Religious Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy

Book excerpt: Integrate spiritual traditions with psychological healing! In this fascinating volume, clinical practitioners of different religious traditions examine the same clinical case, offering insights, interventions, and explanations of transformation and healing. This practical approach allows them to explore broader issues of personality theory and psychology from the perspectives of various spiritual traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Religious Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy addresses both the practical issues of doing psychotherapy and the deeper need to relate psychology and theology. After providing a thorough introduction to the spiritual tradition, each author presents a critical psychological theory of personality and psychotherapy grounded in that tradition. The authors address the questions of what it means to be a person, what causes human distress, and how individuals experience healing. Religious Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy offers profound insights into the urgent issues of human suffering and psychological transformation, including: theories of personality structure and human motivation the nature of experience and processes of change the dialectical relation of theology and psychology convergences and difference among the religious psychologies Marrying theory and practice, spirit and psyche, Religious Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy offers profound insights and effective interventions. Mental health professionals, clergy, and scholars in religion, cross-cultural studies, personality, counseling, and psychotherapy will find this breakthrough book a life-changing experience and an invaluable resource.