Hospice chaplains have traditionally played a unique part in palliative care, providing human compassion and support to help ease life's final chapter. This book thoughtfully tackles the question at the heart of modern hospice chaplaincy: do chaplains have a distinctive role in an increasingly secular society?A comprehensive look at why and how this work needs to be done, each chapter will be a rich resource for hospice chaplains and anyone working within a hospice multi-disciplina...

'Hugh Mackay is one of this country’s most perceptive social commentators' - Sydney Morning HeraldInsightful and engaging, What Makes Us Tick? helps to explain what drives us, concerns us and is important to each of us – from Australia's leading social researcher, Hugh Mackay.Dr Mackay has spent a lifetime listening to people talk about their dreams, fears, hopes, disappointments and passions. As well, his bestselling book...

What do people actually mean when they say 'God'?Around two-thirds of us say we believe in God or some 'higher power', but fewer than one in ten Australians attend church weekly. In Beyond Belief, Hugh Mackay presents this discrepancy as one of the great unexamined topics of our time. He argues that while our attachment to a traditional idea of God may be waning, our desire for a life of meaning remains as strong as ever.Mackay int...

Dorothy Rowe shows us how to have the courage to acknowledge and face our fears – only through courage can we find a sustaining happiness.‘Beyond Fear’, first published in 1987, has changed the lives of thousands of people. In this edition, the renowned psychologist Dorothy Rowe examines the changes in the psychiatric system since 1987 in the context of showing how most of our suffering comes from our greatest fear, that of being annihilated as a person, when we shall disappear lik...

Highly Commended in the 2012 BMA Book AwardsWe live in a world where bad things can, and do, happen irrespective of whether we are good or bad, whether we consider ourselves lucky or doomed, and with no regard to fairness. Any of us can find ourselves facing redundancy, the breakdown of a relationship, bankruptcy or any number of life changing crises, or supporting someone else who is. And sometimes, no matter how much we might try, there’s nothing we can do to prevent or ...

As Britain's best-known headmaster, Sir Anthony famously introduced happiness, or well-being, lessons at his school, Wellington College. In 2011, he co-founded Action for Happiness, a body to raise awareness of the discovery of happiness and reduction of depression, whose influence is growing rapidly in Britain and across the world.In this book Anthony Seldon distinguishes between pleasure, happiness and joy, and offers an original 8-step approach on how to make our lives far more ...

Drawing on the author’s unusual background as a seminarian turned scientist and business executive, Boys of the Cloth presents a unique analysis of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. The book combines a first-hand account of seminary life during the 1960s—a period that turns out to be crucial for understanding the crisis—with explorations of the history of the seminary system, current scientific knowledge about abusive behavior, and the Church’s own investigations into the “ep...

Long ago – before there were doctors, pharmacists, and hospitals – religion and medicine were one, and physical and spiritual ailments were treated alike. Most world religions practised healing, including the early Christian Church, which followed Jesus Christ’s examples of miraculous healings of the lame and the blind. But, to its cost, the modern Church has largely forgotten its healing role, says Tom Harpur in The Uncommon Touch, a powerful and persuasive investigation of spiri...

Ivor Browne is Professor Emeritus, University College, Dublin and retired as Chief Psychiatrist of the then Eastern Health Board in 1994. This book charts the growth of one man's journey in relation to psychiatry and human development. Ivor Browne has been a central and controversial figure in Irish life up until the mid-nineties when he retired

We all hope to enjoy our retirement at the end of our working lives, but for many the adjustment can be more challenging than we expected. Rather than a time of slowing down, retirement can be an opportunity to enjoy life and have some fun. It is a time for letting go of old habits, experimenting with relationships and enjoying the wisdom gathered over a life lived. With thirty years of experience as a psychotherapist, Trish Murphy understands the challenges of entering this next p...

A visionary but practical sharing of how spiritual insights, and deepening our inner lives, can impact leadership for social change.Over the past half-century, the issues facing activists have changed, as has our understanding and awareness of spirituality. For activists, spiritual philosophy is rising up the agenda because it offers distinct, tried and tested approaches to deep questions: Where did it all go wrong? What does it mean to be human? What is the place ...

Supervision provides a positive space for compassion, inquiry, reflection, and above all development. The chapters in this book are written from a wide range of perspectives, all of which take a practical approach to supervision and show how transformative it can be when approached in the right way.Contributions range from explorations of supervision as a journey of life-long learning and its place at the heart of practice to chapters on faith, transformation, dealing with feelings...