1st Edition
Depression and the Soul A Guide to Spiritually Integrated Treatment
Introduction
Chapter 1: Heart, Mind and Soul: Answers the questions: when is guilt pathological? Should intimacy be a goal of treatment for depression? How should a clinician approach a patient who feels his life is hopeless?
Chapter 2: Depression and Spirituality: Explores the relationship between depression and the larger context of an individual’s life by considering how the existential struggles of depressed individuals engage their spiritual lives.
Chapter 3: Differential Diagnosis, Assessment and Formulation: Answers the questions: what distinguishes depression from a spiritual problem? In what ways can depression present a spiritual problem? When both are present, how can one assess the relationship between them? Where do spiritual problems belong in a clinician’s formulation?
Chapter 4: Integrated Treatment: Reviews claims by spiritual practitioners to cure depression and suggests a framework for using them, discussing some of practical questions that arise in doing so.
Chapter 5: Suicide: This chapter examines 1. Evidence that religion and spirituality influence suicide, 2. How clinicians can usefully take this relationship into account in assessing, and reducing suicide risk, 3. Ways of bringing spiritual resources to bear in dealing with the concerns of suicidal individuals, and 4. Approaches to helping families and friends heal in the aftermath of a completed suicide.
Chapter 6: Models of Care: this concluding chapter considers sexual and faith based models for integrating spiritual and emotional care for depression. The limitations of existing models suggest opportunities for improvement, and clarify the nature of the challenges that remain.
Biography
John R. Peteet, MD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is also a medical staff executive committee member at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and is former Chair of Corresponding Committee on Religion, Spirituality, and Psychiatry of the American Psychiatric Association.
