Helping Angry People

Book excerpt: 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.