Customer Reviews

Counseling the Depressed (Resources for Christian Counseling)

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As a standard textbook for either an undergraduate or graduate class, there is no better Christian treatise on depression than Archibald Hart's Counseling the Depressed. Using many stories and examples, he comprehensively summarizes the entire subject of depression.

If you are not acquainted with all the literature and theory on depression, and you only want to read one book, this is the one. It provides a thorough foundation for further study, and from a Christian perspective. Hart's tables alone, that summarize the models, diagnostic classification of etiology, and symptoms of depression, would justify the price of the book for that greedy professor like myself who is always looking for fancy but simple overheads.

Hart takes an overtly eclectic approach to the treatment of depression, yet he tends to like cognitive behavior therapy and interpersonal therapy the best. Rather than merely outlining a few techniques of counseling, Hart takes a developmental and highly specified approach, relating the dynamics of depression and its healing to reactive and biological depression, children, adolescents, the elderly, women, those in mid-life crises, the bereaved, and the suicidal. Throughout, Hart is very easy-to-read, and highly practical.