Unusual and Rare Psychological Disorders collects and synthesizes the scientific and clinical literatures for 21 lesser-known conditions.

Simultaneously published in St. Louis, Missouri by Chalice Press, 2015.

EAS Syndrome: Healing Burnout in Adults Lacking Parental Affirmation By Trevor Walters With Jim Stanley, M.D. _____________________________________________ Why do so many pastors burnout and leave the ministries they''ve diligently shepherded? The phenomenon is epidemic, with record numbers leaving monthly. Writing in professional partnership with a psychiatrist, Trevor Walters shows that midlife burnout is not caused by stress, as we thought, but by an inner conflict strong and persistent enough to ignite burnout in professional men and women. From decades of counseling burned out clergy and other professionals, the author concludes that in most cases the operative inner conflict is affirmation deficiency. When parents fail in their task of affirming a son''s or daughter''s unique personhood, the child embarks on a life long quest of seeking after affirmation elsewhere. This is a pursuit they can maintain only so long before burning out around age 50. No book until now has explained External Affirmation Syndrome (EAS), its consequences, and therapy for healing. This will enrich readers and all therapeutic counselors, Christians especially. In this groundbreaking new book, Bishop Trevor Walters draws on his more than three decades as an Anglican priest and marriage and family counselor to show why high-functioning professionals break down in midlife. Contrary to the popular assumption, Walters explains that the primary cause of burnout isn''t stress. (Some very high-stress professions have low burnout rates.) Rather, burnout results from an internal conflict. Adults lacking affirmation from parents - particularly fathers - during the formative years will go about seeking it from those whom they serve - an inevitable path to burnout. In collaboration from psychiatrist Jim Stanley, M.D., Walters offers hope by demonstrating that recognizing this hidden source of burnout, far from being a dire diagnosis, is the first necessary step to seeking healing available through the Great Physician, Jesus Christ. Walters looks to the example of the Heavenly Father''s relationship with Jesus during his incarnate earthly ministry as a heavenly pattern for relationships. When earthly fathers fall short, real injury is done to their children. Identifying, acknowledging, understanding the nature, and the full extent, of this injury can set the course for genuine healing and forgiveness. The insights this milestone book offers to psychologists, psychiatrists, and religious counselors are very accessible to anyone seeking to understand their own struggles, and to employers and loved ones concerned about a fall-off in the performance or wellbeing of another. This is neither a man''s nor a woman''s book, nor is it a book for any particular age or group. Individual chapters identify and explain the following: · The usual cause of midlife burnout is not stress as we thought, but inner conflict. · Observable symptoms of burnout are catalogued. · The heavenly template: Jesus was affirmed at the Jordon before he had done anything to earn it. He was able to slough-off his temptations and challenges knowing that that his Father affirmed him. · The behaviors Jesus modeled are not beyond our reach today. · EAS people live in subjectivity (internalizing happenings according to their feelings and previous experiences) rather than objectively; hence their addiction to affirmation. · How childhood affects you; e.g., resentment begins at home, caused by lack of affirmation. · Unpacking co-dependencies of the growing-up years. A reprise of the therapy so far and an outline of the next steps to healing. · How misapprehending the Fifth Commandment (Honoring your father and your mother) gets in the way of healing. · Victims of abuse accept responsibility for what happened. Children attribute lack of affirmation to being unworthy of it, with harmful consequences in life. · Cataloging parental failures is a necessary step to assigning blame where it belongs and to true forgiveness. Excusing parental failures in the guise of forgiveness allows wounds to continue festering. · One must know the extent of the damage done before choosing to forgive. · Grieving the loss of what could have been when growing up, and grieving for one''s parents, who also missed out on God''s plan. · An imaginary return to one''s home of origin in order to offload toxic emotions generated there. · Coaching for the imaginary trip to the home of origin. · The preeminence of Christ and what he has in store for those who seek his healing touch. · Seeking out people of godly wisdom. St. Paul''s affirmations in the introductions to his letters. · Living into words of affirmation given by discerning people. · Building healthy peer-to-peer relationships to replace shallow "best friend" relationships. · Persons healed of EAS must parent themselves. Doing it well. · Advice about affirming children.

Part auto-biography and part exposé of Ken Daniels' experience and long time belief in Christianity and the questions and answers he's had to ask about with regard to the validity of Christian theories.

Every year thousands of God's servants leave the ministry convinced they are failures. Years ago, in the midst of a crisis of faith, Kent Hughes almost became one of them. But instead he and his wife Barbara turned to God's Word, determined to learn what God had to say about success and to evaluate their ministry from a biblical point of view. This book describes their journey and their liberation from the "success syndrome"-the misguided belief that success in ministry means increased numbers. In today's world it is easy to be seduced by the secular thinking that places a number on everything. But the authors teach that true success in ministry lies not in numbers but in several key areas: faithfulness, serving, loving, believing, prayer, holiness, and a Christlike attitude. Their thoughts will encourage readers who grapple with feelings of failure and lead them to a deeper, fuller understanding of success in Christian ministry. This book was originally published by Tyndale in 1987 and includes a new preface.

Even people we think are our friends will deny and betray us. Are they bad people, or just don’t do enough, or people with good intentions but acting in ignorance? Or are they basically decent people who, when put to the test, fail because of their weak faith? Filled with many examples, Judas Syndrome gives concrete ways to prevent people, even other Christians, from hurting you and the role that faith can play in changing them and helping you avoid the pain that these relationships often bring. Although sometimes we suffer as a result of our own shortcomings and missteps, placing our trust in Christ's message of love provides the gateway to the life God intends for us. In other words, faith can really save us—a faith, however, that is not easily undertaken on a daily basis or one that can be sustained alone.

"While the struggle for disability rights has transformed secular ethics and public policy, traditional Christian teaching has been slow to account for disability in its theological imagination. Amos Yong crafts both a theology of disability and a theology informed by disability. The result is a Christian theology that not only connects with our present social, medical, and scientific understanding of disability but also one that empowers a set of best practices appropriate to our late modern context"--Publisher description.

By the author of Attempting Normal and host of the podcast WTF with Marc Maron, The Jerusalem Syndrome is The Gospel according to Maron: a spiritual memoir of your average hyperintelligent, ultraneurotic, superhip Jewish standup comedian and seeker. The Jerusalem Syndrome is a genuine psychological phenomenon that often strikes visitors to the Holy Land_the delusion that they are suddenly direct vessels for the voice of God. Marc Maron seems to have a distinctly American version of the Jerusalem Syndrome, which has led him on a lifelong quest for religious significance and revelation in the most unlikely of places. Maron riffs on Beat phenomena with its sacred texts, established rituals, and prescribed pilgrimages. He spends some time exploring the dark side of things, as his obsessions with cocaine (known to Maron as “magic powder”), conspiracy theories, and famous self-destructive comedians convince him that the gates of hell open beneath Los Angeles. As his quest matures, he reveals the religious aspects of Corporate America, pontificating on the timeless beauty of the Coca-Cola logo and even taking a trip to the Philip Morris cigarette factory, where the workers puff their own products with a zealot-like fervor. The culmination of Maron’s Jerusalem Syndrome comes during his own tour of the Holy Land, where, with Sony camcorder glued to his eye socket, he comes face-to-face with his own ambiguous relationship to Judaism and reaches the brink of spiritual revelation_or is it nervous breakdown? Marc Maron has considerably adapted and expanded his praised one-man show to craft a genuine literary memoir. Whether he’s a genuine prophet or a neurotic mess, he’ll make you laugh as you question the meaning of life. “Marc Maron is blazingly smart, rapid-fire, and very funny . . . A brilliant and relentless screed.” –David Rakoff, author of Fraud “Marc Maron is the first crazy person I’ve ever envied. In his brainiac-memoir-meets-hilarious-travelogue, he demonstrates the ability to tell a story with an extraordinary provocative intelligence that is regrettably shared by few.” _ Janeane Garofolo, comedian

Medieval Jerusalem was a vibrant international center, home to multiple cultures, faiths, and languages. Harmonious and dissonant voices from many lands, including Persians, Turks, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Copts, Ethiopians, Indians, and Europeans, passed in the narrow streets of a city not much larger than midtown Manhattan. Patrons, artists, pilgrims, poets, and scholars from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions focused their attention on the Holy City, endowing and enriching its sacred buildings, creating luxury goods for its residents, and praising its merits. This artistic fertility was particularly in evidence between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, notwithstanding often devastating circumstances—from the earthquake of 1033 to the fierce battles of the Crusades. So strong a magnet was Jerusalem that it drew out the creative imagination of even those separated from it by great distance, from as far north as Scandinavia to as far east as present-day China. This publication is the first to define these four centuries as a singularly creative moment in a singularly complex city. Through absorbing essays and incisive discussions of nearly 200 works of art, Jerusalem, 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven explores not only the meaning of the city to its many faiths and its importance as a destination for tourists and pilgrims but also the aesthetic strands that enhanced and enlivened the medieval city that served as the crossroads of the known world.