From Coffin to Heaven: A Psychological Study of Christian Conversion in Drug Rehabilitation

This is the story of a group of men who called themselves "heroin-coffin". It is their story of ascension from the Styxian shore of heroin addiction to a new-found heaven in a Christian brotherhood. The research study which gives rise to this story raises the question of the apparent antagonism between science and religion. Can religious faith be studied from a scientific viewpoint? Is scientific skepticism not spiritually destructive in its demand for objectivity, quantification, and repeatability? At one stage, scientific communication has been deliberately made devoid of human passion, the longings and despairs of the human condition. However, a research orientation which opens up avenues to reconcile the antagonisms is found in George Kelly's Personal Construct Theory (1955) which also offers a theoretical framework for understanding drug addiction and drug rehabilitation.