A Jewish Psychiatrist’s Perspective

Abstract

In my personal history of becoming and being a Jewish psychiatrist, I try to convey some of the ways that the Jewish religion intersects with the practice of psychiatry and with the religion of Christianity. Growing up with an unrecognized Jewish identity into one that infused my professional and personal life provides an example of the mental health importance of religion and its role in psychiatry. The essential Jewish value of Tikkun Olam is to help make the world better. Evolving to interfaith and multicultural coalitions with other psychiatrists, and remembering that each religion and culture have subgroups of different denominations and cultures, I have observed, experienced, and recommended an expansion of our psychiatric model to include spirituality in a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. Being involved in the editing of the trilogy of books on Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and Christianity has pointed out to me how important religion can be for the mental health of the public and patients, as long as the conflicts and competition between – and sometimes within – the religions are not destructive. Similarly, the Judeo-Christian values of the United States may need broadening as the country becomes an increasingly multi-faith and multicultural one. Lingering still is the racism that involves patients from Black and other minority ethnic backgrounds, with most of those people being of the Christian faith. At such synchronicitous junctures of religion and psychiatry, I find a meaning for my life and perhaps yours.