Images of Hope

“While [Lynch] is learned enough about the literature that my field (psychiatry) has accumulated during its brief history, scholarship alone cannot account for his remarkable effectiveness in this volume. So, I must begin with a statement, which because of its simplicity is difficult to make cleanly: Father Lynch is genuinely devoted to our calling. In fact, I suspect he is more devoted than many of its practitioners who tend, understandably, to be more quickly discouraged by its deficiencies. In these days of fashionable get-togethers between religion and psychiatry, I am impelled to add that he has no wish to proselytize or be proselytized. In other words, he is the rarest of human beings—the outsider who can speak as a friend.” —American Journal of Psychiatry

“Images of Hope, issued out of a harrowing personal experience of severe mental breakdown, [is] still a classic in the field of psychological healing. [The Reverend William F.] Lynch knew what it meant to rise from the dead.” —Commonweal

“For those directly involved with the care of the mentally ill, Father Lynch offers many valid insights, including the fact that honest self-disclosure can be infinitely helpful to the patient who is mesmerized by a perfectionistic or independence ideal carried to its extreme. It is a thoughtful book from which emanates concern.” —Journal of Religion and Health