Psychotherapy with the Orthodox Jew

Psychotherapy with the Orthodox Jew
Author: Herbert S. Strean
Publisher: Jason Aronson
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1994
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

Strean shows clearly how religion serves unconscious, neurotic, and defensive functions as well as adaptive purposes. Written in a personal, self-reflective style, Dr. Strean's case study material illustrates beautifully the relevance and application of psychoanalytic concepts to understanding the life and struggles of the Orthodox Jewish patient. These theoretical and technical constructs include transference and countertransference, the relationship between overt behaviors and their genetic antecedents, and the effects of interpretation on facilitating childhood reconstructions. Dr.

The Connections Paradigm

The Connections Paradigm
Author: David H. Rosmarin
Publisher: Templeton Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2021-02-08
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1599475502

This book introduces an approach to mental health that dates back 3,000 years to an ancient body of Jewish spiritual wisdom. Known as the Connections Paradigm, the millennia-old method has been empirically shown to alleviate symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. After being passed down from generation to generation and tested in clinical settings with private clients, it is presented here for the first time to a wide audience. The idea behind the paradigm is that human beings, at any given moment, are either "connected" or "disconnected" across three key relationships. To be "connected" means to be in a loving, harmonious, and fulfilling relationship; to be "disconnected" means, of course, the opposite. The three relationships are those between our souls and our bodies, ourselves and others, and ourselves and God. These relationships are hierarchal; each depends on the one that precedes it. This means that we can only connect with God to the extent that we connect with others, and we cannot connect with others if we don’t connect with ourselves. The author, Dr. David H. Rosmarin, devotes a section to each relationship, and describes techniques and practices to become a more connected individual. He also brings in compelling stories from his clinical practice to show the process in action. Whether you're a clinician working with clients, or a person seeking the healing balm of wisdom; whether you're a member of the Jewish faith, or a person open to new spiritual perspectives, you will find this book sensible, practical, and timely, because, for all of us, connection leads to mental health.

Sanity and Sanctity

Sanity and Sanctity
Author: David Greenberg
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0300131992

Ultra-orthodox Jews in Jerusalem are isolated from the secular community that surrounds them not only physically but by their dress, behaviors, and beliefs. Their relationship with secular society is characterized by social, religious, and political tensions. The differences between the ultra-orthodox and secular often pose special difficulties for psychiatrists who attempt to deal with their needs. In this book, two Western-trained psychiatrists discuss their mental health work with this community over the past two decades. With humor and affection they elaborate on some of the factors that make it difficult to treat or even to diagnose the ultra-orthodox, present fascinating case studies, and relate their observations of this religious community to the management of mental health services for other fundamentalist, anti-secular groups.

Becoming Frum

Becoming Frum
Author: Sarah Bunin Benor
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2012-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0813553911

When non-Orthodox Jews become frum (religious), they encounter much more than dietary laws and Sabbath prohibitions. They find themselves in the midst of a whole new culture, involving matchmakers, homemade gefilte fish, and Yiddish-influenced grammar. Becoming Frum explains how these newcomers learn Orthodox language and culture through their interactions with community veterans and other newcomers. Some take on as much as they can as quickly as they can, going beyond the norms of those raised in the community. Others maintain aspects of their pre-Orthodox selves, yielding unique combinations, like Matisyahu’s reggae music or Hebrew words and sing-song intonation used with American slang, as in “mamish (really) keepin’ it real.” Sarah Bunin Benor brings insight into the phenomenon of adopting a new identity based on ethnographic and sociolinguistic research among men and women in an American Orthodox community. Her analysis is applicable to other situations of adult language socialization, such as students learning medical jargon or Canadians moving to Australia. Becoming Frum offers a scholarly and accessible look at the linguistic and cultural process of “becoming.”

The Art of Jewish Pastoral Counseling

The Art of Jewish Pastoral Counseling
Author: Michelle Friedman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2016-11-18
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1315535327

The Art of Jewish Pastoral Counseling provides a clear, practical guide to working with congregants in a range of settings and illustrates the skills and core principles needed for effective pastoral counseling. The material is drawn from Jewish life and rabbinic pastoral counseling, but the fundamental principles in these pages apply to all faith traditions and to a wide variety of counselling relationships. Drawing on relational psychodynamic ideas but writing in a very accessible style, Friedman and Yehuda cover when, how and why counseling may be sought, how to set up sessions, conduct the work in those sessions and deal with difficult situations, maintain confidentiality, conduct groupwork and approach traumatic and emotive subjects. They guide the reader through the foundational principles and topics of pastoral counseling and illustrate the journey with accessible and lively vignettes. By using real life examples accompanied by guided questions, the authors help readers to learn practical techniques as well as gain greater self-awareness of their own strengths and vulnerabilities. With a host of examples from pastoral and clinical experience, this book will be invaluable to anyone offering counselling to both the Jewish community and those of other faiths. The Art of Jewish Pastoral Counseling will appeal to psychoanalysts, particularly those working with Jewish clients, counselors, psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and rabbis offering pastoral counseling, as well as clergy of other faiths such as ministers, priests, imams and lay chaplains.

Becoming Un-orthodox

Becoming Un-orthodox
Author: Lynn Davidman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2015
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199380503

Lynn Davidman offers an in-depth study of defectors from Orthodox Judaism, showing how they negotiate the difficult passage away from their families and communities and reconstruct their identities in new social contexts.

Hidden Heretics

Hidden Heretics
Author: Ayala Fader
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0691234485

"This book concerns a cohort of ultra-orthodox Jews based in the greater New York area who, while retaining membership and close familial and other ties with their strictly observant communities, seek out secular knowledge about the world on the down low (so to speak), both online and via in-person encounters. Ayala Fader conducted her ethnographic research in these rarified social circles for years, developing relationships of trust with the mostly young married men and women who have taken to clandestine methods to find alternative social spaces in which to question what it means to be ethical and what a life of self-fulfillment looks like. Fader's book reveals the stresses and strains that such "double-lifers" experience, including the difficulty these life choices inject into relationships with wives, husbands, and one's children. Not all of these "double-lifers" become atheists. Fader's interlocutors can be placed on a broad spectrum ranging from religiously observant but open-minded at one end to atheism on the other. The rabbinical leadership of these ultra-orthodox communities are well aware of this phenomenon and of how unfiltered internet access makes such alternative forms of seeking an ever-present temptation. (Some ultra-orthodox rabbis have been sounding the alarm for years, claiming that the internet represents more of a threat to community survival today than the Holocaust did in the last century.) Fader's book examines the institutional responses of ultra-orthodox communities to the double-lifers. These include what is typically referred to as a Torah-based type of "religious therapy" conducted by trained members of these communities who as therapists and "life coaches" blend elements of modern psychiatry with ultra-orthodoxy and "treat" troubling, potentially life-altering doubt and skepticism as symptoms of underlying emotional pathology"--

A Practical Guide to Rabbinic Counseling

A Practical Guide to Rabbinic Counseling
Author: Yisrael N. Levitz
Publisher: Feldheim Publishers
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2005
Genre: Counseling
ISBN: 9781583308349

An integral and important work for every rabbi and community leader. This book puts the essential elements of rabbinic counseling into the hands of those who need it most. Rabbis and leaders often find themselves doing formal and informal counseling--but with little or no experience, opportunities can be lost and damage can be done. Here are practical tools to facilitate better communication and assistance, user-friendly and eminently practical. Dr. Levitz is a clinical psychologist, former pulpit rabbi, and Professor Emeritus of Yeshiva Universitys Wurzweiler School of Social Work. Rabbi Dr. Twerski is a noted psychiatrist and former pulpit rabbi who has published close to fifty self-help books and specializes in addictions and rehabilitation. This book will be of interest and of essence to every rabbi, rebbe, and spiritual or community leader.

Educating in the Divine Image

Educating in the Divine Image
Author: Chaya Rosenfeld Gorsetman
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1611684587

Although recent scholarship has examined gender issues in Judaism with regard to texts, rituals, and the rabbinate, there has been no full-length examination of the education of Jewish children in day schools. Drawing on studies in education, social science, and psychology, as well as personal interviews, the authors show how traditional (mainly Orthodox) day school education continues to re-inscribe gender inequities and socialize students into unhealthy gender identities and relationships. They address pedagogy, school practices, curricula, and textbooks, as along with single-sex versus coed schooling, dress codes, sex education, Jewish rituals, and gender hierarchies in educational leadership. Drawing a stark picture of the many ways both girls and boys are molded into gender identities, the authors offer concrete resources and suggestions for transforming educational practice.

Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism

Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism
Author: Alan Slomowitz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1351718487

Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism explores the often incommensurable and irreconcilable beliefs and understandings of sexuality and gender in the Orthodox Jewish community from psychoanalytic, rabbinic, feminist, and queer perspectives. The book explores how seemingly irreconcilable differences might be resolved. The book is divided into two separate but related sections. The first highlights the divide between the psychoanalytic, academic, and traditional Orthodox Jewish perspectives on sexual identity and orientation, and the acute psychic and social challenges faced by gay and lesbian members of the Orthodox Jewish world. The contributors ask us to engage with them in a dialogue that allows for authentic conversation. The second section focuses on gender identity, especially as experienced by the Orthodox transgender members of the community. It also highlights the divide between theories that see gender as fluid and traditional Judaism that sees gender as strictly binary. The contributors write about their views and experiences from both sides of the divide. They ask us to engage in true authentic dialogue about these complex and crucial emotional and religious challenges. Homosexuality, Transsexuality, Psychoanalysis and Traditional Judaism will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as members and leaders of Jewish communities working with LGBTQ issues.