Climbing Jacob's Ladder: Teaching and Counseling Orthodox Students

by Henry J. Roth, Yisroel Bernath (Editor), Lorraine S. Roth (Illustrator)

Climbing Jacob's Ladder* analyzes the way we understand, through the lens of religion, Orthodox students who are referred to a therapeutic day school for school-related problems. It supports the view that underlying conflicted religious feelings have been underestimated as a significant problem in this specialized population.School problems are universal. Orthodox students with emotional and behavioral problems who are referred to a therapeutic day school frequently experience underlying conflicted feelings about their religion. This book provides psycho-educational profiles of Orthodox students with behavioral and emotional problems. Moreover, the book shows how conflicted religious feelings may cause or aggravate psychological problems that lead to unhealthy and inappropriate school behavior. The spectrum of students’ conflicted feelings about religion is classified into five levels as a guide to selecting appropriate counseling interventions. Climbing Jacob’s Ladder discusses how to identify Orthodox students who have conflicted religious feelings in addition to school-related difficulties; how those conflicts affect their school performance, and how to work with these students and their parents in a school setting.*This is the second edition of this book, and the chapter front-panels are printed in full color.

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2003

Reviews

[Micah Rasmussen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, this was difficult for me to read. I'm not religious at all, however, I am really into religious studies. So, I keep an open mind to others cultures and beliefs. This one was very tough to read. I viewed a lot of it as brain washing kids who didn't believe in Judaism.. which in turn goes against what I believe in: letting people, despite their age, believe in what they want. There were some discussion of pushing a child or teen to feel guilty and ashamed about having doubts about the religion that their parents want them to believe in. I don't know how I feel about the book but it was interesting to see this side of the religion.