2022-05-25
A guide offers a Christian plan for increasing self-esteem.
In this work that combines Christianity and psychology, Brown chronicles her yearlong journey with mental health counselor Caulk and aims the bulk of the resulting discussion at readers who feel like a negative view of themselves is their “default mode.” For these readers, the authors lay out a multistep path (for example, “Recognize Your Emotions” leads to “Uncover and Confront Your Shame” and “Identify the Impact of Your Pain”). This road will take readers from that default mode to a greater state of self-acceptance, a process Brown and Caulk call “healing out loud.” The feel of a prolonged dialogue is sustained by excerpts from messages between the authors. Excerpts from Brown’s own contemporaneous journal entries add an element of personal confession: “It is one thing to know your past. Quite another to see how the dominoes have fallen and impacted every area of your life today.” Each of the book’s sections ends with a “reflection” in a shaded text box, some discussion question prompts, a selection of relevant quotations from Scripture, and an original prayer centered on the personal issue discussed in that part. Through steps dealing with elements ranging from self-respect to shame and anger, Brown and Caulk deftly lead readers from a place of low self-esteem to a perch of greater contentment in their faith. Many of the views the authors relate here would fit neatly into more secular self-help manuals. These sentiments are skillfully connected to tenets of Christian faith. “We react to our shame by turning it outward on others,” the authors write, linking it to a famous passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” Many Christian readers will find this combination of sympathetic self-help and guided Bible study very effective.
A well-designed and winningly encouraging manual on self-healing through faith.
