PEOPLE IN PRINT
October 1, 1983
The Pit and the Pastor
Depression by Don Baker and Emery Nester, Multnomah, $9.95
Reviewed by Tom McKee, pastor, Sun River Church, Rancho Cordova, California
"I had visited Ward 7E many times. . . . It resembled most of the psychiatric wards and mental hospitals where I had gone to minister to members of my congregation. … I've never felt comfortable with the mentally ill. This time, however, my discomfort had been replaced by fear. … This time I was being led down the silent halls of Ward 7E, not as pastor, but as patient."
So begins the personal narrative of Don Baker's depression. His hospital admission, his counseling, his withdrawal, his desire for a God who seemed absent, his fellow sufferers, his family-all are talked about with compelling honesty, which makes it easy to identify with him.
Among the stacks of books on depression, this one is unique. It is not primarily a self-help book or an analysis but the journey of a pastor who is broken and restored. The assurance given Baker by a counselor upon admission-"It may take time, but you will get better"-speaks through the pages of his story.
Baker had to turn to the world of psychiatric medicine, alien turf to most pastors. Co-author Emery Nester, associate professor of psychology at Western Conservative Baptist Seminary in Portland, writes the second half of the book. While Baker helps us understand the feelings of the patient, Nester, who helped counsel Baker, provides the perspective of a trained therapist.
Baker takes us inside the black hole of despair. As he checks into Ward 7E we feel his humiliation when the nurse, a member of his congregation, unthinkingly says, "Pastor, what are you doing here?" We sense his shame in the group therapy sessions-how ...
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