| Title |
Illness Narrative, Depression, and Sainthood: An Analysis of the Writings of Mother Teresa
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Journal of Religion and Health, September 2013
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s10943-013-9774-2 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
S. Taylor Williams |
| Abstract |
In 2007, the letters of The Blessed Mother Teresa to her confessors were published for the public in a book entitled Come Be My Light. What surprised many readers was that Mother Teresa felt very distant from God and described feeling great "darkness" for many years. This paper draws parallels between the writings of Mother Teresa and those of writers' illness narratives describing the psychiatric condition of Depression. The author provides this textual analysis to explore Mother Teresa's experience within a psychiatric paradigm (Major Depressive Disorder), in comparison with and contrast to the spiritual paradigm of a "Dark Night of the Soul." |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 7 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 3 | 43% |
| United States | 2 | 29% |
| Philippines | 1 | 14% |
| Unknown | 1 | 14% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 5 | 71% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 2 | 29% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 22 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 22 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 5 | 23% |
| Lecturer | 3 | 14% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 2 | 9% |
| Researcher | 2 | 9% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 2 | 9% |
| Other | 3 | 14% |
| Unknown | 5 | 23% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 8 | 36% |
| Social Sciences | 3 | 14% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 2 | 9% |
| Arts and Humanities | 1 | 5% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 1 | 5% |
| Other | 3 | 14% |
| Unknown | 4 | 18% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 July 2022.
All research outputs
#6,373,934
of 23,867,274 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Religion and Health
#305
of 1,262 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#53,749
of 205,557 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Religion and Health
#2
of 17 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,867,274 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,262 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.4. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 205,557 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 73% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 17 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.