Abstract
These researchers interviewed 10 African American clergy who provide counseling services to members of their congregations, in order to examine participant’s beliefs, patterns of responses to presenting problems, and level of knowledge about mental illness. The rationale for this project is to discover how closely the views of the participants match with those of professionally trained MSW level social workers and further, to evaluate the clergy member’s ability to provide services. After each participant reviewed a vignette, she or he was asked questions about the vignette in order to discover participant’s levels of familiarity with common mental health conditions (i.e. mentally healthy conditions, depression, schizophrenia, alcohol dependence and substance-related disorders). Findings indicate that the participants have a common perception that mental illness is caused by stressful situations and a chemical imbalance in the brain. The clergy expressed a willingness to make referrals to mental health agencies within their community when an individual’s need for treatment was serious and beyond their own capacity for treatment. This project is a collaboration of Charlotte M. Conley and Merita L. Wolfe. The authors equally worked on the development of the project including the writing, reviews of the literature, transcribed tapes and coded the data.