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A GUIDE TO ORTHODOX PSYCHOTHERAPY: THE SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICE BEHIND IT AND ITS CLINICAL APPLICATION Archbishop Chrysostomos. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007. Pp. 111. Reviewed by John Eric Swenson III (McMurry University/Abilene, TX).
Archbishop Chrysostomos received his Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton University and is currently a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies. He wrote this book as the David B. Larson Fellow in Health and Spirituality at the John W. Kluege Center of the U.S. Library of Congress.
The author discusses how psychology's growing interest in spiritual matters has coincided with increased interest in Orthodox psychotherapy. Metropolitan Hierotheos Blachos was the first person to use the term "Orthodox psychotherapy." Blachos' work was first translated into English in 1994 in a book titled, Orthodox Psychotherapy: The Science of the Fathers. A clear definition of "Orthodox psychotherapy" is not provided in the book under review; however, the author explains that his research has focused on establishing an "Orthodox Patristic psychology." Orthodox Patristic psychology takes an indepth look at the teachings of the Desert Fathers relating to "... human cognition, social psychological factors in human behavior, human sexuality, and abnormal psychology."
The book reviews the history of psychology and religion with more emphasis on the modern history...