Therapeutic counseling in a Christian context can be highly effective when it maintains narrowly focused goals in a time-limited setting. The details of this proven model of pastoral counseling are described in this practical guide. This second edition of Strategic Pastoral Counseling has been thoroughly revised and includes two new chapters. Benner includes helpful case studies, a new appendix on contemporary ethical issues, and updated chapter bibliographies. His study will continue to serve clergy and students well as a valued practical handbook on pastoral care and counseling.
Pastors spend much of their time counseling people in crisis—a delicate task that requires one to carefully evaluate each situation, share relevant principles from God’s Word, and offer practical suggestions for moving forward. Too often, however, pastors feel unprepared to effectively shepherd their people through difficult circumstances such as depression, adultery, eating disorders, and suicidal thinking. Written to help pastors and church leaders understand the basics of biblical counseling, this book provides an overview of the counseling process from the initial meeting to the final session. It also includes suggestions for cultivating a culture of discipleship within a church and four appendixes featuring a quick checklist, tips for taking notes, and more.
This book explores the practice of counselling not only in the context of traditional ministries of pastoral care within the Christian Church but also in the context of other world religions and among counsellors with a concern for the spiritual dimension of life. A detailed account is given of the development of pastoral counselling in Britain; parallel movements in other major world religions are examined. An attempt is made to engage sympathetically with the theory and practice of a wide range of approaches to counselling in a context which embraces both the rapidly growing Christian counselling movement and more humanistic understandings of spirituality. The author draws out the implications of metaphors which have shaped our understanding of pastoral care and counselling, finding in a narrative understanding of religious faith and in the spiritual journey of Thomas Merton, a model which respects the contribution of the secular therapies and affirms the integrating potential of faith. This book will be of interest to clergy and lay people in churches and other faiths who seek an understanding of counselling in pastoral and spiritual contexts. It will also have more general appeal to practitioners who wish to explore the relationship of counselling in this context to forms of counselling elsewhere.
For the first time ever, three pioneers in the field of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) present an edited volume that outlines how the core ACT processes can be applied to religious and spiritual care approaches. If you are a clergy leader or pastoral counselor, people struggling with difficult situations or life traumas frequently turn to you for guidance. And while you’re passionate about helping, you may be unprepared for counseling people with certain mental health challenges. On the other hand, if you are a psychotherapist, you may need guidance in supporting your client’s religious belief system in therapy. In either case, this book presents a powerful road map to help you provide the best care. In this book, you’ll find a complete overview of ACT, as well as strategies for integrating ACT and issues related to spirituality. You’ll also learn how the core processes of ACT—such as commitment to change and values-based living—can be seamlessly tied into spiritual and religious counseling, no matter your faith or therapeutic background. By teaching you how to fuse conceptual psychological and spiritual principles, this book will provide you with the tools needed to enhance your counseling skill set.
Written by significant researchers and practitioners within the field, this unique collection of key texts introduces the reader to practical theology. It critically explores the way in which the spiritual dimension of pastoral care has entered into constructive dialogue with other disciplines and ways of thinking, including: psychiatry, psychology, counselling, intercultural studies, educational methodology, narrative theory and political studies. Set within this multidisciplinary context, the individual contributions (a selection of articles from a leading journal of pastoral theology, Contact: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Pastoral Studies) cover a wide range of practical and theological issues that alert the reader to the spiritual dimension of pastoral care, such as bereavement, sexuality, ethics, learning disabilities, infertility, the meaning of pain, sickness and suffering and the nature of theology as a practical discipline. The book is an invaluable resource for practitioners, researchers, students and all who have an interest in the ways in which a spiritual dimension can enhance caring practices within a multidisciplinary context.
Basic Types of Pastoral Care and Counseling remains the standard in pastoral care and counseling. This third edition is enlarged and revised with updated resources, methods, exercises, and illustrations from actual counseling sessions. This book will help readers be sensitive to cultural diversity, ethical issues, and power dynamics as they practice holistic, growth-oriented pastoral care and counseling in the parish.
Trends and skills for those who offer pastoral care Christian pastoral care has changed a great deal in the past few decades in response to many factors in our rapidly changing world. In part 1 of Nurturing Hope, Lynne Baab discusses seven trends in pastoral care--shifts in who delivers pastoral care, the attitudes and commitments that undergird pastoral care, and societal trends that are shaping pastoral care today. She illustrates them with stories from diverse congregations where Christian caregivers are meeting those challenges in creative and exciting ways. In the second half of the book, Baab presents four practical, doable, energizing skills needed by pastoral carers in our time. Focusing on skills that help carers nurture connections between everyday life and Christian faith, she explores the need for carers to understand common stressors, listen, pray with others, and nurture their personal resilience. Grounded in an understanding of God as the true caregiver and healer, the author offers tips for readers who are training other pastoral carers or developing their own understanding and skills. Each chapter ends with discussion and reflection questions, making the book helpful for groups. Lynne Baab brings readers hope for their caring role and for their own spiritual journey.
Get a unique insight into health, bereavement, and healing! Bereavement Counseling: Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving is a practical guide to the assessment and treatment of complicated grief responses, using a pastoral approach that combines clinical and spiritual care. The book addresses current theory, observations, and experience, and examines changing approaches and developing standards of practice. The author, an ordained minister with an extensive background in pastoral counseling, integrates spirituality into the grieving process by focusing on the partnership between spirituality and healing, the resources of spiritual practices, and the functions of counseling and spiritual/pastoral psychotherapy. By providing usable treatment strategies, sharing standard interventions, and promoting technical skill for caregivers, Bereavement Counseling: Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving places sustained emphasis on giving voice to grief and recovery. The author draws from more than 20 years’ experience in ministry, teaching, supervision, consultation, and therapy to present stories, vignettes, and poetry that give depth and life to the grieving process. These vignettes provide a unique insight into health, bereavement, and healing and create a living context for maintaining a person-centered focus that promotes meaning and leads to positive outcomes. The book provides templates as assessment and treatment planning aids and includes an extensive bibliography of up-to-date journal articles that reflect the latest research in the field. Topics addressed in Bereavement Counseling: Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving include: universal grief processes and responses dysfunctional grieving therapies and treatment priorities reorganization and recovery how perceptions, thoughts, and belief influence care and much more! Bereavement Counseling: Pastoral Care for Complicated Grieving is a practical resource for clergy, pastoral care specialists, and anyone needing to help others bear with the pain of grief, process loss, gain new insight and meaning, and experience a renewed sense of healing and connection.
To equip ministry professionals in their work with and for Latino/as, the largest minority and fastest-growing group in the U.S., Montilla and Medina center their presentation on families and rituals as the heart and soul of the Hispanic community and the key to caregiving. In that context they unfold a variegated picture of the particular cultural guideposts for Hispanics in the U.S. today, especially their symbols and rituals, attitudes toward health and healing, abiding faith, and contemporary quest for creative agency and dignity. Book jacket.
