The editors of this critical volume have compiled a rich group of authors comprised of professors, psychotherapists, counselling practitioners, and doctoral students, to address society’s struggle to find meaning. A rich classroom resource, this book is a particularly important contribution to the Academy given our current lived experience in research, and also for personal reflection. Still in the throes of recovering from the COVID 19 pandemic, economic challenges, environmental disasters, and conflicts in various places in our world, to name only a few of our current challenges, the search for meaning and purpose has become an important pursuit for many. Many people today are looking for an often elusive “more.” This book poses numerous questions reflecting a variety of perspectives on the connections between meaning and service. These diverse perspectives offer readers points of engagement in their own pursuit of integrating meaning and service in their own personal and professional life.

Does my life have any deeper meaning? Does God really care about me? How can I find and follow my moral compass? What do I do when my faith is shaken to the core? Spiritual trials, doubts, or conflicts are often intertwined with mental health concerns, yet many psychotherapists feel ill equipped to discuss questions of faith. From pioneers in the psychology of religion and spirituality, this book combines state-of-the-art research, clinical insights, and vivid case illustrations. It guides clinicians to understand spiritual struggles as critical crossroads in life that can lead to brokenness and decline--or to greater wholeness and growth. Clinicians learn sensitive, culturally responsive ways to assess different types of spiritual struggles and help clients use them as springboards to change.

Drawing on narrative, postmodern, and other therapeutic perspectives, this book guides therapists in exploring the creative and healing possibilities in clients' spiritual and religious experience. Vivid personal accounts and dialogues bring to life the ways spirituality may influence the stories told in therapy, the language and metaphors used, and the meanings brought to key relationships and events. Applications are discussed for a wide variety of clinical situations, including helping people resolve relationship problems, manage psychiatric symptoms, and cope with medical illnesses.

This text provides a comprehensive overview of a variety of major counseling theories and focuses on the integration of different theoretical models. Appropriate for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, it offers a detailed description of the philosophical basis for each theory, along with historical context and a biography of the founder. Each chapter follows a similar format and explores the main features of the theory, including its approach to and ideas on personality development, human nature, the role of environment, the change process in therapy, and contributions and limitations to the mental health field. Theory-specific information on diagnosis, psychopharmacology, multicultural issues, spirituality, and gender issues is also discussed. These features will provide students with a deeper and more complete understanding of counseling theory than is available in any single resource and allow them to easily bridge classroom study to their future practice. This second edition of the text has been completely updated and includes more case examples, as well as a new chapter on Constructivist approaches. An online instructor’s manual with student resources is available and offers material to enhance the pedagogical features of the text.

"This book is for mental health practitioners who want to enhance their clients' psychological well-being using therapeutic tools drawn from spiritual and religious thought. Thomas G. Plante examines the great religious and spiritual traditions and identifies several common tools that can easily be applied to psychotherapy treatment services. These include the benefits of (a) prayer; (b) meditation; (c) meaning, purpose, and calling in life; (d) bibliotherapy; (e) attending community services and rituals; (f) volunteerism and charity; (g) ethical values and behavior; (h) forgiveness, gratitude, and kindness; (i) social justice; (j) learning from spiritual models; (k) acceptance of self and others (even with faults); (l) being part of something larger than oneself; and (m) appreciating the sacredness of life. Regardless of whether mental health professionals and their clients are religious, spiritual, or identified with a faith community, these tools can be a valuable addition to the psychotherapy toolbox. Plante reviews the concepts and evidence that support spiritually integrated therapy and identifies what the great wisdom traditions can offer the psychotherapist. With a focus on the ethical issues to consider in spiritually integrated psychotherapy, he offers tools that will enhance the clinical work of both religious and nonreligious psychotherapists"--Jacket. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

This practical book has given tens of thousands of clinicians and students a comprehensive introduction to mindfulness and its clinical applications. The book describes the philosophical underpinnings of mindfulness and reviews the growing body of treatment studies and neuroscientific research. Leading practitioners and researchers present clear-cut procedures for implementing mindfulness techniques and teaching them to patients experiencing depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and other problems. Also addressed are ways that mindfulness practices can increase acceptance and empathy in the therapeutic relationship. User-friendly features include illustrative case examples and practice exercises. New to This Edition *Incorporates significant empirical advances--mindfulness has become one of the most-researched areas in psychotherapy.ÿ *Most chapters extensively revised or rewritten. *Chapters on practical ethics, trauma, and addictions. *Greater emphasis on the role of acceptance and compassion in mindfulness. See also Sitting Together: Essential Skills for Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy, by Susan M. Pollak, Thomas Pedulla, and Ronald D. Siegel, a hands-on guide to incorporating mindfulness practices into psychotherapy.

Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCP) for advanced cancer patients is a highly effective intervention for advanced cancer patients, developed and tested in randomized controlled trials by Breitbart and colleagues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. This treatment manual for group therapy provides clinicians in the oncology and palliative care settings a highly effective, brief, structured intervention shown to be effective in helping patients sustain meaning, hope and quality of life.

This thought-provoking guide for mental health professionals and pastoral counselors provides you with a framework to assess and incorporate client-based spirituality into your practice. The author's unique understanding of spirituality and its relationship to mental heath makes the book an ideal educational guide for practitioners striving to understand the impact of faith on their clients' mental health. The insights presented in Spirituality and Mental Health: Clinical Applications will leave you better informed about the complexities of spirituality and make it easier for you to integrate them meaningfully into your clinical work.

The authors argue that when psychotherapists diagnose and assess their clients, they should routinely assess the religious and spiritual values of their clients to obtain a fuller and more accurate diagnostic picture. This book is the first to provide guidance for integrating a theistic spiritual strategy into mainstream approaches to psychotherapy in order to reach a large, underserved population of clients with religious and spiritual beliefs.