Hope-Filled Healthcare for Mental Illness: Bringing New Life Out of Devastation Through Compassionate, Interdisciplinary Teamwork (AdventHealth Press)

Do 21st Century mentally ill patients receive all the help and support they need? Not usually, says veteran Chaplain Robert W. Engstrom, now retired, who specialized in hope-filled spiritually-based care to the mentally ill for more than two decades, most of them in the context of Florida Hospital, in Orlando, Florida. Even in our supposedly sophisticated era, Rev. Engstrom says, many people with mental illness are stigmatized, ostracized, marginalized, or worse. Engstrom s monograph, Hope-Filled Healthcare for Mental Illness, is a clarion call for respectful, compassionate interdisciplinary whole-person care for those suffering from mental illness. All caregivers who have contact with the mentally ill, whether in a clinical or non-clinical setting, and whether they are trained psychiatric professionals or not, will find this book to be an indispensable look into the world of people with mental illness and how to help them. There is always hope, Chaplain Engstrom would say, and then he might share a story like that of the suicidal Pastor Ralph, who recovered through the loving intervention of his wife and the compassionate treatment of a team of caregivers who helped him renew his connection with the God he served, like a modern day fulfillment of the Old Testament Isaiah s promise that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. Or he might describe how Sandy, a young woman whose first psychotic break occurred just weeks before her planned wedding to her childhood sweetheart. Soon she was hearing voices telling her to do irrational things, including throwing herself into a river clad in a wedding gown. A nurse named Norma gained Sandy s trust and listened to her story, helping her believe that someone understood and cared. You will find it moving, inspirational, compelling, convincing, practical, and motivational. The resources and patient questionnaires included will help you take whole-person care for the mentally ill to the next level. The insights and multiple true life illustrations will help you walk with a mentally ill person from out of the dark depths of their own personal hell to see again what the poet, Dante, called the shining world when he wrote, and so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.