pastors, theologians, and religious professionals speak about their calls to their religious vocations.
This paper will review the religious and spiritual themes in child and adolescent psychiatric practice that physicians deem to be particularly important. The authors will discuss their observations about the influences of the psychiatrists personal religious and spiritual beliefs and backgrounds upon their practices of child and adolescent psychiatry, especially how these beliefs and backgrounds influence how they address religious and spiritual subject matter in their clinical work. Finally, the parallels of the psychiatrists’ sense of calling and vocation will be compared to that of religious calling and vocation, employing insights from theologians Robert McAfee Brown, Barbara Brown Taylor, Miroslav Wolf, and William Willimon.
Margaret L. Stuber, M.D., David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is the primary professional guild for child and adolescent psychiatric physicians. Beginning at the 1999 annual meeting, the authors have co-led a 90 minute breakfast session on religion and spirituality in clinical practice. The event has sold out for seventeen consecutive years, with 255 total attendees. Though >50% of attendees have been from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, all major world faith traditions have been represented and the religious and cultural backgrounds of the clinicians attending the breakfast have become increasingly diverse over the years, reflecting the increasing diversity of AACAP members and the patients and families they serve. Recurrent themes raised by the psychiatrists at the round-table style discussions include: 1) the importance of religion/spirituality to patients; 2) the need for factual knowledge of about major faith traditions represented by their patients; 3) the lack of attention to this area in their training; 4) discerning possible religious/spiritual elements in psychopathology, such as psychosis, severe mood disorders, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder; and 5) the ethics of introducing and/or working with religious/spiritual issues within the limits imposed by modern psychiatric practice, especially brief medication management appointments. More recently, discussion increasingly has turned to the effects of religious conflict on children of all traditions, religious/spiritual considerations in suicide, violence, and abuse.
While the subject content of the breakfast discussions on religion, spirituality, and clinical practice is always interesting, even more so are the challenges of monitoring the always lively discussions. Over the course of seventeen years, the authors have been impressed by the attendees’ dedication to their chosen medical specialty and their patients and families. They are even more dedicated to their own religious and spiritual values and beliefs, are committed to their own spiritual health and grown, and are deeply committed to their personal faith communities. Indeed, these psychiatrists speak of their work in the same terms pastors, theologians, and religious professionals speak about their calls to their religious vocations.
This paper will review the religious and spiritual themes in child and adolescent psychiatric practice that physicians deem to be particularly important. The authors will discuss their observations about the influences of the psychiatrists personal religious and spiritual beliefs and backgrounds upon their practices of child and adolescent psychiatry, especially how these beliefs and backgrounds influence how they address religious and spiritual subject matter in their clinical work. Finally, the parallels of the psychiatrists’ sense of calling and vocation will be compared to that of religious calling and vocation, employing insights from theologians Robert McAfee Brown, Barbara Brown Taylor, Miroslav Wolf, and William Willimon.