Open access

The Clergy's Attitudes About Mental Illness, Counselling, and the Helping Professions

Publication: Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health
April 1982

Abstract

The clergy are often referred to as gatekeepers of the mental health system. In this capacity, the clergy's attitudes assume considerable importance since they are likely to affect the working relationships between pastors and professional mental health workers. A questionnaire was therefore developed to assess the clergy's attitudes about mental illness, counselling, and the helping professions, and delivered to 163 pastors in British Columbia; 102 (62.6%) returned the completed questionnaire by mail. It was found that the clergy: (a) most commonly selected psychological reasons (e.g., “stress in living”) rather than spiritual reasons (e.g., “stunted spiritual growth”) for mental illness; (b) were strongly in support of the aims of community mental health; (c) felt that counselling was effective when it corrected maladaptive thought patterns and allowed the expression of feelings; (d) ranked pastoral counselling as more effective than psychology, psychiatry, or social work; and (e) were more likely to be sympathetic towards community mental health if they were non-fundamentalistic in theology. Overall, results showed the clergy to be a highly promising resource for the community mental health movement and its workers.

Résumé

On considère souvent les members du clergé comme des aiguilleurs (gatekeepers) du système de santé mentale. À cet effet les attitudes du clergé ont une importance considérable puisqu'elles influencent vraisemblablement les relations de travail entre les pasteurs et les intervenants en santé mentale. On a préparé un questionnaire pour évaluer les attitudes du clergé sur la santé mentale, le counseling et les professions d'aide; le questionnaire a été envoyé à 163 pasteurs de Colombie Britannique dont 106 (62.6%) l'ont complété et retourné par la poste. On a découvert que les membres du clergé: (a) ont généralement choisi des raisons psychologiques (ex: le stress dans la vie) plutôt que des raisons spirituelles (ex: un blocage dans la croissance spirituelle) pour expliquer la maladie mentale; (b) appuient fortement les buts de l'approche communautaire en santé mental; (c) pensent que le counseling est efficace quand il corrige des fonctionnements intellectuels maladaptés et permet l'expression des émotions: considèrent que le counseling pastoral est plus efficace que la psychologie, la psychiatrie et le travail social; (e) sont apparemment plus sympathiques à l'approche communautaire en santé mentale s'ils sont non-fondamentalistes en théologie. Globalement les résultats montrent que le clergé est une ressource pour le mouvement de santé mentale communautaire et ses intervenants.

Formats available

You can view the full content in the following formats:

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

cover image Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health
Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health
Volume 1Number 1April 1982
Pages: 71 - 80

History

Version of record online: 23 April 2009

Authors

Affiliations

P.G. Wright
Simon Fraser University
M.E. Moreau
Simon Fraser University
G.M. Haley
Simon Fraser University

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

Other Metrics

Citations

Cite As

Export Citations

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

There are no citations for this item

View Options

View options

PDF

View PDF

Get Access

Login options

Check if you access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Subscribe

Click on the button below to subscribe to Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health

Purchase options

Purchase this article to get full access to it.

Restore your content access

Enter your email address to restore your content access:

Note: This functionality works only for purchases done as a guest. If you already have an account, log in to access the content to which you are entitled.

Media

Media

Other

Tables

Share Options

Share

Share the article link

Share on social media