Religious Biographies and Professional Characteristics of Psychotherapists

This paper explores the relationships between religious biographies and professional characteristics among psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and psychiatric social workers. Using an indirect measure of practitioners' religious origins and a direct measure of their current position regarding religion, five types of religious biography are distinguished and compared: Christian Adherents, Christian Apostates, Jewish Adherents, Jewish Apostates and Secular Adherents--those who have maintained the areligiosity of their parents. All five types of religious biography are well represented in each of the three professional groups. The central findings of the study are that for each professional characteristic and within each profession: (1) Religious Apostates are consistently different from Religious Adherents having similar religious origins--Jewish Apostates differ from Jewish Adherents in the same way that Christian Apostates differ from Christian Adherents; (2) regardless of whether they are Apostates or Adherents, practitioners whose religious origins were Jewish are systematically different from those whose religious origins were Christian; (3) Secular Adherents are more similar to both Christian and Jewish Apostates than to either Christian or Jewish Adherents; (4) the differences between Christian, Jewish and Secular Adherents are considerably greater than the differences between Christian and Jewish Apostates; (5) the differences between Christian Adherents and Apostates are greater than those between Jewish Adherents and Apostates. The general conclusion of the study is that both religious origins and current religious position must be taken into account in order to analyze the relationships between religious and professional characteristics.