Oates gives portraits of individuals with the various DSM personality disorders. Using an accessible and interesting style and keeping jargon to a minimum, he suggests ways to make a tentative assessment in religious settings and ways for clergy to respond to each disorder in a helpful fashion. Not for those with clinical training, but helpful for those without it.

When Wayne Oates wrote his book fourteen years ago, the literature on personality disorders was very scarce. Back then, Hervey Checkley's 1941 book, THE MASK OF SANITY, had stood as the major source for years. Wayne communicates great concern for church people whose sanity is not an outward expression of an inward possession.

Despite the formality of the liturgical churches and the informality of the revivalistic churches, these church people have only gained a veneer of religiosity. Oates makes a striking comment on why parishioners and clergy with personality disorders are not deeply changed via participation in corporate worship or revival services. These large meetings lack the power of personal confrontation found in small groups or one on one.

Wayne gained much insight about personality disorders from various biblical characters. He found the writings of the early church fathers about disorders in religious people very insightful. John Bunyan's PILGRIM'S PROGRESS portrayed for Oates the attitudes, and ways of dealing with these disorders within our encounter with God's presence.

His book seeks to guide Christians in unmasking the pseudo self overlying the image of God within the person with a personality disorder. His prayer is for such unmasking to enable the real person to emerge. His chosen audience is not the academy, but either those practicing pastor ministry or those preparing for it. He hopes the book with be discussed between pastor and people He is confident that discussing the book can help reduce much of the congregation's tension and help it serve as an instrument of healing.

Fourteen years ago, Wayne made a very pointed statement about the church's preoccupation with the corporate business model for local churches in this book. Whenever this happens, he claims, some people with very strong personality disorders are applauded as church growth heroes. Some of these 'heroes' exploit those laboring under a weaker personality disorder. A few of those with weak personality disorders are either ignored or ambitiously trampled under foot.

.Staying in print for its fourteenth year is a great testimony to the usefulness of Oates' book. Each chapter discusses a personality disorder or a cluster of disorders and how the Christian can help unmask the person so that the real them can emerge. His closing chapter outlines ways for the church to prevent, affect, and addresses personality disorders. I would recommend Oates' book for those who desire to plunge deeper into this subject after reading Pate's book on the same subject. In my opinion the combination of the strengths of both books lay the needed foundation for addressing this important aspect of church health. If I were to lead a discussion on this subject with the members of my church, I would use this book as a backup resource and have them read Pate's book

My CPE group just completed a unit of using this book in didactic learning and we found it to be very helpful in distinguishing behavioral characteristics in patients and ourselves. I reccommend it to any group who works with people.

The majority of clinically trained chaplains for 50 years owe a huge debt to Wayne Oates. Since his influence spread through the Clinical Pastoral Education Movement, anyone serving as chaplain is on speaking terms with his 40-50 books & hundreds of articles.

In his preface he clearly states his goal: "The disciplines of nurturing silence are what this book is about." Dr. Oates keeps his constant theme: "discovering your privacy in order to nurture silence is to discover, Ecstasy as an entrancing joy. It means 'to stand outside of oneself or apart from' so that you center down in silence." Then he proceeds to develop those ideas just like he spoke and/or taught in seminary lectures & seminars.

Our beloved mentor, still a gifted imaginative writer draws upon scripture, stories, poetry, philosophy & nature, exactly like he taught Pastoral Psychology & Theology. To catch a short glimmer or taste of his gourmet thoughts, I dare you to risk getting hooked on his deep Wisdom of the Spirit in a sample of Oates!

I read this book and it helped me out on my grief of a loved one. He shows me how to deal with my grief and would tell others to read it too.