Relationship Between Christianity And Psychiatry

. .According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Norway has a higher rate of psychiatric beds than the OECD average. Norway’s efforts in improving the quality of health care have proven to be effective, as they have had a decrease in suicide rates, fewer hospital beds, and more mental health professionals (Hewlett). Significant advancement in the obtaining of knowledge about mental illnesses has greatly improved doctors’ abilities to make sure they are diagnosing the correct disease as well as their ability to come up with treatment options varying from person-to-person rather than treatments that follow the “one type fits all” concept. This new knowledge has brought people to believe that these disorders are not resulting from a sin but instead are due to physiological and environmental problems. These developments led to better lives for individuals struggling with various diseases, and may result in a cure, as society hopes. Thus, as the …show more content…
People linked psychiatric disorders with witchcraft, demonology, and possession (Boehnlein, 14). The link between Christianity and Psychiatry is what helped to strengthen the justification of what was wrong with the person, as well as how to treat them, because people used religion as a way to defend themselves and accuse others of sin when people became sick. This was shown with the link between the two ideas, so people could diagnose the conditions of the people who were considered to have gone mad. The connection of Psychiatry and the Devil allowed people to justify any accusations, punishments, and treatments against those who were mentally ill, without being accused as unjust towards the mentally ill. The impact of religion on society’s perception of mental illnesses was the beginning of the judgment and persecution against those with psychological