Year: 1977 Source: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, v.165, no.3, (1977), p.209-212 SIEC No: 19840294

Literature concerning religious conversions is reviewed. 4 case histories of depressive illness followed by religious conversion are presented. In 2 obsessive-compulsive patients, the religious experience failed to resolve the depression & both ended in suicide. The author suggests that religious conversion strengthens depression in hysterical persons, but in some cases fails to resolve obsessive isolation of affect & ambivalence.