Conversations with God or psychopathology? Black Caribbeans, Pentecostalism and mental health practice

Researchers, clinicians, and policy makers increasingly acknowledge the potentially positive role of spirituality and religion for managing mental illness, aiding recovery, and maintaining emotional and psychological wellbeing. Emerging evidence suggests that enhancing the role of faith-based organisation might be a particularly effective strategy for improving the mental health of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities who, whilst mistrustful of mainstream mental health services, are more amenable to receiving psychological support from non-statutory agencies and more likely to endorse spirituality in mental healthcare than their White counterparts. However, research also suggests that, at best, event those mental health professionals who are committed to integrating spirituality and religion into mental health practice lack the confidence and competence to do so. At worse, mental health practitioners are antagonistic – tending instead to pathologise spiritual beliefs and practices. Exploring the notoriously poor relationship between Black Caribbeans and the UK’s mental health system, the centrality of Black Majority churches in Caribbean communities in the UK, and the New Horizons suggested by emerging policy framework; this paper examines the opportunities and challenges for meaningfully incorporating spirituality into mental healthcare – particularly where practice may be regarded as ‘radical’ or ‘fundamentalist’ in nature.