Spiritual care and psychiatric treatment: an introduction

The Patron of the Royal College of Psychiatrists has pointed out the irony involved in recording patients' religion, without seeking to discover that all this means to them in terms of understanding and coping with their illness (HRH The Prince of Wales, 1991). One College past-President (Sims, 1994) firmly recommends evaluating the religious and spiritual experiences of our patients in assessing aetiology, diagnosis, prognosis and planning treatment. Across the water, an American Journal of Psychiatry editorial (Andreasen, 1996) has it that, ‘We must practice and preach the fact that psychiatrists are physicians to the soul as well as the body.’