I thank the authors Reference Dein, Cook, Powell and Eagger1 for their well-considered and helpful article which argues for more understanding and discussion of people's religious and spiritual beliefs. They make the point that ‘Individuals with religious beliefs may be extremely reluctant to engage with psychiatric services that they perceive to be atheistic, scientific and disparaging of religion’. They then cite the example of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews that fear misdiagnosis.
How strange and very unfortunate then that in the very same month, the British Journal of Psychiatry publishes an article that basically diagnoses Ezekiel, a prominent Old Testament Biblical prophet, as having schizophrenia. Reference Stein2 All of Ezekiel's experiences are attributed to the illness, thus dismissing the possibility that God actually did communicate with him in the ways described. The Old Testament is of course the basic scripture for Orthodox Jews.
No wonder that there is a problem then - the religiosity gap between psychiatrist and patient described by Dein et al Reference Dein, Cook, Powell and Eagger1 is demonstrated in a painfully clear way.
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