Integrate spiritual traditions with psychological healing! In this fascinating volume, clinical practitioners of different religious traditions examine the same clinical case, offering insights, interventions, and explanations of transformation and healing. This practical approach allows them to explore broader issues of personality theory and psychology from the perspectives of various spiritual traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Religious Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy addresses both the practical issues of doing psychotherapy and the deeper need to relate psychology and theology. After providing a thorough introduction to the spiritual tradition, each author presents a critical psychological theory of personality and psychotherapy grounded in that tradition. The authors address the questions of what it means to be a person, what causes human distress, and how individuals experience healing. Religious Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy offers profound insights into the urgent issues of human suffering and psychological transformation, including: theories of personality structure and human motivation the nature of experience and processes of change the dialectical relation of theology and psychology convergences and difference among the religious psychologies Marrying theory and practice, spirit and psyche, Religious Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy offers profound insights and effective interventions. Mental health professionals, clergy, and scholars in religion, cross-cultural studies, personality, counseling, and psychotherapy will find this breakthrough book a life-changing experience and an invaluable resource.

Theory in the psychology of religion is in a state of rapid development, and the present volume demonstrates how various positions in this field may be translated into original foundational work that will in turn encourage exploration in many directions. A number of new contributions are collected with previously published pieces to illustrate the

How are Christians to understand and undertake the discipline of psychology? This question has been of keen interest because of the importance we place on a correct understanding of human nature.This collection of essays edited by Eric Johnson and Stanton Jones offers four different models for the relationship between Christianity and psychology.

'Personality Theories' by Albert Ellis - the founding father of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy - provides a comprehensive review of all major theories of personality including theories of personality pathology. Importantly, it critically reviews each of these theories in light of the competing theories as well as recent research.

The six volume Psychology ann Religion set of the International Library of Psychology explores the interface between psychology and religion, looking at aspects of religious belief and mysticism as related to the study of human consciousness. Hindu Psychology looks at the relevance of Hindu belief systems and theories of perception for the West.

Over a century ago, psychologists who were fascinated with religion began to study and write about it. Theologians and religious practitioners have responded to this literature, producing a fascinating dialogue that deals with our fundamental und- standings about the human person and our place in the world. This book provides an introduction to the important conversations that have developed out of these interchanges. The dialogue between psychology and religion is difficult to study for a number of reasons. First, it requires knowledge of both psychology and religion. People with a background in psychology often lack a solid understanding of the religious traditions they wish to study, and theologians may not be up to date on the latest developments in psychology. Second, it requires conceptual tools to organize the material and understand the basic problems involved in any attempt to connect the science of psychology with religion. These concepts can be found in many places, for instance in the writings of philosophers of science, but they are complex and often hard to follow for those without a proper theological and philosophical ba- ground. Finally, authors who write on the topic come to the study of psychology and religion from a variety of academic and personal backgrounds. This makes for wonderful diversity in conversations, but it makes understanding and mastery of the material quite difficult.

The aims pursued in this book are quite modest. The text is not an introduction in the traditional sense to any psychological subdiscipline or field of application, nor does it present anything essentially new. Rather, it shows ‘work in progress’, as it attempts to contribute to an integration of two differently structured, but already existing fields within psychology. In order to explain this, it is probably best to say a few words about how the book came into being and about what it hopes to achieve. As a project, the volume owes very much to others. While lecturing in places ranging from South Africa to Canada and from California through European co- tries to Korea, colleagues have often urged me to come up with a volume on ‘c- tural psychology of religion’. For reasons that should become clear in the text, I feel uncomfortable with such a demand. To my understanding, there exists no single cultural psychology of religion. Rather, there are ever expanding numbers of div- gent types of psychologies, some of which are applied to understanding religious aspects of human lives or to researching specific religious phenomena, while others are not. Within this heterogeneous field that is, correctly or not, still designated as ‘psychology’, there are also many approaches that are sometimes referred to as ‘cultural psychology’ or as ‘culturally sensitive psychologies’. It would be wor- while applying many of these to research on religious phenomena, but at present not too many are in fact so applied.