ABSTRACT
Northern Ireland (NI) has experienced thirty years of violent civil conflict, the boundaries of which are marked, although not entirely defined, by religious identification. In this way religion is an inherent part of social identification and community construction in NI. Religion, according to C. Mitchell, is more than an ethnic marker, and limiting one's understanding of religion to this overlooks its social and political significance. Service user participants expressed concern about offending the mental health professional, and questioned whether the worker could relate to them if they were from a different denomination. Secularisation proposes a weakening of religion in modern societies where religion is not entirely 'abandoned', but is privatised. While mental health social workers acknowledge the importance of religion and spirituality for some people experiencing mental distress, it appears that its translation into mental health social work practice is marked with uncertainty.
