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Is Faith Delusion?

Why religion is good for your health

Is Faith Delusion?

Why religion is good for your health

This item is a print on demand title and will be dispatched in 1-3 weeks.

Paperback / softback

£18.99

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781847063403
Number of Pages: 252
Published: 09/03/2009
Width: 13.8 cm
Height: 21.6 cm
How, in a scientifically and technologically advanced age, can people still believe in God? Andrew Sims examines the connection and the division between Christian faith and psychiatry and shows that, shockingly, religious belief is good for mental and physical health.Is faith delusion? Is religion bad for your health? How, in a scientifically and technologically advanced age, can people still believe in God/spirit/'other'? Clearly not all believers are primitive and ill-educated; an alternative explanation is that they must be mad, or at least severely neurotic (as suggested by Freud).This book examines and explains the connection and the division between Christian faith and psychiatry. It asks whether science challenges Christians involved with psychiatry, as patients or professionals, and whether the spiritual needs of patients are recognised. The author examines the scope and use of the neurosciences and considers cause and effect, natural selection and determinism. He explores the overlap (and the difference) between psychiatric symptoms and religious belief, the possible association between demon possession and mental illness, and the idea that some people are intrinsically religious and some are not. The variations of personality are examined, with their implications for belief. Although the book is technically proficient, it is aimed at the general reader and is illustrated with stories, brief case histories and anecdotes.
1 'Psyche' means more than mind; 2 What is Christian faith?; 3 Why the warfare?; 4 Psychiatry, science and faith; 5 Can religion damage your health?; 6 Delusion is a psychiatric term; 7 The Intersection of Psychiatry and Belief; 8 Inner and outer demons; 9 Personality and personality disorder; 10 Resolving the question.

Professor Andrew Sims

For more than twenty years, Andrew Sims was Professor of Psychiatry in the University of Leeds. He was consecutively Dean (1987-1990), President (1990-93) and the first Director of Continuing Professional Development (1993-97) of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He has chaired the Spirituality and Psychiatry Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and has also served on the General Medical Council. The author of 12 books and over 200 papers, he has published and spoken widely on the interface between religious faith and mental illness.

'And now for the yes. This is a thoughtful history of the struggle between religion and secular psychiatry... This personal account is also extremely frank and for that reason highly interesting. It is rare for a psychiatrist to write with so much emotion on his sleeve and for that reason alone it is to be welcomed.'--Sanford Lakoff

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