Exploring the role of spirituality in couple and family relationships, this text and practitioner guide illustrates ways to tap spiritual resources for coping, healing, and resilience. Rich with insights for working with multifaith and culturally diverse clients, it has been revised and updated with ideas, findings, and clinical applications.
Exploring the role of spirituality in couple and family relationships, this successful text and practitioner guide illustrates ways to tap spiritual resources for coping, healing, and resilience. Leading experts in family therapy and pastoral care discuss how faith beliefs and practices can foster personal and relational well-being, how religious conflicts or a spiritual void can contribute to distress, and what therapists can gain from reflecting on their own spiritual journeys. The volume is rich with insights for working with multi-faith and culturally diverse clients.New to This Edition: *Coverage of death and loss, healing from refugee trauma, meditation practices for couples, use of rituals, and forgiveness.*Chapter on resilience now includes Hindu and Muslim perspectives in addition to Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist views.
"The rewards of this volume are multifaceted: inspiration for the clinician's own personal and spiritual pilgrimage; awareness of the many facets, expressions, and nuances of spirituality; and guidance on how spirituality can be acknowledged and mobilized as a resource for marital and family growth and healing. It is a key required text for my course on spirituality and clinical praxis, and has richly contributed to my own practice, my teaching, and the personal and professional development of my students."--Rand Michael, DMin, Graduate Department of Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy Program, George Fox University
"Distinguished practitioner Froma Walsh and her contributing authors affirm the fundamental place of spirituality in individual, couple, and family therapy. Topics include therapeutic applications related to grieving, forgiveness, and meditation, as well as approaches to working with special populations, such as immigrants and refugees. The book assists therapists to recognize, assess, and appreciate their own and their clients' spirituality so that spirituality can become a constructive aspect of therapy. Theoretically grounded yet practical, this is essential reading for students and established professionals alike."--Martin W. Rovers, PhD, Faculty of Human Sciences, St. Paul University, Ottawa, Canada
"This volume documents a remarkable transformation in family therapists' regard for spirituality. It urges clinicians to follow streams of spiritual experience through family belief systems, rituals, and communities, in order to appreciate the rich therapeutic possibilities that spirituality provides. Capturing the diversity of contemporary families, the contributors provide an array of approaches for helping people cope assertively with losses, injustices, and adversities in their lives."--James L. Griffith, MD, Department of Psychiatry, The George Washington University Medical Center
"Featuring brand-new and updated material, this superb revision of Walsh's groundbreaking text gives voice to the powerful and often ignored spiritual dimension of human experience. The volume offers a rich, multilayered exploration of spirituality and relational well-being. Highly accessible and beautifully written, it is filled with case examples, author reflections, and information that therapists need to develop greater spiritual self-awareness and professional effectiveness. A 'must read' for social workers and psychotherapists, and for graduate students in mental health, family studies, and pastoral counseling."--Marsha Pravder Mirkin, PhD, Department of Psychology, Lasell College; Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University
"A vital contribution to the growing literature on spirituality and psychotherapy. This excellent volume reminds us that spirituality is, at its heart, all about relationships. The contributors skillfully demonstrate how practitioners from every discipline can weave a sensitivity to the spiritual dimension into their work with families from diverse religious backgrounds who are facing life's most profound problems. Through moving personal accounts, the volume also invites therapists to examine the place of spirituality in their own lives. I highly recommend this updated second edition."--Kenneth I. Pargament, PhD, Department of Psychology (Emeritus), Bowling Green State University
