Depression and Hope: New Insights for Pastoral Counseling [Paperback]

Howard W. Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 1998

Depression is second only to marital difficulties as the most common reason for individuals to seek pastoral counseling. For centuries, spiritual writers have probed melancholia, as it has been traditionally termed, to articulate the problem of meaning and the trustworthiness of existence. Today, however, depression is increasingly treated with drug therapies. Depression and Hope is an authoritative guide to appropriate ways of thinking about and treating depression for pastoral counselors. In his characteristically no-nonsense fashion, Stone explains the latest understandings of depression and its patterns, as well as the pros and cons of various drug treatments. Throughout he keeps the reader the larger life questions posed by depression and its treatments. He places depression in the larger context of family and society and shows how proper handling of depression by clergy can increase the likelihood not only of a person's strong recovery, but also of a strengthened faith.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Howard W. Stone is Professor of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Counseling, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. He is also the editor of the Fortress Press series, Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling.

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Fortress Press (January 5, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800631390
• ISBN-13: 978-0800631390
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,280,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Howard W. Stone Ph.D., is a psychologist, marriage and family therapist, a pastoral counselor, the author or editor of many books in the Fortress Press Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling series, and a professor emeritus at Texas Christian University. Two previous editions of Crisis Counseling have sold 45,000 copies in the United States and has been published in six other countries. In addition, he has written approximately 60 published journal articles and book chapters and has served on four editorial boards of professional journals.In its first two editions, Howard Stone's Crisis Counseling has become a standard text for clergy and other pastoral caregivers and cemented the author's status as one of the leading figures in the field of pastoral counseling. This third edition builds on the strengths of the earlier editions--specifically, an easily grasped and adopted intervention model--and expands it to consider the needs of people facing crisis in a post-9/11, post-Katrina world. With a thoroughly updated bibliography, new case studies, and an expanded focus on suicide, intervention in volatile or hazardous situations, and the personal safety of the caregiver this new edition will continue this title's status as a standard-bearer in the field.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This will change how you deal with depression., November 14, 2001

By 

David Allen Sorensen (St. Cloud, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Depression and Hope: New Insights for Pastoral Counseling (Paperback)

This book has changed my ministry. I have been a pastor for 20 years with a degree in social work and lots of graduate credits in pastoral care and counseling, and did not expect this book to impact me so much. Stone makes a solid case for a framework for pastoral counseling that is of necessity short-term and forward looking. Then he puts ministry to those who are depressed, the "common cold of mental health," into that context. The result is outstanding. It is a foundational work for my own book with Augsburg Fortress that will be out in 2002, titled "When You Are Depressed." This review is unsolicited and heartfelt. +

2.0 out of 5 stars for MILD "depression" only, July 16, 2010

By 

Elizabeth Sweeny (Medford, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Depression and Hope: New Insights for Pastoral Counseling (Paperback)

While there are some useful cognitive therapies in this book, it's really aimed at people with mild depression -- which wasn't made clear until about a third of the way through the book, which was frustrating to me (I was reading and thinking, "I do not see [beloved of mine who struggles with severe depression] in here at all"). While the author talks about depression as distinct from, for example, healthy grief, and takes seriously the utility of, for example, antidepressant medications, the book generally seems to me to skew too far toward thinking yourself out of depression and isn't attentive enough to the reality of e.g. neurochemical factors beyond the sufferer's control.

5.0 out of 5 stars Table of Contents, January 20, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Depression and Hope: New Insights for Pastoral Counseling (Paperback)

Introduction: A View of Depression (Depression on the Rise, The Depressed as Church Members) PART ONE: ASSESSMENT Chap 1: Characteristics of Depression (Causes of Depression, Major Depression, Grief, Alcohol). Chap 2: Melancholy and Spiritual Desolation (Dark Night of the Soul, Accidie, Desolations, Anfechtungen, Discernment). Chap 3: Suicide and Depression (Assessing Suicide Risk, The Minister's Response to Suicide). Chap 4: Family Life of the Depressed (Impact of Depression on Interpersonal Relations, Marriage and Depression, Gender Differences, Children and Adolescents). Chap 5: Framing Hope (Reframing, Establishing Future Goals, Hope-Oriented Conversation, Strengths). PART TWO: ACTION Chap 6: Brief Pastoral Counseling of Depression: A Fourfold Approach (Assessment of Depression, How Clergy Think about Depression, The First Session, Counseling Methods). Chap 7: Interpersonal Interventions: Strengthening Intimate Relationships (Relationships of the Depressed, Life with a Depressed Person; Individual, Couple and Family Counseling, Communication, Problem Solving and Change). Chap 8: Physiological Interventions: Prozac and Beyond (Physiological Vulnerability, Body Image, Hormones, Types of Antidepressant Medications, Sleep Disturbances, Exercise). Chap 9: Cognitive Interventions: Changing How People Think (Misinterpreting Experience, Information-Processing Errors, Changing How the Depressed Think, Countering Rumination). Chap 10: Behavioral Interventions: Shifting from Passive to Active Mode (Getting Active, Homework Tasks, Control, Obstacles to Getting Active, Helpful Activities for the Depressed, Counseling Methods to Change Behavior, Prescribing Depression).