This book has changed my ministry. I have been a pastor for 20 years with a degree in social work and lots of graduate credits in pastoral care and counseling, and did not expect this book to impact me so much. Stone makes a solid case for a framework for pastoral counseling that is of necessity short-term and forward looking. Then he puts ministry to those who are depressed, the "common cold of mental health," into that context. The result is outstanding. It is a foundational work for my own book with Augsburg Fortress that will be out in 2002, titled "When You Are Depressed." This review is unsolicited and heartfelt. +

Introduction: A View of Depression (Depression on the Rise, The Depressed as Church Members) PART ONE: ASSESSMENT Chap 1: Characteristics of Depression (Causes of Depression, Major Depression, Grief, Alcohol). Chap 2: Melancholy and Spiritual Desolation (Dark Night of the Soul, Accidie, Desolations, Anfechtungen, Discernment). Chap 3: Suicide and Depression (Assessing Suicide Risk, The Minister's Response to Suicide). Chap 4: Family Life of the Depressed (Impact of Depression on Interpersonal Relations, Marriage and Depression, Gender Differences, Children and Adolescents). Chap 5: Framing Hope (Reframing, Establishing Future Goals, Hope-Oriented Conversation, Strengths). PART TWO: ACTION Chap 6: Brief Pastoral Counseling of Depression: A Fourfold Approach (Assessment of Depression, How Clergy Think about Depression, The First Session, Counseling Methods). Chap 7: Interpersonal Interventions: Strengthening Intimate Relationships (Relationships of the Depressed, Life with a Depressed Person; Individual, Couple and Family Counseling, Communication, Problem Solving and Change). Chap 8: Physiological Interventions: Prozac and Beyond (Physiological Vulnerability, Body Image, Hormones, Types of Antidepressant Medications, Sleep Disturbances, Exercise). Chap 9: Cognitive Interventions: Changing How People Think (Misinterpreting Experience, Information-Processing Errors, Changing How the Depressed Think, Countering Rumination). Chap 10: Behavioral Interventions: Shifting from Passive to Active Mode (Getting Active, Homework Tasks, Control, Obstacles to Getting Active, Helpful Activities for the Depressed, Counseling Methods to Change Behavior, Prescribing Depression).

Stone and Duke have an excellent style of writing. They make you feel as if you are sitting with them around a comfortable table having a late evening discussion over a hot cup of coffee. Their real world examples bring their theological concepts into crystal clear focus and assists the reader in transforming external theological principles into interalized spiritual practices