Important questions face any pastoral counselor when working with African American couples and families. Edward Wimberly focuses on the religious worldview that African Americans bring to their understanding of marriage and family, so that the counselor can learn the assumptions behind the presenting problems. Wimberly's treatment examines the social context of African American families, the separate issues for men and women, intergenerational factors, the impact of the life cycle, sexuality, affairs, and abuse. This wide-ranging book is exceptionally practical for all pastoral caregivers. The purpose of the Counseling and Pastoral Theology series is to address clinical issues that arise among particular populations currently neglected in the literature on pastoral care and counseling. This series is committed to enhancing both the theoretical base and the clinical expertise of pastoral caregivers by providing a pastoral theological paradigm that will inform both assessment and intervention with persons in these specific populations.

African American Relationships, Marriages, and Families, Second Edition is a historically and culturally centered research-based text designed for use in undergraduate, graduate, and community-based courses on African American relationships, marriages, and families. Complete with numerous exercises, this volume can be used by current and future helping professionals to guide singles and couples by increasing single and partner-awareness, and respect and appreciation for difference. In addition, singles and couples learn skills for effective communication and conflict resolution and ultimately how to develop and maintain healthy relationships, marriages, and families. This second edition includes updates and revisions to current chapters and also features two new chapters: one on parenting and one on same-gender loving/LGBTQ.

The gospel brings liberty to men, women, and children bound by every conceivable sin and affliction. Psychology provides a tool for applying the power of the gospel in practical ways. Drawing on biblical truths and psychological principles, Counseling in African-American Communities helps us---Christian counselors, pastors, and church leaders---to meet the deep needs of our communities with life-changing effect. Marshaling the knowledge and experience of experts in the areas of addiction, family issues, mental health, and other critical issues, this no-nonsense handbook supplies distinctively African-American insights on the problems tearing lives and families apart all around us: Domestic Abuse Gambling Addiction Blended Families Sexual Addiction and the Internet Depression and Bipolar Disorder Divorce Recovery Unemployment Sexual Abuse and Incest Demonology Grief and Loss Schizophrenia Substance Abuse . . . and much more

It's easy to fall in love and to get married. But what does it really mean to be married? And how do you stay married? In Becoming Married, Staying Married, couples will be encouraged to see marriage as a process that never ends. Together they will reflect on current realities particular to African American couples. They will also discover nine key principles that are required for healthy marriages, including concepts like self-awareness, flexibility, maturity, and forgiveness. Practical suggestions on how to further enhance each quality are included, in addition to African proverbs and biblical Scripture that relate to marriage. Questions for discussion and reflection are included at the end of each chapter. This insightful resource can be used by African American couples at various stages of their relationship, but it is especially helpful to engaged and newly married couples. Pastor may also choose to use this book as a discussion starter for premarital counseling.

Providing a comprehensive framework for individual, couple, and family therapy, this resource offers a set of templates that enable therapists to navigate the course of therapy, as well as a treasure trove of case examples to illustrate how therapists can use the IST perspective to treat a wide variety of challenging problems.

There are many different models of marriage and family therapy; the challenge for students and beginning practitioners is deciding which one best suits their individual purposes. This highly practical volume elucidates the defining characteristics of 14 contemporary models, including their history, views of change, views of family and the role of the therapist; and methods of assessing family dynamics, goal setting; facilitating change; and knowing when to terminate. Each chapter also includes a template for implementing therapy models, and realistic case studies-many drawn from actual practice-to illustrate how each model would address common issues. In addition, the volume includes extensive interviews with master therapists such as Albert Ellis, Insoo Kim Berg, Sue Johnson, Susan McDaniel, Derald Wing Sue, and many others. They share their ideas of the ways in which change occurs, how they set goals, and how they perform therapy. For further clarification, each therapist illustrates how he/she would proceed via the same case study. Learning how to perform effective family therapy can be an arduous process of trial and error, yet this resource will ease the way for students and currently practicing family therapists who need to revisit the basics. Modalities Included Bowen Family Systems Theory Contextual Family Therapy Cognitive Behavioral Family Therapy Models Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Symbolic-Experiential Family Therapy Satir Human Validation Process Model Milan Systemic Family Therapy Structural Family Therapy Strategic Family Therapy Solution-Focused Brief Therapy with Families Narrative Therapy with Families Emotionally Focused Therapy Medical Family Therapy Family Psychoeducation Key Features: Introduces the theory, history, theoretical assumptions, techniques, and components of each model Includes a template for using each model, from the initial meeting through assessment, intervention, and termination Provides numerous interviews with master therapists Includes case study commentary and analysis by master therapists Suggests questions, therapeutic strategies, and/or comments to consider for each therapeutic phase Includes a personality inventory to help readers select the most effective modality

Perhaps no other group of people has been as much formed by biblical texts and tropes as African Americans. From literature and the arts to popular culture and everyday life, the Bible courses through black society and culture like blood through veins. Despite the enormous recent interest in African American religion, relatively little attention has been paid to the diversity of ways in which African Americans have utilized the Bible. African Americans and the Bible is the fruit of a four-year collaborative research project directed by Vincent L. Wimbush and funded by the Lilly Endowment. It brings together scholars and experts (sixty-eight in all) from a wide range of academic and artistic fields and disciplines--including ethnography, cultural history, and biblical studies as well as art, music, film, dance, drama, and literature. The focus is on the interaction between the people known as African Americans and that complex of visions, rhetorics, and ideologies known as the Bible. As such, the book is less about the meaning(s) of the Bible than about the Bible and meaning(s), less about the world(s) of the Bible than about how worlds and the Bible interact--in short, about how a text constructs a people and a people constructs a text. It is about a particular sociocultural formation but also about the dynamics that obtain in the interrelation between any group of people and sacred texts in general. Thus African Americans and the Bible provides an exemplum of sociocultural formation and a critical lens through which the process of sociocultural formation can be viewed.