Ecclesiogenic neuroses and psychoses in adolescence. On the complicated detachment problems of adolescents from rigorously moralizing, Christian-religious movements.

In the child and adolescent psychiatric department of Bern University Clinic, between 1982 and 1986 42 adolescent male and female patients were admitted for in-patient treatment. 9 of them (21.4%) came from Christian-religious sects. This was all the more surprising as the proportion of marginal Christian-religious groups in the population was 1.4% in the population census in the canton Bern in December 1980. This noticeably over-proportional accumulation was taken as a reason for carrying out an analysis of the case histories. It was shown that the patients from the circles of Christian sects became either obsessive-compulsive neurotically, anorectically or psychotically ill in puberty and that a very strictly moralizing upbringing by the parents was present which led to an aggravation of the relation conflict with the parents in the detachment and separation-process in puberty. By means of three case reports the problem of ecclesiogenic neuroses and ecclesiogenic psychoses in adolescence was gone into and the conclusion was made that the religious conflicts must be given increased attention in the therapeutic dealings with the patients concerned with the inclusion of members of the family and also persons of reference outside the family.