Our Suicidal Teenagers- Description
The theological and practical question at the heart of this book is what does it mean to care and be cared for. This book is the story of an ordinary mother's personal family life through the nightmare of caring for a teenage daughter with acute clinical depression. It provides a valuable and deeply moving insight into what it means to care for a person with a severe mental illness and will provide valuable information to many carers who feel isolated and unsupported. It will also be of considerable interest to the professionals who offer help in such circumstances. In attempting to identify the particular benefit and importance of the dimension of spiritual support, it also provides a valuable reference for the Churches. It lays down vital challenges that call the Churches to take very seriously its ministry to people with mental illnesses and their families.
About the Author
Edna Mary Hunneysett was born in 1940 near Stratford-upon-Avon, but in her infancy, the family returned to a small rented hillside farm on the North Yorkshire moor where she spent her childhood with six siblings. After passing her eleven plus examination, she attended a convent boarding grammar school for six years. She married in 1961 and after bringing up eight children, she began her academic career. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in Divinity in 1995 and gained an MA with distinction in 1998. She spent a further six years under the tutorship of a Professor at St John's College at the University of Durham, researching attitudes towards people with mental illnesses with specific reference to Christian Congregations. Currently, as well as supporting her family and sixteen grandchildren, she facilitates pastoral support groups, a monthly one for carers of people with mental illnesses and the other, weekly, for people in the community who have a mental illness. She also speaks in churches and other venues raising awareness on the need for support for families where a member has a mental illness.