Written By: Rebecca Quiñones, MTS

This year’s Conference on Medicine and Religion was hosted by the Harvard Health...

FOR CENTURIES, FAITH COMMUNITIES took care of the depressed. After Greek and Roman times, the depressed, if severely ill, were often housed in religious institutions such as priories or monasteries. As a result, depressive-like symptoms have long been of great interest to the Christian community. Though monasteries were cut off from Greek medicine, a knowledge of medicine was included in the general education of monastics, and many monasteries (such as Chartres) were centers of learning. Caregivers of the depressed in these institutions held the prevailing view of the humors,...

Dr. Nancy Kehoe, Director of Expanding Connections, is a licensed psychologist. She is a part-time Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has been affiliated with the Cambridge Health Alliance since 1976. She is a member of the Religious of the Sacred Heart and has held various leadership positions in her religious congregation. Dr. Kehoe has worked with staff members in mental health, geriatric and medical settings both locally in Massachusetts and nationally.

Dr. John Peteet, a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is one of the co-editors of the recently released collection entitled The Soul of Medicine: Spiritual Perspectives and Clinical Practice. The book consists of a series of engaging essays that explore the role and influence of spirituality...