When life shakes us with illness, grief, financial strain, or family conflict, many of us instinctively reach for faith. We pray more, lean on our communities, meditate, read sacred texts, or engage in rituals that have comforted generations before us. These practices are not simply routines; they are ways of coping with stress, of making sense of suffering, of finding a place to stand when the ground feels unsteady. Psychologists call this religious coping.
But while faith can be a profound source of resilience, it can also become a burden when misapplied. For some, spiritual practices restore hope, strengthen meaning, and draw them closer to community. For others, coping takes a darker turn: they may feel punished by God, abandoned by their tradition, or trapped by guilt and shame. In these cases, religious coping may deepen distress rather than relieve it. Faith-based counselling helps us untangle these dynamics — building on what heals while gently addressing what harms.
The Two Faces of Religious Coping
Kenneth Pargament, a leading voice in the psychology of religion, distinguishes between two broad forms of religious coping: positive and negative. Positive religious coping draws on trust in the divine, community support, or practices that bring peace. Negative coping, by contrast, arises when beliefs or practices feed fear, shame, or disconnection.
Positive religious coping can look like trusting in God’s presence while actively seeking help, finding comfort in prayer or meditation, or seeing suffering as an opportunity for growth rather than punishment. Many survivors of illness, for instance, describe how prayer groups, scripture, or meditation helped them endure treatment and maintain hope. Research consistently shows that these approaches are linked with lower depression, quicker recovery from illness, and a stronger sense of meaning. Harold Koenig, at Duke University’s Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, has reviewed more than a thousand studies demonstrating that spiritually engaged people often report greater wellbeing when their coping is framed positively.
Negative coping, however, follows a different path. A person may believe illness is divine punishment, feel abandoned by God, or interpret their anxiety as evidence of weak faith. Instead of providing comfort, rituals or prayers may become a source of distress when repeated obsessively out of fear. Julie Exline’s research on spiritual struggles highlights how people who feel judged or abandoned by their faith communities often carry heavier burdens of depression and anxiety. In these cases, faith has not failed — but the way it is interpreted becomes harmful.
How Religious Coping Shapes Everyday Life
The influence of religious coping reaches every corner of life. On a personal level, it shapes how people understand their emotions. Prayer or meditation may calm the mind, while feelings of guilt or divine punishment may worsen anxiety. In the workplace, faith practices often serve as anchors: a Muslim professional pausing for daily prayers may find renewed focus during a stressful day, while a Christian nurse reading scripture before a long shift may draw strength for compassionate care. But when coping takes negative forms, setbacks may be seen as curses or punishments, increasing hopelessness rather than resilience.
In families, religious coping can either unite or divide. Shared prayer or rituals often bring relatives closer together during crisis. A family gathering for Sabbath meals, a household breaking fast together, or parents teaching children mindfulness can be profound sources of connection. Yet when coping turns negative, tension arises: parents may push children to “have stronger faith” without recognising underlying depression, or spouses may blame each other for “not believing enough.” Instead of being a bridge, faith becomes another fracture line.
Across Different Traditions
Religious coping is not unique to one faith. In Christianity, it might be expressed through prayer, confession, or fellowship, with both the strength and the danger of guilt tied to sin. In Islam, practices of patience (sabr) and trust in God (tawakkul) often sustain believers, but intrusive doubts (waswasa) can also become tormenting. In Judaism, rituals and community life create resilience, yet the weight of observance can feel overwhelming to some. In Hinduism and Buddhism, meditation and compassion practices provide peace, though interpreting suffering only as karma can lead to self-blame. Traditional African traditions often lean on community and ancestral rituals for strength, but stigma sometimes discourages open acknowledgment of mental health needs.
The thread running through all these traditions is the same: when faith offers compassion and meaning, it heals. When it feeds fear or shame, it harms.
Why Counselling Matters
Faith-based counselling helps us examine how our coping is working for or against us. For someone caught in cycles of guilt, therapy provides a place to reframe beliefs — shifting from “I am being punished” to “my tradition calls me to resilience, compassion, and hope.” For those who feel abandoned by God, counselling offers space to voice anger, doubt, or grief without fear of judgment. And for people whose families or communities minimise their struggles, therapy validates their pain and equips them to seek help without shame.
Importantly, counsellors who respect faith do not force people to choose between therapy and spirituality. Instead, they integrate the two. A prayer may remain central, but rather than being repeated out of fear, it becomes a grounding ritual. Meditation is not dismissed as superstition but embraced as both a spiritual and psychological practice. Community involvement is encouraged when supportive, and gently disentangled when harmful.
Families and Communities
Religious coping rarely affects only the individual. Families often experience its ripple effects. When coping is positive, children learn resilience by watching their parents find strength in prayer or ritual. Spouses feel supported when they share meaning-making practices. Communities, too, grow stronger when they normalise faith-informed conversations about mental health.
But negative coping strains these same relationships. A child may grow up feeling ashamed of their sadness if told “you just need to believe more.” A spouse may feel abandoned if the other turns inward to cope alone. Communities may exclude members who admit to doubt or illness. In all these situations, counselling provides a bridge: affirming faith while dismantling stigma.
A Balanced Perspective
The research tells us something simple yet profound: religious coping is powerful. It can heal or harm depending on how it is experienced and supported. Pargament’s work shows that positive coping leads to resilience, while negative coping deepens wounds. Koenig’s reviews show that spirituality can protect health, but only when doubts and struggles are not silenced. Exline’s findings remind us that questioning faith is not weakness but part of the healing journey.
This means that the goal is not to abandon faith when it becomes difficult, nor to deny the struggles it brings, but to approach it with honesty. With the right support, religious coping becomes less about guilt and fear, and more about meaning and growth.
Call for Your Reflection
When life grows difficult, do you find that your faith practices lift you up, or do they sometimes leave you feeling heavier? Reflecting on this difference is not about judgment, but about recognising which patterns strengthen you and which may be holding you back.
If you would like to explore these questions further, we invite you to:
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