As we prepare to explore the connections between mental illness, creativity, and spirituality, there is value in reviewing the historical tensions between psychiatry and religion. Over their respective histories, psychiatry and religion have had a complicated, at times collaborative and at times competitive, relationship. Since the earliest days of Western medicine, scientifically-trained physicians have recognized that religion and spirituality can affect the mind for both good and ill. Historically regarded as the first spiritual healer, the shaman is a prototype of the modern physician and psychotherapist. Prior to the fall of the Roman Empire and the growth of the Catholic Church, priests and physicians were often the same individuals in different civilizations around the world (Bhugra, 1996; Kinzie, 2000; Thielman, 2000).
For all cultures, it has been a long journey to look for natural rather than supernatural explanations for mental illness. Ancient Jews seemed to have viewed madness in both natural and supernatural terms. Most Christian thinkers saw no inherent contradiction between a medical view of madness and a Christian view. Islam has a long tradition of compassion for those who were labeled mad. On the other hand, religions of Asia and Africa tended to fuse ideas of madness and demonic possession. Enlightened views on the mentally ill were found in early Christian hospitals, by Buddhist missionaries, Confucian scholars, medieval Jewish physicians, and in the Islamic hospitals of the Middle Ages. However, many societies later reverted to unscientific and at times inhumane practices. These were epitomized in the medieval Christian Inquisition, where mentally ill individuals, accused of being possessed by the devil, were put to death as witches (Kinzie, 2000; Thielman, 1998).
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