title: Psychological benefits of Spiritual Baptist "mourning".
abstract: Members of the Spiritual Baptist Church in the West Indies engage in a ceremony called "mourning," which involves prayer , fasting, and the experiencing of dreams and visions while in isolation. Twenty-three church members who had undergone the experience were interviewed. Mourners cited six benefits of the practice: relief of depressed mood; attainment of the ability to foresee and avoid danger; improvement in decision-making ability; heightened facility to communicate with God and to meditate ; a clearer appreciation of their racial origins; identification with church hierarchy; and physical cures. Mourning appears to be a viable psychotherapeutic practice for these church members.
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D000368:Aged; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001460:Barbados / Q000208:ethnology; D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D004325:Dreams; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D008273:Magic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012069:Religion and Psychology