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Spiritual but not religious people have poorer mental health

A paper recently published in the British Journal of Psychiatry reported that people who stated that they had a spiritual but not religious understanding of life were more likely to have a mental disorder compared both to people who followed a traditional religion and to those who were neither religious nor spiritual. For example, spiritual but not religious people were at increased risk of drug dependence, generalised anxiety disorder, any phobia, and any neurotic disorder, as well as abnormal eating attitudes compared to people who were neither religious nor spiritual. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23174516

The reasons for these findings remain unclear, although I discuss some possibilities in a blog post on Psychology Today here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unique-everybody-else/201301/tr...

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Humble Pie on January 13, 2013 at 11:13am

My true confession: Back when I worked at the library, a big part of my job was processing all of the incoming magazines. I can't say I ever thought very highly of Psychology Today. It seemed pretty fluffy to me. But that article was solid. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for digesting that study for us. :)

Permalink Reply by Scott McGreal on January 14, 2013 at 1:13am

Thanks for your comment HumblePie, I'm glad you enjoyed it :-)

I make an effort to be solid rather than fluffy!

Permalink Reply by Humble Pie on January 15, 2013 at 12:49pm

A lot of people tend to get this idea that a solid article is a boring article, that you can't hold out facts and have fun at the same time. I think you really proved that idea wrong. I wish more media was like what you write!

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