Mental illness and schizophrenia are as controversial and somewhat mysterious as the nature of the human brain itself. Adam Lambdin, as both a past sufferer and a student of the Bible, writes to disclose what we can know as Christians and what we can do not only as church ministers, but as laymen about this issue.

Serves as a resource to help you provide better care for those suffering from the most common problems, such as: depression, Alzheimer's disease, anorexia, addiction to drugs or alcohol, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and anti-social personality disorder.

With the increasingly important role of psychosocial interventions in the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental illness, many interventions have been adequately researched and standardized to meet the criteria for evidence-based practice. Music therapy is one such modality, which is viewed as another therapeutic form of intervention. However, there remains no resource to guide music therapists in the implementation of appropriate evidence-based techniques. This book develops such a resource, which matches psychosocial goals with appropriate music therapy interventions across the domains of functioning. This resource has the potential to provide immediate and long-term support to clinicians and their clients. It may also serve as a template to guide music therapy research, by identifying applications which have yet to be empirically studied. There are many components which are discussed to prove from a scientific and a spiritual view that music can be used as a therapeutic means for those suffering with schizophrenia and similar mental health illness. A brief review of other mental health illnesses and the role the church plays in providing effective support also is included. Pastors have been looked down at, as though they are the door mat of society. This has placed a stigma upon many creating a restriction as to what they should and shouldn?t do. However, a new breed of pastors is rising up with an internal drive to make a difference both in the church and in the society. They are destroying the stigma that has been created to change our world and impact our communities including the mental health. We have learned from every culture and ethnic group how music is an important part of daily living. Music is unique in every person?s life. It is possible that God created music to calm the mind and help mankind deal with their every day stressors. This book is an educational tool to help individuals understand schizophrenia and other serious mental illness. It?s a book everyone should have to understand themselves and others.

"One of the greatest contributions of Capps's book is the way in which he weaves together a vast range of theories, interpretations, and explanations of psychopathology, without ever losing sight of the humanity of the person living with mental illness. Far too many books seek to find one, single explanation of the baffling and complex phenomenon of mental illness. Fragile Connections will expand our understanding and empower pastors and others concerned about mental illness with an eloquent exploration of one of the greatest mysteries of the human predicament." --Lewis Rambo, San Francisco Theological Union and Graduate Theological Union "Donald Capps skillfully guides his readers into the strange world of severe mental illness, a neighborhood disturbingly close to home. He first offers the lay of the land by scrutinizing particular psychiatric classifications. He then carefully treks through gripping narrative accounts of those battling schizophrenia, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer's disease. Finally, with interpretive precision honed through a lifetime of attending to persons in pain, Capps risks his own stunning insights into the anguish and mystery of these lives. An exquisite and sobering journey." --Robert C. Dykstra, Princeton Theological Seminary "Fragile Connections is a most welcome resource for those of us involved in theological education. Capps's creative use of five memoirs allows persons who suffer from various mental illnesses and the family members who care for them to speak in their own voices about living with these afflictions." --Carol J. Cook, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary "Doing good with stealth as usual Donald Capps has designed this biblically, historically grounded book for seminary students and ministers, who will find no other like it. The book holds out the key to understanding the experiences of those who are mentally ill and those who love them. Capps argues that the study of individuals' personal memoirs--rather than medically modeled case studies--reveals the deep and profoundly personal nature of each person's unique experience of mental illness. What is more, written as it is in Capps's inimitable style, this book fills a void in seminary curricula as it addresses a problem in methodology." --Antoinette Goodwin, pastoral psychotherapist, Princeton, New Jersey

In the Shadow of Our Steeples: Pastoral Presence for Families Coping with Mental Illness helps you and other experts and quasi-experts in the field of religious and family counseling to give sound direction and guidance to family members who are caring for a loved one who suffers from mental illness. You'll find many avenues of care and counseling that will greatly enhance your ability to lend support and encouragement in situations where the burden of care seems too great for only a few individuals to lift. In reading it, you'll find your options increase tenfold, and you'll become a better symbol and resource of faith for these unique families. Inside In the Shadow of Our Steeples, you'll discover how to cure the obsession with success that too often goes along with counseling situations that involve mental illness. You'll also discover a greater, more enduring strain of Christian love, full of surprising joys, caring, and hope. Geared toward moving parishes away from public stigmas and toward a collective ministry of presence, this book beckons to those clergy who know and believe that a far more understanding and far-reaching form of counseling exists. Specifically, you'll learn about these and other long-sought-after aids: establishing theological foundations and goal-setting in the area of pastoral care countering the stigmas of mental illness using biblical studies and models using a “ministry of presence” to analyze chronic illness and promote “rehabilitation in the absence of cure” bringing clergy and mental health professionals into a collaborative arena of care improving the relationship of professional chaplains to clergy in ordinary parish settings Overall, In the Shadow of Our Steeples helps bring together the sufferer, the family, the civil servant, and the religious counselor into one synergistic group of rehabilitative influence. This sound guide's specific examples and proven strategies will help turn your despair into hope, even in the face of chronic mental illness.

Take your rightful place on the holistic health care team, with the goal of restoring vitality of body, mind, and spirit to people suffering from emotional illness! This book is designed to bring essential knowledge and skills to the religious professional who seeks to provide special ministry to the emotionally troubled. It provides a basic understanding of psychiatric illnesses, theory, and treatment modalities that is certain to enlarge the perspective of the pastoral worker. In addition to an essential overview of psychiatry in general, Mental Illness and Psychiatric Treatment: A Guide for Pastoral Counselors will help you to better serve people suffering from depression, anxiety disorders, chemical dependency, reality impairment, or personality disorders. The book's format is designed specifically to help pastors grasp the principles of intervention in each of these disorders. Each of its five concise clinical chapters follows a four-part format that covers the duties and responsibilities of the clergyman as part of the holistic health care team, consisting of: recognizing the disorder assessing its severity intervening in a crisis counseling in the recovery phase In their experience, the authors have observed that severe emotional or psychiatric illnesses often involve spiritual sickness as well. Spiritual sickness is a complex concept that may take many forms depending on the type of emotional illness it accompanies. Mental Illness and Psychiatric Treatment: A Guide for Pastoral Counselors shows you what spiritual symptoms to look for when assessing someone in your care. For example, did you know that: severe depressive illness could include the loss of faith, abandonment of hope, loss of a right relationship with God, or even self-hatred, guilt, despair, and self-annihilation a psychotic reaction marked by loss of contact with reality might involve abnormal self-importance, grandiosity, fear, or stubbornly mistaken perceptions of reality a problem with alcoholism might involve immoral behavior, irresponsible conduct, denial of the loss of control over liquor consumption, or abject guilt, shame, and self-hatred personality disorders may bring on profound disturbances in social relationships, self-centered anger, impulsiveness, dishonesty, impurity, or distrust of others people with anxiety disorders can lose their trust in God, develop obsessive fears and tensions, and become unable to turn things over to God's divine care In Mental Illness and Psychiatric Treatment: A Guide for Pastoral Counselors, you'll find the information you need to make effective judgments and assessments about the people seeking your help. The book provides you with fascinating case studies that highlight symptoms and illness patterns as well as treatment options and techniques for coordinating pastoral counseling with the mental health team. You'll learn to recognize the spiritual symptoms of disease—negative, inappropriate, of self-defeating attitudes or behaviors—and to deal specifically with these manifestations of illness through pastoral intervention and counseling.

Pastoral Care of the Mentally III is written for pastors, associate pastors, Christian education leaders, choir directors, and others working with congregations. It tells in everyday language the symptoms of mental illness and the do's and don'ts of pastoral care of people dealing with mental illness. Told through stories of people suffering through such illnesses, the book offers a glimpse into their lives and steps to be taken by pastoral professionals. Book jacket.