Cultivating Wholeness: A Guide to Care and Counseling in Faith Communities [Hardcover]

Margaret Zipse Kornfeld (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1998

Commissioned by the Blanton-Peale Institute, Cultivating Wholeness is a practical, comprehensive, and contemporary guide to community care and counseling. Its aim is to prepare those who would help all who suffer emotionally. Its emphases on the dynamics of change, on wholeness, and on community as not only the context for healing but the means by which healing happens, on an inclusive understanding of spirituality, and on the caregiver/counselor who these days is as likely to be a lay person as a member of the clergy -- all place the book on the leading edge of its field.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A tour de force.... Kornfeld's treatment of listening, women's needs, clergy confidentiality, unemployment, fee-taking, and the health and spirituality of the 'counselor in community' is brilliant."--Christian Century

"A state-of-the-art guide for all who minister today!"--Catholic Library World

"A wise, humane, and practical book about healing in religious communities."--Values and Visions

"Kornfeld has put a well-honed tool into the hands of seminarians, deacons, and any minister hoping to develop the gifts of lay leaders. This book is no garden plot but acres of information."--Pastoral Life

"A book you will pull off the shelf many times for additional reference.... With many self-help books full of 'new age' methodologies on the market, this book provides a sound antidote."--The Princeton Seminary Bulletin

“Margaret Kornfeld’s excellent, encyclopedic book, Cultivating Wholeness, addresses the very real need for expert, accessible, and wise guidance. Kornfeld…provides both a broad and thorough discussion of key issues that leaders of faith communities and lay caregivers regularly face. Not only does she analyze pragmatic matters—such as clergy confidentiality, unemployment, and fee-taking—but she also sensitively attends to the spiritual well-being of the “counselor in community.” A wide range of readers, lay and ordained, will welcome Kornfeld’s clear and thoughtful presentation. In a pastor’s study filled with care and counseling books, this is the best guide of its kind I know. Keep it handy on your shelf. —Congregations, Fall 2005 (Congregations ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Margaret Zipse Kornfeld is a pastoral psychotherapist, an American Baptist pastor, a longtime faculty member of the Blanton-Peale Graduate Institute and of Union Theological Seminary; and president-elect of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 377 pages
• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826410642
• ISBN-13: 978-0826410641
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,520,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Healing the Roots of Our Being, July 26, 2004

By 

Craig L. Howe "The Pointed Pundit" (Darien, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cultivating Wholeness: A Guide to Care and Counseling in Faith Communities (Paperback)

This book touches the roots of our being. It is a well-written guide for anyone interested in healing in religious communities.

All of us are surrounded by change. Some of the changes uproot us. They upset the body-mind-soul balance that is critical to our mental and physical health. Left to our own devices, Margaret Kornfeld says, this uprooting will manifest itself in more severe problems. Communities of care, she says, have stepped in to fill this void. These are groups that combine psychological with spiritual training to help individuals restore wholeness.

Kornfeld, a pastoral psychotherapist, an American Baptist pastor, faculty member at Union Theological Seminary, has written an encyclopedic treatment of caregiving. Thorough, engaging and well-written, this book will become dog-eared as you pull it off your shelf to consult. For all caregivers - professional, clergy and caring amateurs - this book is a must-read resource.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tremendously useful book., July 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cultivating Wholeness: A Guide to Care and Counseling in Faith Communities (Hardcover)

Margaret Kornfeld has done a marvelous job of integrating the kind of practical wisdom that develops in clinical supervision with interfaith religious tradition and practice. She has developed the knowledge in a format with the student in mind, at the same time as providing depth and breadth of resources for the teacher. And congratulations to the publisher for allowing the kinds of multiple citations--resources at the end of the chapter, endnotes, and bibliography--that makes "Cultivating Wholeness" into a true guide for continuing education. This really is a tremendously useful book. One really does get the sense that she has synthesized the knowledge of the therapeutic tradition that Blanton-Peale has represented and makes it available in an appropriate manner for the beginning general practitioner.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultivating Wholeness, March 25, 2006

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cultivating Wholeness: A Guide to Care and Counseling in Faith Communities (Paperback)

Kornfeld's book, Cultivating Wholeness, is an excellent primer for the parish pastor or lay counselor who does short term counseling. She gives a cursory overview of many mental health issues as well as a course of action (the five step solution-focused treatment model). Pastors will find this book enlightening and helpful. The only word of caution I would make is that no one thinks that because they have read this book, they are now equipped to perform counseling beyond basic pastor/parishioner, brief, solution-focused treatment.

All in all, this book is an excellent contribution to the care and counseling of individuals in faith communities. Her five appendices are very accommodating; they include forms and paperwork which will make the solution-focused treatment flow smoothly and provide thorough information-gathering instruments for the pastor or lay counselor.

Pastors and lay counselors must read chapter ten if nothing else, especially the portion which deals with professional boundaries and ethical responsibilities. It is excellent. Kornfeld discusses the position of power of the pastor or counselor and how it creates a power imbalance between pastor and parishioner. This power imbalance can be a subtle precursor to sexual entanglement and it needs to be thoroughly understood by the pastor or lay counselor.

I would highly recommend this book for faith communities, but as a means to an end and not as an end in itself. Kornfeld includes books and articles in her bibliography which are copious resources for further study.