The Political Dimension of Religion and Psychiatry
Governmentality of Existential Loneliness and Depression
Dissenting from the mainstream literature on religion and mental health, the following text endeavors to expose the political hidden behind the religious and psychiatric discourses. Instead of taking mental health as a constituted object of scientific inquiry and religion as a matter of simple belief or disbelief; in fact, taking scientific discourse itself as a product of power-relations, as opposed to a result of “natural” historical developments of “objective” methodologies; the aim will be to show how together, pastoral power and psychiatric power produce the very problems they claim to solve. “Mental Illness”, therefore, especially as it manifests through feelings of loneliness, existential dread and depression, will be shown to be significantly augmented, if not entirely produced, through the various techniques of governmentality, which are woven into religious and scientific discursive practices. In other words, the paper will describe the Biopolitical paradigm of religion and psychiatry, as they constitute, produce and thereafter manage and administer individuals with depression and depression-like symptoms.
Depression is often linked with existential anxiety as the feeling that one lacks real meaning in life. Whereas religion is supposed to ameliorate such spiritual loss of the self, it promotes insecure attachments, both in the abstract sense, as clinging to the idea of an all-powerful father figure, as well as in the concrete; through various confessional practices. According to a research article published by Dewitte, Vandenbulcke and Dezutter, “an important aspect of human flourishing, is meaning in life” and “presence of meaning in life positively predicted life satisfaction as well as negatively predicted depressive symptoms.” (2019, 6) Instead of providing meaning to human life, organized religion tends to instill self-deprecating thoughts, feelings of helplessness and produce insecure attachments. This results in conformity, docility and obedience. Through insecure attachments, individuals become predictable and much easier to govern. Such domestication of human lifestyles occurs at the expense of their mental health.
Thauvoye, Granqvist, Golovchanova, and Jessie Dezutter investigate the correlation between insecure attachments to God and depression, but also the impact of mourning on this relationship. Unsurprisingly, “study results confirmed a positive relationship between anxious attachment to God and depressive feelings” (2018, 9). Not to say that one cannot have a spirituality or a relationship with God that is healthy and beneficial to individual self-flourishing, but the fact is, that most of the time, organized religion fails to create the conditions for such a relationship.
Marc Roberts investigates the biopolitics of psychiatry in The production of the psychiatric subject: power, knowledge and Michel Foucault (2005). Exploring the relationship between power and knowledge in psychiatric practice, Roberts writes: “the manner in which a human being is made subject to control and dependence and the manner in which a human being is ‘tied’ to a specific identity through a conscience or self‐knowledge constitute two aspects of a single, dynamic process” (2005, 34) leaving aside the relevance of this account of power for religious identities, the first element of subjugation lies in the panopticonic relationship of observation and surveillance. Patients, as well as those who live under the threat of medical institutionalization, are subject to constant monitoring and the forceful imposition of normality through various subtle and not-so-subtle techniques of discipline and repression. Further in the article Roberts claims, that “Psychiatric discourses and their associated practices therefore can be seen to produce a person’s ‘subjective identity’ in so far as those discourses and practices serve to transform and delimit who or what a person understands themselves to be and, importantly, who or what others understand that person to be” (2005, 38). By drawing on scientific discourse which may be termed “really objective”, like biology and the natural sciences, psychiatry attempts to ground or even disguise what are in reality judgments of moral character and ethical imperatives. Judgments which could never be scientific or objective. And judgments which in reality serve to promote very particular class interests and extend the domain of sovereignty beyond its proper limits.
Articles Used:
1. Thauvoye, Evalyne, Pehr Granqvist, Nadezhda Golovchanova, and Jessie Dezutter. “Attachment to God, depression and loss in late life: a longitudinal study.” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 21, no. 8 (2018): 825–837.
2. Dewitte, Laura, Mathieu Vandenbulcke, and Jessie Dezutter. “Meaning in life matters for older adults with Alzheimer’s disease in residential care: associations with life satisfaction and depressive symptoms.” International psychogeriatrics 31, no. 5 (2019): 607–615.
3. Carrette, Jeremy. “Foucault, religion, and pastoral power.” A companion to Foucault (2013): 368–383.
4. Roberts, Marc. “The production of the psychiatric subject: power, knowledge and Michel Foucault.” Nursing Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2005): 33–42.
