Christotherapy 1

CHRISTOTHERAPY 1

Author BERNARD J. TYRRELL

Publisher Wifp and Stock

ISBN 1-57910-231-X

This title might be off putting to some.  There is a second slim volume that is subtitled, “Mind Fasting and Spirit Feasting.”  The first volume, (also quite slim) bears the subtitle, “Healing through Enlightenment.”  All this might suggest something rather formidable with which to grapple and the fact that the author was, for many years a professor at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington might well enforce that assessment.  However, when I came to the end of this first volume my reaction was simply, “well, there is more than one way to skin a cat!”  Not that I know anything about skinning cats, but the fact is, this book is a treatment of repentance, conversion, sanctification and glorification taken from a somewhat unusual vantage point.  There is a valuable depth and sanity to this work and deals with Christian doctrine integrating it to certain popular schools of psychotherapy such as that Viktor Frankl and his logotherapy, William Glasser and his reality therapy and particularly Thomas Hora and his existential psychotherapy.  It all sounds a bit highbrow, but is a lucid and simply written unfolding of the purpose of God in salvation of the soul.  It is a book for counsellors, ministers and those who are particularly involved in gaining an understanding how God works in the human heart.  The book is Christ centred, it is about inner healing and the author is convinced that there is no permanent wholeness possible outside of a vital relationship with Christ Jesus.  The book shows just how there is an interface between the Christian faith and psychology.  It locates something of the failures of the latter in bringing about a newness of heart to people by systematically showing that man comes from God and Christ is man and that outside of God and Christ there is no true answer to the lostness of man.  Christ is the ultimately real and there must be indwelling in Him and He in us.  Gonzaga is a university associated with Roman Catholicism and therefore we are to expect that this author comes from that Christian background.  He lectured for many years in the area of integration of philosophy and psychology with Christ and God and judging by these books, for those who had an ear to hear there would have been tremendous benefit for those who followed through his lectures.    

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