Religion, Personality, and Mental Health

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   • Laurence B. Brown

   Pages 1-15

3. The Uses of Religious Assessment in Counseling

   • H. Newton Malony

   Pages 16-28

4. Psychology in the Phenomenology of Religion: A Critical Essay

   • Owe Wikstrom

   Pages 29-41

5. Religion and Mental Health: A Case Study of the Finnish-Swedish Popular Writer Joel Pettersson

   • Nils G. Holm

   Pages 42-49

6. Happiness and Religious Belief

   • Jocelyn Delbridge, Bruce Headey, Alexander J. Wearing

   Pages 50-68

7. Religious Life-styles and Mental Health

   • Allen E. Bergin

   Pages 69-93

8. Personality and Religious Development during Childhood and Adolescence

   • Leslie J. Francis

   Pages 94-118

9. Steps towards a Psychology of Prayer

   • Emma Shackle, Laurence B. Brown

   Pages 119-129

10. The Social Representations of Death: A Study with Cancer Patients, Family Members, and Healthy Individuals

    • Clelia Maria Nascimento Schulze

    Pages 130-137

11. Rigid Religiosity and Mental Health: An Empirical Study

    • Hans Stifoss-Hanssen

    Pages 138-143

12. Religious Experience, Loneliness, and Subjective Well-being

    • Kathleen V. O’Connor

    Pages 144-153

13. Some Correlates of Well-being and Distress in Anglo-Jewish Women

    • Kate Loewenthal, Valerie Amos, Vivienne Goldblatt, Sean Mullarkey

    Pages 154-166

14. Women Religious Professionals and Stress

    • Carole A. Rayburn, Lee J. Richmond, Lynn Rogers

    Pages 167-173

15. Welfare Policies, Religious Commitment, and Happiness

    • Thorleif Pettersson

    Pages 174-192

16. Conclusion

    • Laurence B. Brown

    Pages 193-203

17. Back Matter

    Pages 205-217

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LAURENCE B. BROWN Nearly all the papers in this collection were prepared initially by a group of psychologists interested in the social scientific study of religion. They included some working with the mentally ill in medical, religious, or secular contexts, as well as teachers and researchers in psychology or theology. Their papers aim to test, or to reflect on, common prejudices about the links between mental health and religion, especially when they are thought to be mediated by personality characteristics. All the papers have been revised for this collection. A clear consensus emerged that religion has many positive effects, despite Wulff's (1991" p. 307) unguarded assertion that, "without ques­ tion the mentally disturbed are frequently attracted by religion." Any assumption that religion is necessarily a "danger" to health, or closely related to mental illness, is not supported by the evidence from carefully controlled studies that follow a social science perspective. Malony's paper, page 16 in this collection, therefore emphasizes that we must take account of the ways in which anyone's religion is integrated into their life, the functions it serves for them and their acceptance by other members of the religious and other groups to which they belong.

• cancer
• depression
• lifestyle
• personality
• psychology
• well-being

• Alister Hardy Research Centre, Westminster College, Oxford, UK

  Laurence B. Brown

Policies and ethics