Sweet Delight and Endless Night: A Qualitative Exploration of Ordinary and Extraordinary Religious and Spiritual Experiences in Bipolar Disorder

Abstract

The authenticity of religious and spiritual experiences during mania is an important subject for bipolar patients. The exploration of such experience in bipolar disorder is the central point of this qualitative study. A psychiatrist and a hospital chaplain conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with recovered participants, recruited from mental health care institutions in the Netherlands, the patients' association and via the internet, about their religious and spiritual experiences during illness episodes and in stable times. A variety in types (such as divine presence, unity, mission, meaningful synchronicity) during mania was reported, which were on a sliding scale with experiences/views in stable times in more than half of the interviews. During depression, absence of religious or spiritual experience was predominant. The reported experiences were viewed by most participants as both authentically religious or spiritual but also related to the disorder, requiring therefore language that transcended medical terminology. Also indicated is the relevance of the results for fundamental discussions about the nature or religious experience.

Holy Apparition or Hyper-Religiosity: Prevalence of Explanatory Models for Religious and Spiritual Experiences in Patients with Bipolar Disorder and Their Associations with Religiousness

“…Jerome Kroll and William Sheehan (1989), reported an incidence of 55% of 'personal religious experiences' during a manic episode versus 35% of the general population having 'personal religious experiences' in a subsample (n = 11) with BD of a larger inpatient group. Ouwehand et al (2018Ouwehand et al ( , 2019a found that the occurrence of specific self-reported religious or spiritual experiences of persons with BD did not differ much from frequencies of comparable experiences in the general population. However, these experiences occurred significantly more often in persons with bipolar I disorder (BD I) than with bipolar II disorder (BD II) and were reported as occurring more often during mania than not.…”

“The Awful Rowing toward God”: Interpretation of Religious Experiences by Individuals with Bipolar Disorder

“…Very few studies concerning the religious experiences of people with BD are available (Gallemore Jr et al 1969;Kroll and Sheehan 1989;Ouwehand et al 2018). Studies of the interpretation of religious experiences of persons with a bipolar diagnosis are not known to the authors; this is the focus of the current study.…”

“…Hitherto, there has been little research done into the kinds of religious experience that can occur in BD and the influence such experiences have on persons with this diagnosis. A qualitative study (Ouwehand et al 2018) indicated different types of self-reported religious and spiritual experiences in BD, predominantly occurring during mania. Most mentioned were experiences of the presence of a transcendental reality, either divine or more this-worldly, of unity, of vocation/mission, or of meaningful synchronicity.…”

“…In the current study, the topics presented are 'interpretation of the religious or spiritual experiences occurring in illness episodes' and 'treatment experiences and expectations.' A previous publication addressed the phenomenological description of religious or spiritual experiences during mania and depression and in stable periods (Ouwehand et al 2018). The interviews lasted approximately two hours and were carried out by a hospital chaplain (the first author) and a psychiatrist or trainee psychiatrist.…”

“…First, the theme 'mood swings and development of the illness' is addressed. Not only did the content of the experiences appear to be episodedependent (Ouwehand et al 2018), but the ways participants interpreted their religious experiences were influenced by mood swings and the different phases in the development of the illness. 'Recurring doubt and distance from religiosity,' the 'discrepancy' between the experiences and normal daily life, and 'finding balance' were subthemes here.…”