Religion and mental health: Towards a cognitive‐behavioural framework

Abstract

The relationships between religious variables and mental health may depend on cognitive-behavioural mechanisms. Developments in this area might encourage clinicians to consider further the ways in which religious variables might be utilized and assessed in therapy. However, there is a need for further efforts to incorporate religious and spiritual factors in the clinical arena.

Prayer and subjective well-being: The application of a cognitive-behavioural framework

“…This model suggests that prayer is made up of the following elements: frequency of prayer, praying with others, colloquial prayer (telling God of one's love and asking for blessing), petitional prayer (asking God for material things), ritual prayer (reciting prayers), meditative prayer (quiet thoughts and reflection), and prayer experience (inspired thoughts and deeper insight). Such a model contains two measures, prayer experience and meditative prayer, which are consistent with James and Wells' (2003) general cognitive-behavioural framework and the two specific hypotheses proposed by these authors.…”

“…There is an opportunity for the development of empirical research in this area from the potential use of a cognitive-behavioural framework (James & Wells, 2003). James and Wells propose two basic mechanisms, in the form of hypotheses that underlie the relationships between dimensions of religiosity and mental health that promote positive mental health: (a) a mental model that provides guidance for appraising life events, and (b) religious behaviours that provide self-regulation of cognitive, specifically thinking, processes.…”

“…The first cognitive-behavioural hypothesis is based on theoretical perspectives of Peterson and Roy (1985) and McGuire (1981) who suggest religiosity provides an interpretative framework that allows the individuals to make sense of their existence and contributes to an individual's self-perception, their own importance within the world, and the meaning and purpose behind life events (James & Wells, 2003). The second cognitivebehavioural mechanism is religious behaviours that contribute to self-regulation, or metacognitions, by reducing self-focus, worry, and stress, and therefore, lead to better subjective well-being.…”

“…This hypothesis is based on the findings that some religious beliefs may increase, or be the result of attention to oneself, and that this is related to emotional disorder, obsessiveness, guilt, and worry (Wells, 1997;Wells & Hackman, 1993). James and Wells (2003) have suggested that meditative prayer may enable individuals to reduce self-focus, to engage mentally with stress, and therefore, lower worry and rumination. Research notes that meditation can aid mental health by way of the individual spending time in quiet reflection, being allowed to spend time to understand a context to the world and deal effectively with daily occurrences (Monk-Turner, 2003).…”

“…- Figure 1 about here - Figure 1 shows the integration of James and Wells' (2003) cognitive-behavioural framework and Poloma and Pendleton's (1991) prayer model in predicting better mental health. Within this model it is proposed that two particular dimensions of prayer (experience and meditative) will be shown to be important in predicting subjective well-being.…”