Title: A history of the cure of souls
First published: 1952
Description: Mr McNeill has given us an almost incomparable gift of scholarship examining the contribution of faith, religion and carers informed by these rich traditions and experiences.
I know of no book or other author who has made such a valuable contribution to the field and have looked far and wide for such for 40 years.
Many will think he has omitted some certain aspect of care and cure of persons which they hold close to their hearts and high in importance but his Preface adequately describes his reasons for including or omitting same to end with a single volume which is not too large.
21st century readers will of course find much scientific psychology and psychiatry absent from the pages as it only just reaches the end of the Second World war; he covers antiquity until then brilliantly but lays an incomparable foundation upon which to build expertise in comprehending, evaluating and critiquing all later offerings.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough to every aspirant to excellence in a life of counselling, psychotherapy, psychiatry or clerical and lay ministry within many faith structures.  I suspect it would be pearls before swine to so many professional and amateur carers whose anthropology is limited to the materialist or secular humanist outlooks.
Subjects: faith, counselling, ministry, group responsibility, psychotherapy, individual responsibility, Pastoral counseling