Transcultural Psychiatry最新文献

{"title":"Prevalence of spiritual and religious experiences in the general population: A Brazilian nationwide study.","authors":"Maria Cristina Monteiro de Barros, Frederico Camelo Leão, Homero Vallada Filho, Giancarlo Lucchetti, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Mario Fernando Prieto Peres","doi":"10.1177/13634615221088701","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615221088701","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Spiritual and religious experiences (SREs) are common subjective phenomena related to the awareness of transcendence, which transforms one's perception of life, death and suffering. Despite the high prevalence of SREs worldwide, not enough studies have been conducted beyond Europe and North America. To fill this gap, this study investigates the prevalence of SREs in Brazil and their association with socio-demographic variables. This online cross-sectional study includes participants from all regions of Brazil. Sixteen SREs were investigated, being categorized into 4 groups: mystical, mediumistic, psi-related and past life/near-death experiences. Prevalence was calculated as percentages and multinomial logistic regression models were used. A total of 1,053 Brazilians were included; 92% reported one SRE in their lifetime and 47.5% experienced at least one SRE frequently. Participants reported having had at least one mystical experience (35%), one psi-related experience (27.7%), and one mediumistic experience (11%). Half the sample had \"felt the presence of a dead person\" and 70% experienced precognitive dreams at least once. In a multivariate analysis, SREs were associated with the female gender but showed no associations with income, education, employment status and ethnicity. Mystical experiences were associated with age 55 and older. In summary, SREs are very prevalent across different strata of the population, and deserve more attention from researchers and clinicians in order to clarify their nature and implications for mental health care and research in Brazil.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":"1 1","pages":"422-436"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46055167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Religiosity, perceived anti-Semitism, xenophobia and mental health: Experiences of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union in Austria and Germany.","authors":"Beata Trilesnik, Iris Tatjana Graef-Calliess, Thomas Stompe, Thomas Fydrich","doi":"10.1177/13634615221107204","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615221107204","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Research about the relation between migration and mental health as well as factors influencing the mental health of migrants has been growing because challenges of migration can constitute a significant mental health burden. However, its divergent findings seem to reflect group-specific differences, e.g., regarding country of origin and receiving country. Almost no empirical studies about individual migrant groups in different receiving countries have been undertaken so far. The present population-based study explores symptoms of depression, anxiety, and somatization as well as quality of life in an Austrian and a German sample of ex-Soviet Jewish migrants. We mainly investigate the relationship of religiosity and perceived xenophobic and anti-Semitic discrimination to the psychological condition of the migrants. Standardized self-report scales, specifically the Beck-Depression-Inventory-II (BDI), State-Trait-Anxiety-Inventory (STAI), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and WHO Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF), were used to measure mental health. Ex-Soviet Jewish migrants in Austria showed significantly more symptoms of depression than those in Germany. Regression analyses support a protective effect of religiosity on mental health in the sample in Germany and an adverse effect of perceived discrimination in the sample in Austria. The present study reveals a less favorable situation for ex-Soviet Jewish migrants in Austria, in terms of income, residence status, and xenophobic attitudes in the local population, compared to the group in Germany. Furthermore, our data suggest that the receiving country matters for the mental health of this migrant group. However, further research is needed to support these conclusions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"478-491"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12449600/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9294721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Survivors, users, or peers? Translating identities and decolonizing mental health in China.","authors":"Zhiying Ma","doi":"10.1177/13634615251359756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13634615251359756","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In recent years, new identities have emerged for psychiatric \"patients\" in China, such as \"users,\" \"survivors,\" and \"peers.\" This article draws on my long-term research on and engagement with the country's mental health field to explore the emergence of these identities as translations of globally circulating ideas and practices. Rather than viewing them as mere derivatives of Euro-American originals, I demonstrate that they are strategic translations initiated by activists and academics to resist the hegemony of biomedical and institutional psychiatry, and that they have created opportunities for policy and service reform, recognition, and empowerment. However, my analysis also reveals that the global and local authority these translations leverage has produced exclusion and marginalization. In particular, the mandate for self-advocacy against institutions underlying activists' promotion of the user and survivor identities could overlook people's vulnerability, dependency, and differences in communities. Meanwhile, attempts by academics like me to establish peer supporters as recognized paraprofessionals within the system could reproduce existing hierarchies and generate new frictions among persons with lived experience. I suggest that academics, activists, and other stakeholders involved in translating identities in the Global South should critically examine the processes and their potentially oppressive power effects, to reflect on our gatekeeping roles and center the diverse leadership of impacted individuals, and to boldly experiment with new forms of translation together for continuous (self-)decolonization.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"13634615251359756"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144761795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"It's easy to dismiss it as simply a spiritual problem.\" Experiences of mental distress within evangelical Christian communities: A qualitative survey.","authors":"Christopher E M Lloyd, Jonathan Hutchinson","doi":"10.1177/13634615211065869","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615211065869","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Evidence suggests that faith communities can support psychological wellbeing but can also potentially diminish wellbeing through stigma, imposed spiritualization, and marginalization. In particular, for evangelical Christianity, whose theological praxis typically accentuates literalist spiritual onto-etiologies, including the belief that mental distress can be treated solely through spiritual intervention (prayer, fasting, and deliverance), there may be negative implications for Christians with mental distress. The current qualitative survey examined the responses of 293 self-identified evangelical Christians, concerning their experiences of mental distress in relation to their church community. An inductive thematic analysis revealed five themes: 1) Tensions between Faith and Suffering; 2) Cautions about a Reductive Spiritualization; 3) Feeling Othered and Disconnected; 4) Faith as Alleviating Distress; and 5) Inviting an Integrationist Position. Findings reveal stigma and the totalizing spiritualization of mental distress can be experienced as both dismissive and invalidating and can problematize secular help-seeking. This lends support to previous research which has suggested that evangelical Christian communities tend to link mental distress to spiritual deficiencies, which can hold potentially negative consequences for their wellbeing. Nevertheless, a degree of complexity and nuance emerged whereby spiritual explanations and interventions were also experienced as sometimes helpful in alleviating suffering. Overall, findings suggest evangelical communities are increasingly adopting integrationist understandings of mental distress, whereby spiritual narratives are assimilated alongside the biopsychosocial. We argue that church communities and psychotherapeutic practitioners should support movement from a position of dichotomizing psychological suffering (e.g., spiritual vs. biopsychosocial) towards a spiritually syntonic frame, which contextualizes distress in terms of the whole person. Considerations for psychotherapeutic practice and further research are made.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"437-449"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39829443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Religion and spirituality in cultural psychiatry.","authors":"G Eric Jarvis, Laurence J Kirmayer","doi":"10.1177/13634615251367860","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615251367860","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Religion is central to the theory and practice of cultural psychiatry because it is an important determinant of health, wellness and resilience, and it shapes illness experience, coping and recovery. Religious identity and practice can also result in stressful situations and predicaments that lead to mental health problems. This editorial essay introduces a thematic issue of <i>Transcultural Psychiatry</i> on religion and spirituality and outlines key components of religious competency in clinical care. Articles in this issue present new research on the role of religion and spirituality in mental health, clinical approaches to working with religious patients, the development of religious interventions, the negative effects of religious practice, and the complex interplay between religion, culture and context. Given its central role in people's lives, religion is a key consideration in psychiatric assessment and treatment and can be an important resource for mental health promotion.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"413-421"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144974217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Between tradition, faith and biomedicine: Caregivers' perceptions of child and adolescent mental health services in Sierra Leone.","authors":"Moritz Matakas, Andreas Papamichail, Dawn Harris, Joshua Duncan, Abdulai Jawo Bah, Temitope Ademosu","doi":"10.1177/13634615251359373","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615251359373","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In 2016, the Ola During Children's Hospital (ODCH) in Freetown, Sierra Leone, introduced the country's first and only Children and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) service with treatments based on a biomedical understanding of mental illness. The service at ODCH contrasts with the prevailing traditionally defined mental health landscape in and around Freetown, Sierra Leone, which largely relies on supernatural and spiritual explanatory models. The study investigates how service-users perceive the biomedical treatment practices and makes a first attempt at examining how the different services relate to each other. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight female caregivers of children and adolescents with mental illness (aged 6-19), as well as with two traditional healers, two religious healers, and five mental health nurses. The interviews were thematically analysed following Braun and Clarke's six-phase approach, with Arthur Kleinman's concept of \"explanatory models\" (EMs) serving as the primary analytical lens to examine how understandings of illness shape perceptions and help-seeking behaviour. The study concludes first that biomedical explanations about children's mental health conditions were well received by care seekers and help to improve their understanding of the condition and ways to deal with it; second, the concept of EMs can be helpful to understand different help-seeking behaviours of caregivers of children with mental illness in Sierra Leone, however, this concept has to be taken as flexible and people adapt to what they are exposed to; and third, a scale-up of CAMH services should include awareness-raising among health practitioners and show itself open to cooperate with non-biomedical practitioners under certain conditions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"539-552"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144993993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Challenges and strategies in the psychiatric care of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population: A thematic analysis of 18 psychiatrist interviews.","authors":"Aaron M Bloch, Ezra Gabbay, Linda M Gerber, Anna Lopatin Dickerman, Samantha Knowlton, Joseph J Fins","doi":"10.1177/13634615221126052","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615221126052","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite the importance of accessible psychiatric care for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, prior research has characterized how stigma and suspicion of secular institutions limit mental healthcare utilization by this population. No study, however, has interviewed a cohort of psychiatrists to identify commonly encountered challenges or successfully employed strategies in the care of ultra-Orthodox Jewish psychiatric patients who have overcome these barriers to present for care. We recruited by snowball sampling from a sample of convenience 18 psychiatrists affiliated with the Weill Cornell Department of Psychiatry, experienced in the care of ultra-Orthodox Jewish patients. Each participant was engaged in a 20-45-min, semi-structured interview, which was subsequently transcribed, de-identified, and analyzed with combined deductive and inductive thematic analysis. We identified 12 challenges and 11 strategies as particularly significant in psychiatric work with ultra-Orthodox Jewish patients at every phase of treatment, including rapport-building, history-taking, diagnostic formulation, and achieving concordance with patient and family. These challenges and strategies revolved around themes of community stigma, an extended family-patient-community team, cross-cultural communication, culture-related diagnostic complexity, transference/countertransference, and conflicts between Jewish law /community norms and treatment protocol. Psychiatrists caring for ultra-Orthodox Jewish patients face a range of complex challenges stemming from factors unique to ultra-Orthodox Jewish religion, culture, and family/community structure. However, they have also identified strategies to manage these challenges and provide culturally sensitive care. Further research is necessary to directly elicit perspectives from within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and validate our initial findings.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"492-504"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"33501192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sufi music with makams for people with mild to moderate levels of depression and anxiety: A pilot feasibility randomised controlled trial.","authors":"R N Gurbuz-Dogan, A Ali","doi":"10.1177/13634615251357470","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615251357470","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is some evidence that Sufi music as a receptive music therapy might be beneficial for treatment of common psychological disorders, and mental well-being. The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of Sufi music intervention for adults with mild to moderate levels of depression and anxiety, attending Turkish community centres in England. This was a pilot randomised controlled trial of a 4-week Sufi makam music intervention with 60 participants conducted in two Turkish community centres in the UK with assessments at baseline, mid-intervention (2 weeks), post intervention (4 weeks) and at 2 weeks follow-up. The recruitment and retention rates in the intervention arm during the four weeks were 94.5% and 93.3%, respectively. The intervention was acceptable for most of the participants. According to analysis of clinical outcomes, Sufi music intervention was not associated with any clinical improvement in the music group relative to the control group when the means were compared at T3. However, when the results were adjusted for baseline scores as control variables in the linear regression, anxiety levels of the music group were significantly lower than the control group at the end of trial (<i>p</i> = .013), and mental and spiritual well-being had a statistically significant increase in the music group at the end of trial (<i>p</i> = .002; <i>p</i> <i><</i> <i>.</i>001, respectively). The Sufi music therapy intervention was found to be feasible, acceptable and convenient to deliver, and the recruitment and retention rates in the intervention group were high. Furthermore, assessment of the clinical outcomes suggests that the intervention may reduce anxiety and improve mental and spiritual well-being.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"515-527"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144733992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"\"Open\" reincarnation stories: The dialectic between doubt and certainty.","authors":"Maha Natoor, Avihu Shoshana","doi":"10.1177/13634615241296294","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615241296294","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This phenomenological study concerns the Druze cultural idiom Notq-the remembrance and talking about the previous incarnation. Specifically, it deals with stories that are open or referred to in the literature as unsolved. \"Open\" Notq stories are in contrast to solved ones in which the person's identity in the previous life is known and in many cases the person meets the previous life family. The study's core question is: What is the phenomenological experience of Druze who live with an \"open\" Notq? The study was based on interviews with 11 Israeli Druze women and men who have an open Notq story. The findings illustrate the open Notq scenario, the elements that validate it and the individual and collective implications of these stories. Through the open Notq cases we discuss the intersection between personal and master cultural narratives and the effects of this intersection on psychological well-being. We propose that the open Notq, despite its ambiguity and many unsolved questions, does not essentially harm the individual psychologically and may contain therapeutic value due to being consistent with the Druze reincarnation master narrative.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"505-514"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143122601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Investigation of mediumistic letter: A deceased son supposedly writes to his parents.","authors":"Betty Carakushansky Wainstock, Marcia Gomide, Júlio Silva, Alexander Moreira-Almeida","doi":"10.1177/13634615251357998","DOIUrl":"10.1177/13634615251357998","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mediumship is a well-accepted spiritual practice in Brazil relating to the grief process and beliefs in the afterlife. For this reason, there is considerable interest among Brazilians in trying to determine whether mediums can obtain information beyond what can be obtained through conventional means (Anomalous Information Reception - AIR). However, there is a dearth of in-depth qualitative studies about these issues. This study aimed to investigate reported AIR in a mediumistic trance and the meaning of this information to the family of the deceased. In a controlled observation-based study, following 43 seconds of filmed interaction with the parents, the medium wrote a letter attributed to their deceased son. Information obtained or deducible from the medium-sitter interaction was excluded from the items of information verifiable in the letter. The degree of accuracy and specificity of the remaining items were investigated in three interviews with the parents and through the deceased's documents and objects. An expert carried out a handwriting analysis of the letter's signature. The medium produced 19 items of information, one of which could not be evaluated, one that was unrecognized, two that were deducible, nine that were generic and six specific. Items of information described the deceased's present and past habits, plans, and distinguishing physical characteristics which came across to the parents as unlikely to be obtained through routine interactions or by chance. Comparison of signatures is common in mediumistic practice, and in this case, the signature had some general similarities to that of the deceased, but there were many differences in more subtle aspects. The production of six verifiable items of information that had not previously been communicated to the medium through conventional means illustrates what many Brazilians believe to be AIR phenomena. Qualitative studies of AIR can shed light on the practice of mediumship and its mental health implications, especially with respect to grief and loss in the Brazilian context.</p>","PeriodicalId":47864,"journal":{"name":"Transcultural Psychiatry","volume":" ","pages":"528-538"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144790415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}