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Dying, Grieving, Faith, and Family

A Pastoral Care Approach

• By Harold G. Koenig, George W. Bowman

• Price: $39.95
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 150
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 20th October 1997
• ISBN: 978-0-7890-0263-1

About the Book

Dying, Grieving, Faith, and Family: A Pastoral Care Approach enables grief counselors, pastors, hospice specialists, hospital chaplains, mental health practitioners, educators, and seminary students to bring an understanding of faith development, family systems, and gender and ethnic differences into their professional practice as they work with dying and grieving persons. No other book covers all these themes. Not only a great resource for practical guidance, this book is also meant to be provocative, suggestive, and stimulating to professionals and educators charged with working with and teaching about dying and grieving persons.

With 50 years of providing pastoral care to dying and grieving persons and 30 years as a pastoral educator, George Bowman understands the nature and concerns of dying and grieving persons. In Dying, Grieving, Faith, and Family he answers the questions you should be asking yourself--including:

• How does faith development affect relationships of the dying person and family and friends?
• How does faith development affect grief management by the survivors?
• How does the family systems approach help the pastor or counselor work with dying persons and their survivors?
• What gender and ethnic issues are important to remember in helping to minister and serve persons in crises of dying and grieving?
  
  The value of Dying, Grieving, Faith, and Family lies in its approach to dying and grieving from the perspectives of faith development, family systems theory, gender, and ethnicity. Bowman’s unique work proposes that personal development and faith development influence the way one deals with the crises of dying and grief work.

Table of Contents

Contents Preface

• Faith Development in the Crises of Dying and Grieving
• Primal Faith (Incorporative Self)
• Intuitive-Projective Faith (Impulsive Self)
• Mythic-Literal Faith (Imperial Self)
• Synthetic-Conventional Faith (Interpersonal Self)
• Individuative-Reflective Faith (Institutional Self)
• Conjunctive Faith (Interindividual Self)
• Universalizing Faith (Theonomy; or As I Suggest, Theonomous)
• Gender Differences: Carol Gilligan and Feminine Voices
• Ethnic Differences Understanding and Usefulness of Family Systems in Ministry to Dying and Grieving Persons
• Brief Summary of Family Systems Therapy
• Useful Concepts of Family Therapy in Ministry to the Dying and Grieving
• The Pastor’s Ministry to the Dying
• The Necessity for Self-Understanding
• Understanding and Using Available Support Systems
• Emotional Dynamics and Responses of Dying Patients
• Emotional Progression in the Dying Patient
• Helpful Principles for the Pastor
• AIDS: The Disease
• Pastoral Care to AIDS Patients and Families
• The Pastor’s Ministry to the Grieving
• Common Reactions and Responses in Grief
• Healthy Management of Grief
• The Value and Utilization of Religious Resources
• The Minister’s Role
• The Scriptures
• Prayer
• Sacraments, Ordinances, and Rituals
• Religious Literature
• Preparing the Living to Deal with Death
• The Community of Faith
• The Funeral Service
• The Pastor’s Unique Function in Death’s Crises
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index