In the United States, discussion about whether religion improves mental health is often framed as a question of evidence—what studies show about religiosity and outcomes like suicide, stress, substance use and hope. But multiple experts cited by The Associated Press also described a more complicated reality: faith can act as a support for some people, while religious environments can also add stigma or create barriers to getting help.
NAMI and Mental Health America have pointed to a benefits-oriented interpretation of religion’s role in well-being. NAMI said, “Religion gives people something to believe in, provides a sense of structure and typically offers a group of people to connect with” those with similar beliefs, and it said “Research suggests that religiosity reduces suicide rates, alcoholism and drug use.” The APA, by contrast, emphasized that its view is not one-dimensional. It said its Handbook of Psychology, Religion and Spirituality “sheds light on the many purposes religion serves, the rich variety of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, and the capacity of religion and spirituality to do both good and harm.”
At St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, visiting psychology instructor Timothy Powers described that duality as something he sees in therapy. Powers said, “While faith community participation can confer real and well documented protective benefits, those same communities can also be sources of shame, spiritual bypass, trauma, and significant barriers to seeking help,” adding that “Clinically, both realities show up in the counseling room, sometimes in the same person.” He said therapists face “The task for therapists” of approaching the topic “without assuming that religion/spirituality is a resource or that it is a wound,” and he said they should “ask rather than presume.”
Another Catholic perspective, from Charles Camosy, a professor of moral theology and bioethics at The Catholic University of America, also focused on limiting expectations about what faith can guarantee. Camosy said, “We expect on the one hand that being faithful will bring with it good things in this life.” But he added, “Yet ‘living out the Gospel doesn’t lead to healthy, flourishing lives for everyone. People still get sick, including mentally ill,’” and he said that “Christians, and especially faithful Christians who are salt and light in a world full of violence and injustice, are not promised mental health as a reward for faithfulness in this life.”
On Monday, a new report aimed at the evidence debate was released from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University. The institute described its mission as “Research-supported work that fortifies the core institutions of the family, religion, and constitutional government.” According to the report, based on an analysis of hundreds of previous studies, committed religious involvement—defined as corresponding to at least weekly attendance at worship services—was linked to lower suicide risk, better stress management, reduced substance misuse and higher levels of hope. The report said, “Although harmful or coercive forms of religion do exist, the overall pattern across the best available studies is clear: religious belief and practice are overwhelmingly associated with better mental and emotional well-being.”
Not everyone accepts a religion-first reading of that overall pattern. The executive director of the American Humanist Association, Fish Stark, said he had “no quibble with the assertion that religious engagement may have psychological benefits,” but he stressed that nonreligious people can fare just as well. Stark said, “If you have a strong secular, atheist identity, and actively participate in a nonreligious community, you get the same benefits.” He added: “The key is whether you have core convictions and participate in social groups,” saying “Those with strong religious identities and strong secular identities are equally happy.”
Ellen Idler, a sociology professor and director of Emory University’s Religion and Public Health Collaborative, suggested that measuring religion’s effect on mental health may require accounting for who ends up in religious settings. Idler said people who have been or perceived themselves as harmed by religion may stay away, “leaving those less troubled in the pews.” She cited people who were sexually abused by clergy as children and people who were stigmatized by their congregations because they are LGBTQ+. Idler’s point underscored the tension raised by others: the relationship between religious involvement and mental health can reflect both benefits of community and the risk that some experiences within those communities make help-seeking harder.