The American Association of Christian Counselors and Tyndale House Publishers are committed to ministering to the spiritual needs of people. This book is part of the professional series that offers counselors the latest techniques, theory, and general information that is vital to their work. While many books have tried to integrate theology and psychology, this book takes another step and explores the importance of the spiritual disciplines in psychotherapy, helping counselors to integrate the biblical principles of forgiveness, redemption, restitution, prayer, and worship into their counseling techniques. Since its first publication in 1996, this book has quickly become a contemporary classic--a go-to handbook for integrating what we know is true from the disciplines of theology and psychology and how that impacts your daily walk with God. This book will help you integrate spiritual disciplines--such as prayer, Scripture reading, confession--into your own life and into counseling others.

Mark R. McMinn, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at Wheaton College Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois, where he directs and teaches in the Doctor of Psychology program. A diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology, McMinn has thirteen years of postdoctoral experience in counseling, psychotherapy, and psychological testing. McMinn is the author of Making the Best of Stress: How Life's Hassles Can Form the Fruit of the Spirit; The Jekyll/Hyde Syndrome: Controlling Inner Conflict through Authentic Living; Cognitive Therapy Techniques in Christian Counseling; and Christians in the Crossfire (written with James D. Foster). He and his wife, Lisa, have three daughters.

We live in a day of fast information, fast fingers, fast food, fast shipping, fast words, fast anger, and fast judgment. Our fight-or-flight impulses keep us on high alert, aided by mobile devices that vibrate each time another crisis strikes. All this fastness can easily interfere with a slow, intentional life grounded in God's love. Christian faith has deep treasures and practices to offer us. How will we live, and who will we be in this highly charged era where politics, economics, environment, and social norms are under significant duress? Come explore quieter, more intentional ways of being, and how these might attune us to the slow work of God in order that we might love one another and the world as God does. Our chapters pair a lure to move fast with an invitation to slow. Becoming slow to anger is an invitation to empathy, slow to judge is an invitation to humility, and slow to grasp is an invitation to contentment. Ultimately, each of these invitations is a movement toward God.

Mark McMinn and Clark Campbell present an integrative model of psychotherapy that is grounded in Christian biblical teaching and in a critical and constructive engagement with contemporary psychology. Now in paperback, this foundational work integrates behavioral, cognitive, and interpersonal models of therapy within a Christian theological framework.

Pitfalls in Christian counseling include either emphasizing sin at the expense of grace or grace at the expense of sin. Mark R. McMinn seeks to overcome these exaggerations and enable all those in the helping professions see the proper understanding and place of both sin and God's grace in the Christian counseling process.

Mark R. McMinn is Professor of Psychology and Director of Integration in the Graduate Department of Clinical Psychology at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. He was previously on faculty at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he was the Rech Professor of Psychology from 1996 to 2006. Mark is a licensed psychologist in Illinois and is board certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology. He is Past-President of the APA's Psychology of Religion division. His other books include Sin and Grace in Christian Counseling (2008), Integrative Psychotherapy (coauthored with Clark D. Campbell, 2007), Finding Our Way Home (2005), Why Sin Matters (2004), Care for the Soul (coedited with Timothy R. Phillips, 2001), and Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling (1996). Mark and his wife, Lisa--a sociologist and author--live in rural Oregon. They have three grown daughters.

En Psicología de la Virtud, Mark McMinn aclara cómo la psicología positiva puede complementar la fe cristiana y promover la felicidad y el florecimiento personal. La psicología positiva ayuda a redimir el lenguaje de la virtud. Con la modernidad el discurso sobre la virtud disminuyó, así como la capacidad para entender lo que es. Aunque la ciencia no puede recuperar en su plenitud la rica idea que la gente tenía de la virtud en los siglos pasados, la psicología positiva es un paso en la buena dirección. La psicología positiva reúne la virtud y la ciencia para tratar temas como la esperanza, la capacidad de recuperación, la compasión, la gratitud, la tolerancia, el perdón, la autenticidad, la humildad, la creatividad, la sabiduría, y muchas cosas más. Cada capítulo de este libro incluye una sección dirigida a los consejeros cristianos que buscan promover la felicidad y la realización en los demás.

Este libro te ayudará a:

• Reunir las herramientas necesarias para desarrollar un estado de realización plena.
• Comprender por qué la psicología positiva necesita a la iglesia y viceversa.
• Complementar la consejería pastoral con la psicología positiva.
• Profundizar en temas como la sabiduría, el perdón, la gratitud, la humildad, la esperanza, la gracia, desde el punto de vista de la psicología positiva.

The Science of Virtue: Why Positive Psychology Matters to the Church

In The Science of Virtue: Why Positive Psychology Matters to the Church Mark McMinn clarifies how positive psychology can complement the Christian faith and promote happiness and personal growth. Positive psychology helps redeem the language of virtue. With modernity, the discourse on virtue diminished, as did the ability to understand what it is. Although science cannot fully recover the rich idea that people had of virtue in past centuries, positive psychology is a step in the right direction. Positive psychology brings together virtue and science to address topics such as hope, resilience, compassion, gratitude, tolerance, forgiveness, authenticity, humility, creativity, wisdom, and much more. Each chapter in this book includes a section for Christian counselors seeking to promote happiness and fulfillment in others. This book will help you to:

• Gather the necessary tools to develop a state of full realization.
• Understand why positive psychology needs the church and vice versa.
• Complement pastoral counseling with positive psychology.
• Delve into topics such as wisdom, forgiveness, gratitude, humility, hope, and grace, from the point of view of positive psychology.

We live in a day of fast information, fast fingers, fast food, fast shipping, fast words, fast anger, and fast judgment. Our fight-or-flight impulses keep us on high alert, aided by mobile devices that vibrate each time another crisis strikes. All this fastness can easily interfere with a slow, intentional life grounded in God's love. Christian faith has deep treasures and practices to offer us. How will we live, and who will we be in this highly charged era where politics, economics, environment, and social norms are under significant duress? Come explore quieter, more intentional ways of being, and how these might attune us to the slow work of God in order that we might love one another and the world as God does. Our chapters pair a lure to move fast with an invitation to slow. Becoming slow to anger is an invitation to empathy, slow to judge is an invitation to humility, and slow to grasp is an invitation to contentment. Ultimately, each of these invitations is a movement toward God.

Mark McMinn and James Foster demonstrate that it is never safe or spiritually superior to merely accept what we are told to believe. Rather than telling us what to think, however, the authors guide us in how to think critically and clearly.

Edited by Mark R. McMinn and Timothy R. Phillips, this collection of essays is a multidisciplinary dialogue on the interface between psychology and theology that takes seriously the long, rich tradition of soul care in the church.

Christianity Today Book Award Winner
Outreach Recommended Resource of the Year (Counseling and Relationships)

The church and science have drifted apart over the past century. Today the church is often deemed irrelevant by those who trust science, and science is often deemed irrelevant by those whose primary loyalties are to the church. However, this book shows that the new science of virtue--the field of positive psychology--can serve as a bridge point between science and the church and can help renew meaningful conversation.

In essence, positive psychology examines how ordinary people can become happier and more fulfilled. Mark McMinn clarifies how positive psychology can complement Christian faith and promote happiness and personal flourishing. In addition, he shows how the church can help strengthen positive psychology. McMinn brings the church's experience and wisdom on six virtues--humility, forgiveness, gratitude, grace, hope, and wisdom--into conversation with intriguing scientific findings from positive psychology. Each chapter includes a section addressing Christian counselors who seek to promote happiness and fulfillment in others.