Handbook of Religion and Mental Health

From our regular book review column.

Harold Koenig, a major researcher at Duke University Medical Center in the field of religion and coping, introduces this volume of mostly insightful and well-constructed entries that explore the relationship between religion and mental health as a "book for mental health professionals, religious professionals, and counselors that is designed to meet the need for information about how religious beliefs and practices relate to mental health and influence mental health". These 26 entries are arranged in 6 sections. The first, "Historical Background," begins by surveying the winding narrative of this relationship and then discusses current interests in ethics and psychiatry. "A New Research Frontier" contains essays on this relationship from the perspectives of sociology, personality theory, neuropsychology, and, in perhaps some of the finest essays in the volume, the findings of many empirical studies.