Troubled Minds

Mental Illness and the Church's Mission

By: Amy Simpson

Narrated by: Courtney Patterson

Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

Mental illness is the sort of thing we don't like to talk about. It doesn't reduce nicely to simple solutions and happy outcomes. So instead, too often we reduce people who are mentally ill to caricatures and ghosts, and simply pretend they don't exist. They do exist, however - statistics suggest that one in four people suffer from some kind of mental illness. And then there's their friends and family members, who bear their own scars and anxious thoughts, and who see no safe place to talk about the impact of mental illness on their lives and their loved ones. Many of these people are sitting in churches week after week, suffering in stigmatized silence.

In Troubled Minds Amy Simpson, whose family knows the trauma and bewilderment of mental illness, reminds us that people with mental illness are our neighbors and our brothers and sisters in Christ, and she shows us the path to loving them well and becoming a church that loves God with whole hearts and whole souls, with the strength we have and with minds that are whole as well as minds that are troubled.

©2013 Amy Simpson (P)2014 Audible Inc.

somewhat helpful look at church and mental illness

Troubled Minds incorporates memoir with statistics and advice about the church and mental illness. Amy Simpson describes her own experience growing up with a mother who suffered from schizophrenia. Throughout the book, she discusses the failure of so many churches are to understand and discuss mental illness in a helpful, accurate, productive way.

#MentalHealth #Christianity #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

All should read this!!

Amy has written an amazingly honest & open book about her own family's experience with mental illness and thus opened wide the door for all to see and feel the issues involved with caring for those diagnosed with mental illness of all kinds. Every ministry and church layleader needs to read this book and keep as a resource and challenge for best loving & sharing the gospel with our nation.

Helpful

I feel this book gives light to a need in our faith community. It was real and touching to hear story and direction. We deal with mental health in our community and family and was so encouraged.

close to home

Loved this book, but it made me sad thinking of a past church I spent almost 20 years as a member of hat could easily be gone of the churches mentioned that vilified the sick. We had a wonderful pastor that was driven away for standing up to the Elders. I listened to a recording of a meeting where one elder openly mocked our Pastor because he was being treated for depression. That church went through a series of implosions because of the increasingly obvious toxic leadership. The way they treated the Pastor for something as common as depression drove many long term members away. Sad and disgusting.

Makes you think

Used real life example to explain mental illness in the church. I found some of the information redundant but useful and thought provoking.

HOPE!!! I have found much hope and help here...

This book by Amy Simpson is rich in compassion, grace, and hope! Listen and have your heart and mind open to a hidden world (the world if mental illness) that needs the light of love, friendship, and hope.

PLEASE read this book if you have little knowledge

Please read this book whether you have little knowledge or all the knowledge of the psychology behind suicidal thougts, depression, and other mental illnesses. As someone who knew almost nothing about depression and suicide, I came across this book. My loved one was diagnosed with suicide, depression, and personality disorders. Although this didn't necessarily teach me every answer, it definitely showed me the compassion I needed to offer her. I didn't realize how grating my words were to her beforehand. I didn't realize the simple job I had before me that I wasn't doing properly. This book is compassionate, loving and well written. The performance is fantastic as well. It is not condescending and is put in simple layman's terms.

Excellent introduction

Great introduction to the issues of mental illness, especially for anyone who wants to engage them from within the church.