ABSTRACT
People with mental health problems may sometimes struggle with issues of meaning and purpose and, particularly if depressed, may experience loss of hope. This means that those supporting them need to be particularly sensitive to spiritual issues, and perhaps explains why, after end-of-life care, mental health care is an area where these issues have been most researched and discussed. This chapter focuses on three special issues: the overlap between spiritual and psychotic experiences, the issues specific to helping people with dementia and their carers, and specific forms of therapy with religious or spiritual underpinnings. It also explores several issues like the utility of specifically religious/spiritually-based approaches, the use of therapeutic approaches that have a religious or spiritual root that has been 'secularised', secular therapies that have been adapted for a particular religious group and general or focused support from faith groups to supplement other sources of help.
