Relations between spirituality / religiosity and psychiatry in Brazil

Bases teóricas

Abstract

The relations between spirituality / religiosity and psychiatry in Brazil went through different moments. Reports are fragmented and distributed across multiple sources. In a narrative review this article aims to provide an overview of the protagonists and key facts of each stage from the 19th century to the present day. The appointment of Juliano Moreira, in 1903, to the direction of the Alienados National Hospital (Rio de Janeiro/RJ) is the initial milestone of Brazilian scientific psychiatry. The background is the Positivist view of the world and human being, with the expectation that science would supersede all religious and metaphysical beliefs. The vigor of Modernity had to weaken for another understanding to emerge. In the last decades of the 20th century, psychiatrists receptive to the theme of beliefs were able to open spaces in professional associations to discuss spirituality and not until the 1990s did national research in psychiatry begin to include spirituality. Since then, the body of evidence has grown rapidly but consistently. Worldwide - and in less than three decades - Brazil is already among the five countries with the highest number of publications on spirituality/religiosity and mental health, with the potential to remain in a prominent position, as it has a highly religious population, while emerges a new generation of researchers engaged in the theme.