Do you believe in God? Some consider it a mental illness

Picture for representation. Photo: Reuters

The American Psychological Association (APA), after a five year study on devoutly religious people, will now consider an unassailable belief in a deity or a higher power to a point where it impairs one's ability to make conscientious decisions about common sense matters, as a mental illness.

The study showed that deeply religious people often suffered from paranoia, anxiety, emotional distress and hallucinations. The study also states that those who had poor health conditions considered God cruel, and those who consider God kind usually did not suffer from mental illnesses.

To give an example, Dr. Lillian Andrews, professor of psychology, said that the 'Jehovah Witnesses' will not accept life-saving donor blood under any circumstance and rather choose to die. According to the professor, such people should be declared 'mentally unfit' for decision making and saved using any appropriate method. The APA will persuade law makers to introduce legislation which would allow doctors the right to force life-saving treatment on those who refuse it for spiritual reasons.

Dr. Andrews also considers people claiming to possess self-healing powers, ability to communicate directly to a God and power to see spirits, as signs of a mental break and a loss of touch with reality. The new classification of archaic beliefs as mental disorder is treated as a step towards positive direction by the APA.  

More details about the study will be made available to the public in APA's upcoming journal that is expected to be released in August. 

With inputs from

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