Helping Angry People: A Short-term Structured Model for Pastoral Counselors

by Glenn Taylor, Rod Wilson

Anger is one of the most common problems counselors face. What does the Bible say about it? Is all Anger sin? Is there a way to turn anger into something positive? Glenn Taylor and Rod Wilson bring their pastoral, teaching, and counseling experience to bear on the various issues surrounding anger and provide a step-by-step, biblically based approach to helping people understand and deal with their anger. Helping Angry People follows the counseling model developed by clinical psychologist David G. Benner for pastoral counselors. This model is: . short term . enhanced by outside reading assignments . carefully structured . holistic . spiritually focused . explicitly Christian After giving a brief overview of this model, the authors present a five-session format that guides counselors through a hypothetical counseling situation, from initial encounter, through counselees' feelings, thoughts and behaviors, to the process of referral and termination. Helping Angry People, together with its companion handout for counselees, Exploring Your Anger, is perfectly suited for pastors who want to counsel in a psychologically informed way that also emphasizes the spiritual resources of Christian ministry. Glenn Taylor (M.Th., M.Ed.) has been Counselor/consultant and researcher in missions for many years with the Missionary Health Institute, Toronto. Rod Wilson (Ph.D., York University) is President and Professor of Counseling and Psychology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Genres: Counselling

212 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jeremy Rios · Rating 2 out of 5]

The focus of the book is less on anger, and more on planning a five session counselling plan for pastors. Because of this, it suffers from a confused sense of purpose--I found myself asking, "what am I supposed to get out of this?" I think a better book would have focused on one ministry or the other, whether focusing on counselling and using many different kinds of issues as examples, or focusing on anger and leaving the counselling training aside.

As it stands, there isn't quite enough about anger, and the counselling portions are a little too technical and dense for the beginning reader (i.e., if you have no counselling training whatsoever I think you'll be lost).

Lastly, a significant portion of the book is a series of invented conversations between an imaginary couple (Bill and Joy) and their pastor. I understand the choice of method, but these, in my opinion, didn't work out so well. One example must suffice. The husband, who struggles with anger, says the following near the end of the sessions: "Well, I felt scared in being vulnerable. But when Joy expresses understanding, I feel accepted or, I don't know if it's the right word or not, exonerated. I feel loved and I like that." Quite frankly, people don't talk like this. Words like "vulnerable" "expressing" and "I feel loved when..." are all counsellor-speak. And counsellor-speak, while handy for training counsellors, is not very useful when learning to understand people's motives, thoughts, and needs.