Dealing with Depression: Five Pastoral Interventions

This important book explores strategies to enable clergy and lay persons to identify and help individuals suffering from depression. It contains many techniques that can be used in managing depression, including coping devices, treatments, and interventions which actually help depressed persons to improve their mental health. Dealing With Depression describes types of depression and related symptoms to help clergy develop a more complete understanding of the disorder. They will learn to recognize the symptoms of depression and be better able to help individuals who suffer from it. This useful guide includes a step-by-step approach to depression intervention and proven techniques readers can use to enable people to cope more successfully with depression. This important book has also been translated into a Chinese version. Dealing With Depression brings together expert psychologists who explore five modalities for conceptualizing and managing depression, which deflates for clergy the often intimidating quality of the disorder. These experts discuss in practical and understandable ways the helping techniques they use and explain their understanding of depression and their methods of treatment. A medical-religious case conference with these experts shows how clergy and laity can help ease depression and an extensive bibliography is included to facilitate further reference. Dealing With Depression puts this common disorder back into the human life situation where it can be seen as just another temporary disturbance to which human beings are vulnerable, but which need not significantly distort their lives, relationships, spiritual development, or prosperity of body, mind, and soul.