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Psychiatry needs to focus on the very real biochemical problems that a person is dealing with; a self-help group, a church, a counselor should be employed to help a person deal with their spiritual life. Will spirituality help a person with a severe psychiatric problem? Most likely. Should that person's spiritual life be led by a psychiatrist? No. I have always advocated for the powerful team of psychiatrists and ministers when it comes to helping someone with their mental illness but I would never expect that the psychiatrist be a minister and vice versa.

I think that the issue becomes confused when we dont know exactly what psychiatry is used for or should be used for. There are too many "normal" people with "problems in living" who are seeing counselors to figure out whether or not they should drop out of college or get married or take a different job in a neighboring town. Those with master's degrees in counseling would be well-suited for helping a person with these decisions. Psychiatrists are medical doctors that treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and anxieties/phobias.

Most people, however, who see a psychiatrist are also asked to see a counselor such as an MSSW so that people's biochemical needs and problems in living are both met. We shouldn't ask psychiatrists to be spiritual but we should expect that spirituality will be required for a person to recover from a psychiatric illness. This shouldn't surprise us because people recovering from many different illnesses also require a spiritual guide when they are on the path to recovery.

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