The History of Religiously-Integrated Medicine and Prospects for Its Future Development
This article will systematize the remaining areas of tension between religion and science and discuss the possibilities for overcoming them by using the synergetic biopsychosocial spiritual methodology of psychiatric medicine as a paradigm of modern integrative medicine. The author’s methodology makes it possible to evaluate the human body’s resources as a biogenetic matrix of mentality: faith serves as a universal psychogenetic matrix of personality, stabilizing its structure and defining its lifestyle priorities; religion acts as an animogenetic matrix imbued with the image of a god possessing moral, philosophical, and ideological meaning; and the church serves as a sociogenetic component of social and state infrastructure. The religious potential of a four-dimensional mental epidemiology will be presented. Somatogenesis offers various forms of nutritional therapy and neuro-physiotherapy. Psychogenesis offers the potential of psychology and psychotherapy. Animogenesis offers the multi-confessional ethics of interpersonal communication. Sociogenesis offers various forms and methods of social service, compliance, and counseling. This article further highlights the particularities and scope of the new mental phenomenon of belief without religion, which is practiced by more than one billion people, a significant portion of the world's population. Later, this article will analyze the technological and socio-psychological resources of religiousness and spirituality, which raise the threshold for mental and social epidemics. In addition, this paper will discuss the roles that historical and modern forms of religious participation play in improving mental health and the treatment of mental illnesses. Religion remains the most ancient and universal protective and compensatory resource of civilization, fulfilling various human needs and structuring human mentality and identity. This paper systematizes the functions and algorithms that will help to realize the potential of religious resources in psychological, psychotherapeutic, psychiatric, and anti-addiction practice. Finally, this article will discuss promising areas for further research in mental epidemiology and Orthodox religious practice.