Pastoral Care of Depression: Helping Clients Heal Their Relationship with God by Glen Moriarty
When I first read the manuscript of this book nearly 3-years ago, I knew it would be an important book. Though its taken several years for the book to become available in print, the timing couldn't be better. The primary focus is helping therapist, counselors, and pastors better understand how clients and parishioners experience God emotionally. Dr. Moriarty, who is founder and director of the God Image Institute, has been researching, studying, and writing about the God image for many years.
The theory underlying the God image can be traced as far back as Sigmund Freud in the psychological literature. Freud, however, took an antagonistic approach toward this understanding of God. Freud argued that individual's experience of God was largely bound to their early experience of caregivers and wish fulfillment. According to Freud, while religion along with this understanding of God did at times help people survive, it was based upon an illusion. Eventually, Freud believed science would replace religion and society would find there was nothing behind the curtain According to Freud, this would reflect progress and growth.
In 1979, Ana-Marie Rizzuto published her book The Birth of the Living God, which signified an important change of heart in this Freudian theory. While Rizzuto agreed that the way people experience God was largely influenced by early relationships, she did not agree that this meant there was nothing behind the curtain. Instead, early experience serves to distort the way people experience God. To put this in more psychoanalytic terms, God was the ultimate blank slate upon which people project their transferences. By working through these distortions or transferences, it is possible to achieve a healthier relationship with God.
At this point, many people may be thinking, "That's a great theory, but what do we do with it?" That's where Moriarty's book is so important. In Pastoral Care of Depression, Moriarty provides a good, easy to understand overview of the theory. Next, he provides many useful techniques rooted in brief psychodynamic therapy and cognitive techniques. Utilizing both these approaches is an important strength of the book. It expands the applicability to a variety of counseling approaches. While I remain skeptical of whether the more cognitive techniques are able to as effectively heal the experiential wounds of the distorted God image, the brief psychodynamic model provides a useful framework which could be applied within a depth psychology perspective, including time-limited adaptations of these theories. Other therapists who may be skeptical of psychodynamic theory can still find utility in the more cognitive applications. The majority of this book is applicable to people from a variety of applications and then some more focused chapters utilize the application of the more narrow theoretical approaches.
The two critiques I have of the book are relatively small in the bigger picture of the book. I don't think the title adequately conveys what this book is about and narrows the audience. "Pastoral Care" suggests, at least to me, that this book is primarily targeted toward ministers or church professionals. However, this book has great utility for therapists and counselors who do not work directly with the church or even from a religious or spiritual framework. I believe a stronger, more appropriate title would help the book better reach its potential. Second, this book is primarily focused on a Christian viewpoint. This is both a strength and a weakness. It's a strength in that it is clear about the framework and context of the book. However, I again am concerned this could unnecessarily limit the audience of this book. Much of this theory could be applied to a variety of theistic approaches to religion beyond Christianity.
In conclusion, the Pastoral Care of Depression: Helping Clients Heal Their Relationship with God is an important book which I highly recommend. This is a great introduction to the theory of the God image and also a nice introduction to how the theory and research can be applied in a clinical setting. Anyone who works with religious and spiritual clients should read this book!