"Spiritual But Not Religious" Is Associated With Depression - Psychology Today

[Husseinisdoingfine]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-the-people/201804/spiritual-not-religious-is-associated-depression

https://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/09/the-spiritual-but-not-religious-likely-to-face-mental-health-issues-drug-use-study-says/

[vizual]

High IQ is also linked with depression. Although obviously not everyone with depression has a high IQ, lol

Edited March 9, 2022 by vizual

[SamC]

15 minutes ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-the-people/201804/spiritual-not-religious-is-associated-depression

https://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/09/the-spiritual-but-not-religious-likely-to-face-mental-health-issues-drug-use-study-says/

Lol

[The Lucid Dreamer]

Ignorance is bliss.

[Preety_India]

Being spiritual itself can make you depressed. Spirituality is not meant for everyone, especially not for those who are very fond of materialism. 

 

[thisintegrated]

Greater awareness = greater awareness of the good and bad. 

And the less mature someone is, the more they'll focus on the bad as they're scared and want to feel in control of the bad/depressing things they've just discovered.

 

There's actually a term for depressed, newly "spiritual" people.   We call them "stage Green".  They're aware enough to see the bad things in the world, but not quite aware enough to understand them or see the full picture.

Edited March 10, 2022 by thisintegrated

[Carl-Richard]

Is this a surprise?

[SgtPepper]

spirituality isn't grounded in anything. The community is also much more ambiguous & relative.

Religion is grounded in practices, structure, and narratives that capture the spiritual journey, morals that produce results in terms of happiness and stability. in my experience. This is more certainty and support in religions

[actuallyenlightened]

Yeah people need a theoretical understanding of what to expect ie a roadmap, before delving deep into it. Otherwise they'll fall into common ego traps

Edited March 10, 2022 by actuallyenlightened
typo

[WelcometoReality]

Maybe because people with mental health issues are looking for relief of suffering and turn towards spirtuality because of it.

Also the dark night of the soul looks pretty much like depression from the outside.

[hoodrow trillson]

What if they're right?

Although, in the 2nd link... they show a photo of what seems like a 'nu-age' guy meditating shirtless on a beach.  I think that's the 'type' that they're talking about.  

I seriously doubt they're talking about the common, well-adjusted folk who realized that material things, validation and money does not bring them happiness, so they look inward.  That's quite a bit different than someone looking to escape their mind with spirituality, meditation and psychedelic abuse.

 

[Aldrich]

On 3/10/2022 at 7:20 AM, Husseinisdoingfine said:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-the-people/201804/spiritual-not-religious-is-associated-depression

https://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/09/the-spiritual-but-not-religious-likely-to-face-mental-health-issues-drug-use-study-says/

I think it seems true that life is more difficult when you take a spiritual route without religion. Religion can make a spiritual path easier. HOWEVER, it doesn't mean being spiritual without a religion isn't a valid path. Being spiritual without a religion is a valid path but it is just psychologically harder.

[Flyboy]

Spiritual means actually facing your darkest emotions, traumas, and resistance head on.  If you make it all the way through this to liberation, you probably won't even identify as spiritual anymore.  So, the ones that do are basically still going through some aspect of this "dark night".  That would be my guess

It is an incorrect assumption to label this phase "depression" and then to demonize its correlation with spirituality though.  Very emblematic of scientific reductionism failing to understand the deeper picture.

[Rokazulu]

Not long ago I was in a church to see what was up.
And there definitely is something in the energy of these places that allow people to bond with each other in ways no other aspect of society can yet do. Their hive-like mind allows everyone to be on the same page, politically, socially, emotionally, and obviously spiritually. Their only arguments are usually within trivial matters.

Spirituality is such a broad stroke of the brush that it can't possibly be limited in such a way. But, I have seen glimpses of it cropping up here and there. Something like burning man gives people a taste of that, or perhaps a meditation retreat. But, still no uniformity of idea. Still in spirituality we see materialists, people who fall under left or right wing, obsession of paranoia to pure naivety. Many also, within spiritual movements are highly independent and prefer to do things their own way, which means any new kind of spiritual perma-culture organizations fizzle out as people assume they would enjoy it better by themselves.

But, in time spiritually minded people will go through the thick of their darkness and loathing and will have no choice but to come together and help create a new society. Hopi "Rainbow Warriors" prophecy feels relevant here.
 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Rokazulu