Prayer and Mental Health
Is Prayer Perfect for Your Mental Health?
In the first years of psychology, particularly during the era of Freud, prayer and other spiritual disciplines were viewed negatively and were largely scoffed at by those involved with the field of mental health.
Freud, associated with well known work, Not able to an Illusion, described religion as a “universal obsessional neurosis” and a “psychopathologic phenomena.” However, in the last decade on the internet a plethora of studies that have proved Freud wrong; these studies show that spiritual disciplines are not liabilities but assets where emotional welbeing is related.
In one particular study In 2008, Claire Hollywell and Jan Walker critically analyzed 26 published studies on the use of personal prayer, and came on the following positive conclusions about prayer:
1. “Prayer, measured by frequency, frequently associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety.”
The study showed individuals who prayed and had existing faith in God, tended to accomplish lower levels of depression and anxiety than those who just didn’t make use of prayer.
2. “Prayer is a coping action that mediates between religious faith and welbeing.”
Researchers learned that prayer was an effective coping mechanism and that religious because they came from used prayer when along with adversity such as failing health, coped better than those who did not make use of prayer.
3. “Prayer takes different forms, some beneficial, others possibly not.
(a) Devotional prayers that take the type of an intimate dialogue with a supportive God are using improved optimism, welbeing and performance.
(b) Prayers that involve only pleas for support extremis may, in the absence of a pre-existing faith, be associated to learn distress and possibly poorer work.”
The study found that prayers that have devotional, and involved intimate conversations with God about one’s circumstances, seemed to guide to improved wellbeing and coping.However researchers also concluded that people who did to not have preexisting faith in God, and used prayer as a plea when highly stressful events entered their lives, did not benefit from prayer and tended to become even more distressed.
From previously mentioned scientific research by Hollywell and Walker, one can conclude that devotional prayer is an effectual coping mechanism when used by those with “pre-existing faith” towards God, and there’s strong evidence that devotional prayer can and end up being used by people of faith when faced with the challenges of life.
Hollywell, Claire and Walker, Jan.(2008). Private Prayer to be a Suitable Intervention for Hospitalized Patient: A critical Review of your Literature. Journal of Clinical Nursing. Vol. 18, 635-651.
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