Disappointment in Course (or, At Least there's a Market for My Book!)

Nothing. In over 600 pages,
there's NOTHING HERE!

It was with great anticipation that I looked forward to the arrival of my current course in the biblical counseling tract I'm taking, "Medical Issues in Counseling 1 and 2". The course syllabus promised a 12-lecture course dealing with "specific medical issues i.e. anorexia, bulimia..."(sic) among other things.

Even though I have spent the last several years researching, writing and informally counseling women with eating disorders, according to biblical principles - to the best of my knowledge -naturally I was quite eager to see what the "experts" had written about this pervasive subject afflicting millions of Christian women. I was greatly looking forward to learning how top biblical counselors approach the whole subject of food addiction, bulimia in particular.

The 12 DVD set just arrived in the mail, along with the required text: "The Christian Counselor's Medical Desk Reference" (a $40 book, by the way). Including appendices, this tome is nearly 500 pages. IT DOES NOT CONTAIN ONE SINGLE WORD ABOUT ANOREXIA, BULIMIA, OR EATING DISORDERS. Neither do the more than 100-pages of lecture notes provided with the video lectures. (There is, however, an entire lecture devoted to "sleep disorders"). If anorexia and/or bulimia are even touched on at all in the lectures, the subject must have been so parenthetical as to not even warrant mention in the lecture outlines.

I am deeply disappointed, to say the least. My only explanation for this is that these books/lectures are written by men, and eating disorders tend to be a female-problem. (In biblical counseling, men counsel men and women counsel women, unlike in the psych fields). Broadly speaking, biblical counseling tends to be a very male-dominated field (and I say that as a complementarian...I strongly uphold male leadership in the Church); but more than half of Christian counselees are women. How could such a huge issue as eating disorders be so completely overlooked in a course like this? Especially when it is listed, on the course syllabus, as being included? If, after I have viewed all of the lectures it turns out that anorexia or bulimia was discussed, I'll write a retraction. But based on this (very expensive) material, there's nothing there.

I suppose there's one positive way of looking at this oversight: there's a definite market for my book! There is virtually nothing, written from a purely biblical perspective, on the subject of eating disorders.

Well...that's about to change. As soon as the publisher gives me an approximate publication date, I'll share and let you know how you can pre-order "Redeemed from the Pit".