Introduction
For many people religion is one way that we
understand the world and give meaning to our
lives and certainly people with schizophrenia are
no different.
Religion and spirituality often play an
important part in many people’s experiences of
schizophrenia. For some sufferers religious
delusions or intense religiously-based irrational
thinking may be a component of their symptoms,
for instance they may believe that they have been
sent by God to become a great prophet. However
for other people religion and spirituality play an
important role in their recovery process. They
may find that their spiritual beliefs and practices
help them to make sense of the world in a way
that they could not when they were suffering
from psychotic delusions and that membership of
a supportive faith community provides vital
fellowship when faced by the everyday problems
of living with a serious mental health condition.
In this information sheet Rob Foster, a practicing
Christian, gives his take on how his faith helped
him interpret and live with his mental health
condition. In our related information sheets other
writers give their own accounts of how their
spiritual and religious beliefs have helped them
from the point of view of other religious and
spiritual traditions.
Why is spirituality important?
It is a modern definition of our status as higher
beings that humans are intellectual and emotional
beings who seek a harmonious balance between
the two however, most humans tend to be
dominated by either quality.
Although this is true,
some humans have achieved cognitive control
over these using the traditional third
characteristic of humanity: that is that we are also
spiritual beings.
Spirituality can be embraced as
an underpinning belief system that provides the
cognitive power to unite and control both
intellectual processes and the resultant emotional
response and general mood.
How does schizophrenia affect us?
Although the exact physical causes of
schizophrenia are not yet fully understood, the
categories of symptoms are well established.
Schizophrenia is a ‘multi lateral’ condition as it
has three distinct categories of symptoms,
namely positive, negative and cognitive.
The positive symptoms include the psychotic
symptoms such as paranoid delusions,
hallucinations, hearing voices etc. The negative
are an absence of basic and complex emotions,
urges or feelings such as an inability to
experience pleasure, lack of motivation, lack of
speech, absence of desire or arousal.
The cognitive impairment associated with
schizophrenia is less well known and includes
dementia, poor working memory, impaired
analytical and interpretive ability regarding new
information with inability to then use it and
attention deficit.
If we go back to the definition of the nature of
human beings as emotional and intellectual
beings, schizophrenia breaks down both these
aspects of human existence and consciousness.
The positive and cognitive symptoms deconstruct
or impair intellect, higher reasoning, sensory data
including the quality, reliability and function of
memories and the negative symptoms destroy
the emotional aspect of being human. Thus
schizophrenia can attack our very perception of
being human.
This is where the third and illusive aspect of
human existence and consciousness can not only
restore a person with schizophrenia’s reputation
as a human and higher being but actually allow
them to transcend those without mental illness
who confine themselves to intellect and emotion
either in conflict or with one aspect dominant
over the other. This not only limits imagination
but also the perception of themselves and reality.
What is spirituality?
Spirituality can include faith in a particular
religion, the ability to feel or perceive a God like
presence in one’s daily life or the emanations
from such an entity, a feeling of oneness with the
universe, an altered perception of time, loss of
self-consciousness replaced with self-reflection, a
perception of reality and ones self within it can
be altered.
There is a commonality between the
outcome of religious or spiritual practices such as
prayer or meditation as both states can achieve
this overall spirituality and greater cognitive
power and are thus able to improve control over
emotions, mood, imagination, instinctive feelings
and rational judgement.
This means that this overall sense of faith or
spirituality appears to be the emergent property
of many functions in the brain. This state allows
certain emotional states to become almost
instinctive, usually an achievement of an
enlightened state of joy and peace that can
simply not be generated by standard intellectual
or emotional stimulation and range. This then
creates a positive feedback loop not only
stimulating profoundly optimistic cognitive
processes and outcomes which then reinforce not
just this almost enlightened mood but also one’s
faith or spiritual philosophy thus empowering
further the conscious cognitive ability to
contemplate God or the universe and switch on
or turn up areas of the brain involved in the
perceptual and interpretive functions along with
the emotional centres.
So spirituality can function as both a foundation
upon which every thought, feeling and action is
based and an emergent property of the perfect
harmonious unity of thought and feeling that
cycle in ever increasing circles in perpetual
motion.
How does Christian faith help in recovery?
To a Christian, faith in God’s love and infinite
goodness is the foundation of their beliefs and
practices and it is this strength of faith that is the
key to recovery in schizophrenia. All people with
schizophrenia will be familiar with the positive
symptoms including voices, hallucinations and
paranoid delusions.
Using faith in God’s love and
goodness can help break the cycle of symptoms:
thought then feeling. As a Christian, holding on to
the faith that no matter what you see, hear or
think, on the basis of God’s love and goodness
means everything will ultimately result in a happy
conclusion. Let this notion dominate every
thought process and intercept every faulty signal
in the brain with this burning faith and the
resultant emotional response will be a warm
positive feedback.
This is almost a form of personal cognitive
behavioural therapy and eventually this becomes
the brain’s learned response.
Fear subsides and no longer drives thought and imagination, instead
a happy optimism influences thought and
becomes the normal automatic response. This
allows strength of will and even confidence to
return and this can signal the start of a good
sturdy recovery. Christians should always
remember that to the darkness, Jesus came as
the light to free us from sin and death with signs
of faith and words of hope, He touched
untouchables with love and washed the guilty
clean.
This whole process is strengthened and fuelled by
study of the Gospels. Start with Mark’s Gospel
and read His words daily. Pray and have faith
always to trust in God and know Him through
knowing Christ. Remember, the key to enabling
your sustained recovery is faith, faith what you
know of God through Christ, faith in prayer and
faith in the scriptures.
This form of “self CBT” using faith untangles and
dismantles the faulty paranoid circuitry that forms
the basis and delusion. In addition the positive
symptoms diminish as we no longer allow them
to drive our emotional and behavioural
responses.
What does our understanding of the brain
science tell us about spirituality?
It has been observed using brain imaging
techniques that the activity in certain areas of the
brain in spiritual or religious states is much more
active than normal. In particular the frontal lobe
during prayer shows much more activity than
usual and there is a resultant activation of other
areas of the brain in unison in a way which does
not usually occur through other means.
Secondly, activity in areas of the brain such as
the thalamus, which is involved with perceptions
of reality, is increased. The sustained moods or
these heightened instinctive emotional states that
form part of the essence of spirituality such as
peace, joy and universal love can be explained by
the concept of neuroplasticity. This is the way in
which brain cells make new connections in
response to new information and stimuli. It can
be the way in which the brain can repair itself by
learning new ways of thinking about things when
faced with adverse conditions.
When certain pathways in the brain are regularly
and intensely used and activated, the brain
creates a permanent circuit. These circuits or
pathways are able to link thought, belief,
judgement and emotional response thus enabling
spiritual concepts like absolute faith, feeling God’s
love, the deconstruction of internal self versus
external reality replaced by that feeling of
oneness with the universe or the constant inner
warmth of positive feedback from adhering to a
set of values.
Conclusion and hypothesis
So it can be seen that faith in something greater
than man unlocks or activates God- given
functions within all of us to achieve a higher state
so we may truly hear the word to God, feel His
love as though it were tangible and perceived on
some energetic level that resonates our energy so
we become beacons of faith and love.
To know without doubt that no matter what
happens the ultimate goal is goodness through
boundless love and in it mercy, and this is the
only thing in life we should trust absolutely. The
resultant spiritual highs go beyond anything our
intellect or normal emotional range can generate.
Faith truly allows a new level of being and a
sustained recovery and it converts an often
terrified, asocial and self-perceived invalid into a
peaceful, joyous human created in the image of
God, brimming with Christian values towards
others and the situations they face in their own
lives. The final point; faith brings order out of
chaos.
References
Religious and Spiritual Practices- a neurochemical
perspective- Dr Andrew Newberg 2006
Where God and Science Meet- Patrick McNamara
12006
Neurophysiology of Religious Experience- Elaine
Hull
Evidence for progression of brain structural
abnormalities in schizophrenia- Dennis Valikoulis,
Stephen J Wood, Patrick D McGorry, Christos
Pantelis
Acknowledgements
Our thanks to Rob Foster for writing this piece.
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