Divinity professor leads effort to strengthen connections between religion, psychiatry

At a faculty meeting nearly two years ago, Divinity School Dean Greg Sterling introduced representatives from the Yale medical school’s Department of Psychiatry, who gave a presentation about their field’s growing interest in spirituality. 

“They were increasingly seeing patients who were speaking about spiritual experiences or religious convictions and commitments, and to put a fine point on it, they didn’t know what to do with this,” recalls Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at YDS. “They were realizing that spirituality, however you want to define it, is something that exists and has to be taken seriously.”

The topic is a deeply personal one for Gordon, who says he has experienced firsthand the longstanding mistrust between religion and psychiatry. “There have been negative perceptions on both sides,” says Gordon, who cites a widespread “general hostility within psychiatry” toward many organized forms of religion. “And equally within many churches, certainly in my own upbringing, psychiatry was seen as something that was for seriously damaged people,” he adds.

Gordon and others from that faculty meeting followed up with one another and decided to establish a working group to explore intersections between religion and psychiatry. For the past 18 months, the group has met monthly, bringing together colleagues from Yale’s psychiatry department, people from the community, and YDS faculty members Frederick “Jerry” Streets, Jamil Drake, Joyce Mercer, and Kathryn Tanner 

“The purpose is not primarily academic research but, rather, people coming from their particular fields describing what they do and finding how we best talk together,” Gordon says. While retaining its public-facing purpose, the group is now seeking funding for a joint project bringing together faculty and students.

Fostering challenging conversations

The working group is led by Gordon, a distinguished scholar of church history, and School of Medicine professors Christopher Pittenger and Anna Yusim. Pittenger is a prominent psychiatrist and neuroscientist who specializes in brain function and behavior; Yusim is an internationally recognized psychiatrist and the author of a book on the science of spirituality.

“Spirituality is a central aspect of inner life for many of us, and for many an important anchor for our social and ethical worlds. Therapists know this, but academic psychiatry sometimes struggles to validate and engage with spiritual experiences,” Pittenger acknowledges. “By cultivating our relationship with colleagues at the Divinity School, we hope to work towards a shared language to engage with spiritual matters, and to break down the barriers that can separate us from a full engagement with this aspect of our patients’ lives and experiences.”

Adds Yusim: “The exploration of intersections between religion/spirituality and psychiatry is not merely important—it is essential to the practice of truly holistic, person-centered medicine. When we neglect these dimensions, we risk treating symptoms while missing the deeper sources of meaning, purpose, and healing that patients are seeking.”

The working group has explored some challenging topics including brain function, medication, psychedelics, end-of-life issues, and the nature of religious experiences. Some discussions, for example, have addressed questions such as what is a hallucination? What is a vision? What constitutes a spiritual experience? What role does transcendence play in psychological health? What is depression? What is the impact of social isolation? What constitutes human flourishing? What does it mean to die? Where are the boundaries between medicine and religion?

“What we are trying to foster here is not detailed research papers but rather conversations about what we can learn from each other and what people in a wider audience would want to learn more about,” says Gordon. 

Participants say the impact of the discussions has been profound. “Everyone comes with a spirit of openness and a desire to better understand both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of our shared humanity. This has been moving,” says Pittenger.

“The interdisciplinary nature of our conversations has enriched my own clinical practice and scholarship in ways I could not have anticipated,” adds Yusim. “The working group creates a rare space where religious historians, theologians, and psychiatrists can transcend the typical silos of academic discourse and recognize that we are all asking variations of the same fundamental questions.”

Group leaders hope to widen the conversation even further to include more students, faculty, and members of the general public. They are planning to sponsor a public forum, organize conferences, and perhaps launch a podcast. “People just do not get a lot of exposure to these kinds of conversations,” Gordon says.

Bridging the divides

Gordon says his own background illustrates the need for better understanding between religion and psychiatry. “As someone who grew up in the church and was long ago diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I know from my own experience that nobody in the church knew what to say,” he recalls. “They didn’t have the tools to deal with it

At the same time, he adds, “One psychiatrist who I was with for a long time had the general feeling that my religion was a manifestation of the problem rather than any kind of way to deal with the problem. Many in the medical world have not had a lot of contact with religion. They don’t understand that it’s not a symptom of something; it is who you actually are.”

In recent years, some churches may have become more open to addressing mental health issues, but Gordon asserts that many negative perceptions persist. Recently, he was speaking with someone about a friend’s depression, and the person responded, “But aren’t they a Christian?” Says Gordon, “There are still many within the Christian tradition who believe if you accept the good news of Jesus Christ, why would you be depressed?” 

Gordon believes it is crucial for institutions such as divinity schools to have candid conversations about these issues. “There’s a whole world of mental health problems in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,” he says. “We have people leaving the ministry all the time simply because of burnout, depression, isolation, sadly, even suicide. We are at the very beginning of even being able to talk about it because it’s been unmentionable.”

According to Gordon, in addition to their own issues, many ministry leaders are ill-equipped to help others who may be struggling. “Many leaders have absolutely no idea what to do with the reality that at any given point, significant numbers of people in your congregation are suffering from severe mental health problems,” he says. “We need to learn what sort of resources there are. When somebody in your church or synagogue comes to you with depression, what do you do?” 

Gordon believes his advocacy around mental health issues dovetails well with his work as a religion scholar. “I’ve always been fascinated by what people believe and how those beliefs are realized in actions, in language, in art, and the complexity of that,” says Gordon, author of acclaimed books on Calvin, Zwingli, and the history of the Bible, among other subjects. 

“I’ve always been interested in this question of spirituality as an expression not simply of religious ideas or theology, but of the way in which beliefs are embodied, both in the self and in communities, and how that can manifest itself in all forms of remarkable behavior, both good and very bad,” Gordon explains.

Gordon is currently developing a book project on the history of acedia, or spiritual depression, from early Egyptian monasticism to modern day boredom. “From the Bible to Freud through today, people have seen the complexities of our human nature,” he adds. “My work has always been in exploring that.”

Gordon hopes the conversations generated by the religion and psychiatry working group will lead to meaningful change well beyond the Yale community. “We want to create a culture where people can begin to talk about these issues and find out that there are ways of getting help,” he says. “People can be isolated and don’t know where to go, but there is help.”

Those from the psychiatry perspective agree. “If we can show that the spiritual dimensions of human experience can be honored within evidence-based medicine, we may help bridge some of the cultural divides that separate religious communities from scientific institutions,” says Yusim.

“Ultimately, this work is about serving our patients more completely—meeting them where they are, in the full dimensionality of their being, with both the precision of science and the wisdom of spirit.”

Kim Lawton is an award-winning reporter, producer, and writer who has worked in broadcast, print and online media. For nearly 20 years, Lawton was Managing Editor and Correspondent for the highly acclaimed national public television program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”