This book explores the suffering of social class and how traditional biomedical models for mental illness do not adequately account for the stresses of poverty. Turning to mental health user testimonies, this book equips ministers and counsellors to become working class advocates.

This book explores the suffering of social class and how traditional biomedical models for mental illness do not adequately account for the stresses of poverty. Turning to mental health user testimonies, this book equips ministers and counsellors to become working class advocates.

This book explores the suffering of social class and how traditional biomedical models for mental illness do not adequately account for the stresses of poverty. Turning to mental health user testimonies, this book equips ministers and counsellors to become working class advocates.

Leading pastoral theologians explore a wide variety of themes related to pastoral practice. Pastoral Theology and Care: Critical Trajectories in Theory and Practice offers a collection of essays by leading pastoral theologians that represent emerging trajectories in the fields of pastoral theology and care. The topics explored include: qualitative research and ethnography, advances in neuroscience, care across pluralities and intersections in religion and spiritualties, the influence of neoliberal economics in socio-economic vulnerabilities, postcolonial theory and its implications, the intersections of race and religion in caring for black women, and the usefulness of intersectionality for pastoral practice. Each of the essays offers a richly illustrated review of a practice of pastoral care relationally and in the public domain. The contributions to this volume engage seven critical directions emerging in the literature of pastoral theology in the United States and internationally among pastoral and practical theologians. While coverage of these topics does not exhaust important points of activity in the field, it does represent especially promising resources for theory and practice. This important work: Offers unique coverage of new directions in the field Includes contributions from an exceptional group of experts who are noted leaders in their areas of study Introduces the newest perspectives on pastoral care and offers constructive proposals Filled with case illustrations that make chapters pedagogically useful, Pastoral Theology and Care is essential reading for faculty, seminarians and students in advanced degree programs, and pastors.

Addresses the critique that pastoral care is indistinguishable from secular psychotherapy by placing a person's relationship to God at the center of pastoral care.

A timely resource treating addiction holistically as both a spiritual and a pathological condition Substance addictions present a unique set of challenges for pastoral care. In this book Sonia Waters weaves together personal stories, research, and theological reflection to offer helpful tools for ministers, counselors, chaplains, and anyone else called to care pastorally for those struggling with addiction. Waters uses the story of the Gerasene demoniac in Mark’s Gospel to reframe addiction as a “soul-sickness” that arises from a legion of individual and social vulnerabilities. She includes pastoral reflections on oppression, the War on Drugs, trauma, guilt, discipleship, and identity. The final chapters focus on practical-care skills that address the challenges of recovery, especially ambivalence and resistance to change.

This volume offers a detailed analysis of how the current phase of capitalism is eating away at social, interpersonal, and psychological health. Drawing upon an interdisciplinary body of research, Bruce Rogers-Vaughn describes an emerging form of human distress—what he calls ‘third order suffering’—that is rapidly becoming normative. Moreover, this new paradigm of affliction is increasingly entangled with already-existing genres of misery, such as sexism, racism, and class struggle, mutating their appearances and mystifying their intersections. Along the way, Rogers-Vaughn presents stimulating reflections on how widespread views regarding secularization and postmodernity may divert attention from contemporary capitalism as the material origin of these developments. Finally, he explores his own clinical practice, which yields clues for addressing the double unconsciousness of third order suffering and outlining a vision for caring for souls in these troubling times.