Mental health training in catholic seminaries

THE RELIGION AND MENTAL HEALTH PROJECT at Loyola University in Chicago has been an attempt to increase and improve the resources for preserving mental health. It was to this end that the National Institute :of Mental Health, at the instigation of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health, granted funds for basic research in the area of the possible relation between religion and mental health. Religious workers are in a crucial position, it is commonly thought, because of which they are able to make significant contributions to mental health at every age level in the life of human beings. There are resources available from science and from religion for preserving mental health. The Loyola Project was an effort to ascertain whether the findings of modern science that deal with mental health were being utilized to the fullest extent in current seminary training programs, and whether these findings could not perhaps be more dynamically presented so as to improve this training. The Loyola Project emphasized the multi-discipline approach in its plan of action. Disciplines represented on the advisory committee included: theology, psychiatry, medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, and administration. Existing agencies in the mental health field, directors of institutes and workshops in mental health, and seminary heads and administrators co-operated. The Project aimed to prepare and present materials and methods that have been developed mostly in the behavioral sciences to assist in the training of clergymen. The final result would be that clergymen, in their role as clergymen, might contribute in their own unique way to the mental health of the nation. It was learned by means of questionnaires sent ou t to various semimary authorities that they are interested in and concerned with these topics.