Books by Donald Capps

In groundbreaking fashion Donald Capps builds on Erik Erikson's work on the eight stages of life by focusing on the decades of life. This important modification allows developmental theory to be applied to the way people discuss life stages--in ten-year periods. Capps integrates the insights of psychology with those of pastoral care to show...

Shows the ways in which humour can be recovered for religion. This book argues that religion is diminished when it fails to understand and embrace its own historical connection. Its chapters deal with topics ranging from humour as an expression of intimacy to humour as the maintenance of the soul.

All of the Gospels and the whole of Christian tradition depict Jesus as a miraculous healer who can cure blindness, leprosy, hemorrhages, and a host of other maladies. But how did Jesus actually heal? In this fascinating book, Donald Capps argues that Jesus was keenly attuned to the psychological causes of illness and through his ministry...

Theological ideas and biblical injunctions have frequently been employed to legitimate the physical abuse of children. Some theological ideas are inherently abusive because they create fear in a child's mind, causing a child to feel alone, odd, and of little worth. Donald Capps exposes the abuses that theology and the Bible have inflicted on...

Donald Capps draws upon the poetry of William Stafford and Denise Levertov to show how poetry can benefit the field of pastoral care. He argues that poetry focuses on the immediate experience and attends to life itself, whereas theology and ethics focus more on abstract discourse, seeking to achieve a more panoramic view of...

In Erik Erikson's Verbal Portraits: Luther, Gandhi, Einstein, Jesus, Donald Capps contends that Erikson's portraits of respective historical figures make a highly creative contribution to psychoanalytic discourse.

"I have read Professor Capp's Reframing with great interest. Since my colleagues and I have long thought of our concepts and practices as broad and general--as potentially applicable beyond our clinical sphere of psychotherapy--it is very satisfying to see this solid and skillful extension of our work into the very wide and important field of pastoral care." -- John H. Weakland, Brief Therapy Center Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, California