Wayne Oates, one of America’s leading pastoral counselors, draws on psychological insights to describe in everyday language several common personality disorders that make human interaction so difficult. He examines the reasons why individuals develop as they do and illuminates how personality disorders can result in destructive relgious behavior. Proposing pastoral care approaches that combine understanding with empathy and firmness, Oates discusses how the resources of the Christian faith can unmask these disorders so the real person can emerge. He concludes with a sixfold agenda for the total ministry of the church to prevent, affect, and deal with personality disorders.
Wayne E. Oates was Senior Research Professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Oates was interested in the relationship between theology and psychiatry, and wrote over fifty books on this subject before his death in 1999.