The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Georgia

"Family Behavioral Issues" in Health and Illness by J. LeBron McBride, PhD, Senior Minister, First Christian Church of Rome and Director of Behavioral Medicine, Floyd Family Practice Residency Program, Rome, Georgia

About The Book:

A closer look at your patient’s family situation can help you develop a more effective treatment plan

Family Behavioral Issues in Health and Illness is a basic but thorough introduction to the impact family dynamics can have on a person’s health. Ideal as a supplemental training text for healthcare professionals, this unique book examines the connections between family and health, presenting a concise summary of family systems theory, basic family assessment, and the family life cycle. The book provides an understanding of how the patterns and systems found in a diverse range of family styles can create special health issues, and how the ability to assess and anticipate those issues can ensure the most comprehensive patient care and cost-effective management of time and resources.

As long as families continue to be the primary environment where patients learn and develop their beliefs and overall attitudes about life, it remains essential that any primary healthcare model includes a strong background in family dynamics and the critical, pivotal points of family life. Family Behavioral Issues in Health and Illness addresses the most important aspects of family to consider when providing care, presenting practical, real-life case studies that examine the resilience, strengths, and possibilities of families, as well as the problems and dysfunctions. The book looks at how significant events, such as marriage, divorce, birth, and death affect families, and how a knowledge of special family issues, including parenting, abuse, disability, and chronic illness prepares the healthcare professional to provide effective care for traditional, single-parent, multiracial, blended, adoptive, and same-gender families.

Family Behavioral Issues in Health and Illness examines:

• boundaries, roles, and rules
• triangulation
• subsystems
• scapegoating
• parentification
• healthy families
• the family genogram
• spiritual crises of family members
• infertility
• families without children
• intergenerational families
• the family in later life
• coping with alcoholism, dementia, bereavement, and/or mental illness
• and much more

Family Behavioral Issues in Health and Illness is an essential reference for healthcare professionals, educators, parents, and family members. The book provides a practical understanding of family relationships that helps healthcare providers guide patients toward a more complete well-being.

Reviews:

“AN EXCELLENT RESOURCE. . . . Written in a concise and well-organized manner for the busy professional. . . . PARTICULARLY HELPFUL FOR STUDENTS IN THE HEALTH CARE FIELDS. The author, through his selection of practical and focused content, creates a successful dialogue between the fields of family therapy and family medicine.”

Craig A. Everett, PhD, Director, Arizona Institute for Family Therapy; Editor, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage; Past-President, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

“ESSENTIAL READING FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS who want to build trust by communicating an understanding of the patient's health care challenges and by marshalling resources to assist patients in keeping or getting well. This is a handy, easy-to-read guide, authored by a practitioner with extensive experience working alongside health care providers of many types. The author presents cases of common health care issues that involve family issues and incorporates tables and charts that suggest means of assessment and intervention regarding particular family issues, such as parenting or dementia.”

Sylvia Shellenberger, PhD, Psychologist and Professor of Family Medicine, Mercer University School of Medicine

“COMPREHENSIVE. . . . A useful guide for family physicians. As we frame the future of family medicine we must also frame the future of families. Here are EFFECTIVE, QUICKLY READ, PRACTICAL STRATEGIES for all family structures and problems. The sections on violence and divorce are particularly helpful.”

Peggy Wagner, PhD, Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Medical College of Georgia

“Living Faithfully with Disappointment with the Church” by J. LeBron McBride, PhD, Senior Minister, First Christian Church of Rome

LeBron writes: The book is a new packaging with a new title, new publisher, new editing, and some new material.  It just came out in the last couple of weeks and I am very pleased with the new publisher and the improvements.

About The Book:

A practical approach to address spiritually crippling disappointment with the church!
Feeling disappointment with your church can be spiritually devastating. Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church gives you a theological and family therapy approach to disillusionment in the church that is practical and realistic. The author, an ordained minister and a licensed family therapist, discusses with sensitivity and hope the problems and the ways to resolve issues of spiritual disappointment.

Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church uses a theological basis to lay a foundation of understanding, and then provides real strategies from a family therapy perspective to deal with personal disappointments in the church. The book sensitively discusses real problems using real examples of how church dynamics can unwittingly cause spiritual disillusionment within even the most faithful, even in diligent attempts to serve God. Honest, reverent, and written from the perspective that each of us needs the church to cultivate our faith, this book provides non-simplistic yet hopeful answers to the most difficult of problems. Find comfort in these pages.

Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church discusses:

• idealism about the church
• how churches function according to the dynamics of family systems
• how a controlling family affects church dynamics
• people who become codependent to the church
• adjustment to belief structures within the church
• addictive processes in organizations
• the psychological danger zone of failed beliefs
• how to recognize when to stay and when to move on to another church
• considerations for someone in a denominational crisis
• the uses of spirituality and religion in psychologically healthy ways
• a theoretical model that gives priority to building a relational church

Living Faithfully with Disappointment in the Church is for ministers, chaplains, seminary students, pastoral counselors, Sunday school teachers, or anyone that is facing a spiritual crisis in their church. Each chapter includes questions for reflection and discussion.

Reviews:

“POWERFUL AND HONEST . . . offers a number of solutions for overcoming disappointment and finding renewed hope within the church itself. Clergy and laity alike should be grateful to J. LeBron McBride for penning this encouraging book in an age when disappointment with the church seems to be the order of the day. Church leaders will find this book to be a great resource that can move congregations toward serious introspection and that can serve as a foundation for re-energizing the faithful.”
Robert N. Nash, Jr., PhD, Dean, School of Religion and International Studies, Shorter College, Rome, Georgia

Copyright 2009, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Georgia, All rights reserved.