Walking on Broken Glass: Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness [Paperback]

Product Details

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Brazos Press (April 1, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1587431750
ISBN-13: 978-1587431753
Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

By : Kathryn Greene-McCreight
Price : $12.78
You Save : $6.21 (33%)

Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness [Paperback]

Customer Reviews

This book looks at mental illness from every single angle: the emotional, the psychological, the medical, and primarily the spiritual. In some cases we are plunged into the interior life of the severely depressed patient, at other occasions we are presented with a theological discussion of demon possession or suicide, and at other occasions we are introduced to the benefits and disadvantages of a variety of drugs and therapies. The book is filled with scriptures, hymns, prayers, practical suggestions, site addresses, and frightening descriptions of the feelings and hallucinations knowledgeable by a person with bipolar disorder. It is a brief book with not a wasted word. In fact, at instances I wished for a little even more. I wondered most of all if the author was able to discern why she created bipolar disorder. Was it a delayed reaction to traumatic events of her teenage years? Were there experiences in her earlier childhood that could have contributed? And is there any hope for a cure? The book does not try to draw these type of conclusions but rather focuses on ministering to the emotional and spiritual requires of the mentally ill. It will be an encouraging guide for the patient, friends, and family, specifically these who are devoutly Christian, due to the fact in the finish the most impressive factor about this book is the author's resolute faith in the midst of deep suffering.

When Kathryn Greene-McCreight was in grad school (she earned her PhD at Yale) and gave birth to her second kid, she knowledgeable her first key episode of clinical depression. Five years later doctors diagnosed her as bipolar. Following five hospitalizations, two courses of electroconvulsive therapy, and continuously altering drug regimens, for the past two years she has knowledgeable genuine improvement and stabilization. In this sensitive and sensible book, she grapples with what she calls the "apparent incongruity of that agony with the Christian life," offering theological and pastoral reflections forged in the fires of her experience.
The title for her book comes from the last verse of Psalm 88: "My buddy and my neighbor you have place away from me, and darkness is my only companion" (KJV). Greene-McCreight addresses most of the concerns you may possibly count on. Why does God allow such suffering? Why does He seem to abandon someone who is in such discomfort, and not answer prayer? Is there a connection between sin and suffering? Just what is personality? What is the relationship in between the brain, the thoughts, and the soul? These are not academic queries, but intensely practical ones for somebody trying to make some sense of profound darkness and disorientation in the light of the Gospel.
I located her chapters on mania, what it is like to remain in the hospital, and how she did and did not "connect" with her varied therapists and medical doctors primarily moving. In keeping with her Christian tradition as an Episcopal priest, Greene-McCreight does a fine job at incorporating Scripture, tradition (specifically a amazing choice of hymns, poems and prayers), cause (in this case scientific or medical understanding), and human experience. She concludes that significant mental illness results from a combination of each nature and nurture. As for therapy, she does an superb job of commending the wisdom of the secular medical community, but also cautioning about occasions and places "where the chasm among the religious patient and the non-religious therapist basically can not be bridged." A chapter at the end of the book gives practical guidance on how clergy, close friends, and loved ones can support a person who struggles with major mental illness. I suggested this book to a buddy and also a family member just before I had even completed it.