Title: The Mental Health of Jehovah's Witnesses
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Content: 5]
The writer, as a former Witness for over twenty years, was extensively involved in various administrative levels of the organization. This gave him first hand access to information relating to most social and bureaucratic aspects of the Watchtower. He has also used his decade of extensive clinical experience with Witnesses and an extensive literature review as a basis for his evaluation. Outsiders have limited access to inside information, and for this reason are forced to rely on official publications, all of which are viewed by Witnesses as quasi-inspired. [ 6] The literature reveals eight academic studies which explored the problem of Witness mental illness. These will be briefly reviewed by year, the oldest first. The Rylander Study
Swedish psychiatrist Dr. Rylander investigated a sample of conscientious objectors imprisoned in Sweden. Of the 135 randomly selected cases, fully 126 were Witnesses. Of these 126, Rylander diagnosed 51 as neurotic, 42 psychotic, 32 as mentally retarded, and 5 as brain-damaged (some overlap exists because some cases were in two or more categories). [ 7] Diagnosis was made solely on the basis of behavior that was clearly pathological, such as irrational paranoia or severe long term depression, and not behavior that resulted from following Watchtower doctrine as non-social involvement with the non-Witnesses.