Studies of Laymen and Psychiatric Teams Towards the Therapeutic Intervention by Monks

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to find out the attitudes of laymen and psychiatric team towards the role of monks as the intervener in psychological problems in Thailand. The subjects were 138 psychiatric- team personels 55 laymen and 118 monks as representatives from Bangkok, Ching Mai, Nong Khai and Ubon Ratchathani. The samples were selected by simple random sampling method. The research instruments used in these studies were questionnaires and ration scales. The F – test, the stepwise multiple regression analysis and the percentages were used to analyze the data. The major findings were as follows : 1) Attitudes of psychiatric team personels towards the therapeutic intervention by monks : twenty five point five percents of the psychiatric-team personels were uncertain about the efficiency of monks in practicing psychiatric intervention. Only 5.5 percents of these samples believed the monks’s therapeutic intervention were useful. Faithful to the monks, however, could help monks in practicing therapeutic intervention. Furthermore, only 14.5 percent thought that monks did not have enough knowledge concerning psychological problems. 2) Attitudes of the laymen towards the therapeutic intervention by monks: 85.8 percent of laymen felt at ease to seek help from monks, while small number of these samples felt either uneasy or anxious about the service. They thought that monks could not solve any problems because they were not acquainted with psychological problems Nevertheless, 43.6 percent of laymen thought that monks would be useful as psychological agents because laymen had faith to them. 3) Attitudes of monks towards the therapeutic intervention by monks : 49.2 percent of the monks were questioned about the suitability of therapeutic intervention at the temples. About 36.5 percents of the monks thought that it was suitable for them to take part in such practice; forty four point one percents of monks suggested that psychiatric team should work together with them. Nevertheless, there was 41.5 percents thought that psychiatric intervention should not be practiced by the monks. 4) Attitudes of psychiatric-team personels towards other member of the team ; forty nine point three of the psychiatric team believed that there were no problems occurred during the time they were working together and 56.5 thought that working as a team was profitable. 5) The findings were indicated that the psychiatric-team personels from different backgrounds did not have different attitudes towards the practice of the monks. The results did not agree with the hypothesis 2. 6) Sex, ages, education levels, marital status, occupations and salaries of laymen had no correlation to their attitudes towards the monks’ psychiatric intervention. The results did not agree with the hypothesis 1.