A pragmatic approach to teaching psychiatry residents the assessment and treatment of religious patients

Objective: The authors descripe a pragmatic and atheoretical frameword for teaching psychiatry residents how to assess and treat religious patients. Results: The psychiatrist's goals in assessing the religious history are clarified. These goals differ between the assessment and treatment phases. During assessment, attention is paid to psychiatric phenomenology and careful history-taking, utilizing knowledgeable outside informants. A framework is presented for engaging religious patients, fostering therapeutic alliance, avoiding pitfalls, and facilitating treatment within the patient's religious context. Conclusions: Emphasizing knowledge of phenomenology and information gathering skills may be more effective than emphasizing broad knowledge of many religions, except for clinicians practicing within a particular religious community.