Investigating the relationship between religious orientation, spiritual health and self-expression skills (assertiveness) among drug addicts in the addiction camp of Ilam city

Dissertation for Master's Degree in Psychology (M.A)

Trend: General

Abstract

Research on the relationship between religion and health has often shown positive relationships between these two variables. People who have a weak sense of social and religious adequacy, turn to drugs to escape social anxiety and are vulnerable. On the other hand, by destroying moral, human and religious values ??and distancing people from the transcendental nature of man, addiction makes them susceptible to accepting an absurd and destructive culture. Therefore, the role of religion in preventing social harm is such that many great theorists of the world have considered religion as a strong factor against social harm. The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between religious orientations, spiritual health and self-expression skills among addicts of Ilam Addiction Camp. This research is practical in terms of purpose, and descriptive in terms of data collection and survey method, and cross-sectional in terms of type, and the necessary data to test the hypotheses were collected through a questionnaire. The statistical population of this study is 140 addicts of Ilam drug addiction camp, 103 of whom were selected as a sample using Cochran's formula and stratified sampling method was used. And after collecting the questionnaires and entering the data into the SPSS software, the reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) was calculated, which is 74.3%. And it shows that the subjects have very high integration and internal stability. The method used to test the hypotheses is the Pearson correlation coefficient method. Conclusion: According to the results of the research, there is a relationship between religious orientation and self-expression skill (assertiveness) and also spiritual health with self-expression skill (assertiveness) among addicts of Ilam Addiction Camp, and addicts who have internal religious orientation have more spiritual health, assertiveness and self-expression.

Key words: religious orientation, spiritual health, self-expression, addicts

Introduction

progress and dynamics and The upliftment of any society is not only in having healthy and efficient elements and members in that society, people who, in addition to their physical condition, are also in a balanced and desirable level in terms of mental and emotional condition. Undoubtedly, the symmetry of physical and mental health is the main result of having a flourishing society with a future. Mental health is a very important category because the influence of mind and spirit on physical performance is not hidden from anyone. In this way, our religious elders as well as medical scientists have emphasized the issue of mental health for a long time.

In today's societies and especially with the entry into the 21st century, the vast majority of people are aware of the health principles related to their various physical dimensions. But unfortunately, the majority of the society does not care about the very important mental health of themselves and their children, and better yet, they are not aware of it (Milani Far, 2019). While according to the statistics of different countries, the number of people suffering from psychological problems is increasing. Although it seems that all human beings are responsible for their actions and health, but in the case of substance dependence and addiction, the problem is a little more complicated, which means that an addicted person is not just a consumer who consumes a substance whenever he wants and stops it whenever he doesn't want to. In fact, it is a set of mental, psychological, family, social, economic, cultural and other factors. They push the person in such a direction that usually not all of them are noticed at the first glance and they affect the treatment process, and of course the addiction itself and the substance dependent person also affect the above factors and forces the family and society to react in a specific way, so recently the behavior of the family and their role in the continuation of the person's addiction has been emphasized. Let the person not start using drugs again. The answer to this question is a little difficult and the instructions depend on the conditions of the person and his family, and maybe the answer to what should not be done is easier.. (Biabanagard, 1373)

Empowerment [1] is the first and most agreed characteristic of codependency [2] in which family members think they have the least control over empowering people to use drugs, and that is due to social pressure on family support people such as wife and mother who support other family members or there may be unhealthy interpersonal dependencies between family members where one person supports an addicted person. Both of these behaviors and feelings cause resistance to changing addictive behavior. Therefore, in order to prevent the occurrence of psychological imbalances and human deviation from the straight path, it is necessary to recommend the return to the pure divine nature, as well as the power of self-expression so that the human being is away from the stimulating factors that lead him away from the straight path and does not deviate from this right path. This is the turning point of the relationship between religion and mental health; Because mental health requires a complete understanding of the human psyche; Religion originates from divine knowledge and the creator has full knowledge of the soul of his creation. Therefore, religion can provide comprehensive information about the human psyche, and its teachings can be a perfect guide for maintaining mental health. (Biabanagard, 1373).

1-2- Statement of the problem

According to the latest sociological researches, 95% of people believe in the existence of God. Researchers have not found any human race that does not have some kind of religion. Religion, as a set of beliefs about dos and don'ts as well as specific and generalized values, is considered one of the most effective psychological supports and is able to provide the meaning of life in the moments of life, and in certain circumstances, by providing explanatory supports, it can save a person from suspense and meaninglessness. Amling refers to religion as an organized set of beliefs that provide answers to life's questions. And it is organized in the form of religious texts, rituals and practices (Wolf [3], 2011). Spikla and colleagues discuss religion as a reference system for interpreting life events. Religion is thought of as a meaningful system that people use to help them understand global issues, predict, control events, and preserve their dignity. In this context, one of the religious and religious issues, which has been raised by researchers as an indicator of following or wanting to religious teachings in the background of research, is religious orientation. This concept refers to the instrumental and non-instrumental reasons of people in performing religious actions. (John Zaguri, 2008) Religious orientation is: a person's performance based on his religious beliefs. Religious orientation is defined as giving authority to the structure of relationships in all its dimensions, in the light of the relationship between man and God. In the field of psychology, Allport is the first researcher who has investigated religious orientation. Allport's meaning of religious orientation was a combination of religious beliefs, behaviors and motivation. From Alport's point of view [4], this religious orientation is in two forms: internal religious orientation and external religious orientation. (Bahrami, 1389) People with external orientation accept and follow religious beliefs. This group participates in religious ceremonies to the extent that it helps them to achieve their material goals such as social image, welfare and comfort, support and approval. But the inner religious orientation is considered beyond and more sublime than this set of goals. In this orientation, faith is valuable and useful for its own sake, not as a means to an end. Allport described external religion as an immature or less mature religion than internal religion. According to him, external religion has less therapeutic and preventive aspects than internal religion. It is only an inwardly oriented religion that guarantees mental health. Today, attention to the spiritual dimension of health has been considered in many definitions of health, and suggestions have been made to include spiritual health as one of the dimensions of health in the World Health Organization's definition of health (Allport, 2010). When the goal is to have spiritual health, a sense of comfort, inner peace and so on. It is stated, this leads to the conclusion that due to the difference of people, what may create a feeling of comfort and peace for one person, may not work for another. So everyone should look for something that brings comfort, hope, meaning and inner peace to him. Spiritual health is a term that was proposed in the new medical knowledge in 1979 by the World Health Organization as the fourth pillar of health and was agreed upon by European governments in the Copenhagen Treaty for Social Development.