Theology and Pastoral Counseling

Thomas F. Torrance
—University of Edinburgh
"This is a superb, beautifully written book. The work has been very well conceived in content and form and carried out with great sensitivity and clarity. Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger applies the material and method of Karl Barth's theology to pastoral counseling, in which she brings theological thinking and clinical psychological thinking into a remarkable correlation, doing so with convincing power and commanding effectiveness. . . . What a great boon it is for theological and pastoral training to have such a profound feminine mind to penetrate so intuitively, delicately, and effectively into human problems."

Dorothy W. Martyn
—psychotherapist, New York City
"Very infrequently do pastoral counselors and helping professionals in allied fields have opportunity to refresh their minds from such deep wells as are provided by this book. Thoroughly steeped in the Reformed Christian tradition, as represented by Karl Barth, and with very astute understanding of the science of the unconscious mind, Hunsinger succeeds in a rare orchestration of two approaches to human suffering and human growth."

Ann Belford Ulanov
—Union Theological Seminary
"Karl Barth's emphasis on the holy otherness of God, and on the difficulty of reaching God through human images or cultural forms, has made him too long the forgotten theologian in relation to depth psychology. Hunsinger shows how much Barth has to offer our understanding of theology and depth psychology in this splendid book. In her method theology must include the living psyche, and pastoral counselors cannot help but articulate the relation of clinical work to the depths of faith."