Discuss with examples, how religion can be harmful to clients’ emotional and physical well-being.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Although it is evident that religion and spirituality can be beneficial to clients and act as a protective factor, there is evidence that spirituality and religion can harm clients’ emotional and physical well-being. An example in the text is a client who becomes a vegetarian because of religious beliefs in reincarnation, whereby some humans may be reincarnated as animals. As indicated by the authors of your text, the practice of remaining a vegetarian may cause some health problems for some clients. There is the issue of adaptive and maladaptive spirituality and religion. The religious cults are a ready example of maladaptive religion and spirituality that can be harmful to clients’ emotional and physical well-being. While adaptive or healthy religion and spirituality may provide its members benefits such as supportive networking and kinship-type relationships, maladaptive religion is rigid, intolerant, authoritarian, controlling, and abusive. Followers of maladaptive or unhealthy religions may feel judged and pressured to conform to the expectations and rules of the leaders, making such religions dangerous for the followers with the potential for emotional and physical harm.