Customer Reviews

Behind the Masks: Personality Disorders in the Church

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I enjoyed the authors approach to the work.

Without venturing into deep physological analysis, they based the work on personality traits and their accompanying disorders. The premise is that personality disorder stems from an overzealous personality type.

For each personality type and disorder the Pate's list the endearing qualities as well as the faults. They then give a case study of an individual with the personality disorder from their ministry as well as the diagnostic material from DSM-IV.

Finally, the authors provides some Christian based advise for dealing with the disorder. (Generally, behavior modification and personal counseling.)

I would recommend this to any clergy who does counseling. (Also beneficial to students learning about personality disorders.) Although obviously not meant to be the "Bible of Disorder" it provide wisdom from experience in dealing with individuals as well as plenty of footnotes for further, more detailed research.

An endless stream of books applies the Family Systems Theory to local churches. The most recent systems theorists now understand the individual as an intrapersonal or intrapsychic system. This lends support to the idea that developing a healthy congregational system rotates upon the axis of our personal wholeness as clergy and laity.

Marvin and Sheryl Pate's book addresses one aspect of personal wholeness, namely personality disorders. Although not professional counselors, the Pate's twenty plus years in the pastorate alerted them to the need for a book like this. Thus, what they wrote uses plain language with real life stories about both clergy, pastor's wives, and laity. While Wayne Oates' book on personality disorders in the church is more analytical and descriptive, Pate's book is more practical and prescriptive.

They introduce their subject using the analogy of a solar eclipse. People with a personality disorder are only a `shadow' of who God created them to be. The moon, like a personality disorder, gradually eclipses the sunlight of their God given personality. The author's hold up Jesus Christ as the perfect model of a healthy personality. They hold forth the gospel of Jesus Christ and encountering his love as able to help healthy personality strengths reemerge. As they state in their book,

The reemergence of personality strengths generally occurs over time in the life of an individual with a personality disorder as the fruit of the Spirit provides the missing ingredient in the person's life. It is not an easy process or a "quick fix," but as persons come to grapple with their need and the power of the Holy Spirit to restore them to wholeness, in the environment of a nurturing and discerning Christian community, they can truly become the persons they were meant to be. (11)

Each chapter describes the dominant characteristic of a personality, a personality disorder, and the strength it eclipses. Following the description flows a challenge for the church to tailor its response to help the person find wholeness through a particular fruit of the Spirit.

Marvin and Sheryl's book uses scripture in a sound and creative manner to guide the church in its ministry to those eclipsed by a personality disorder. Their psychological research is sound as well. I recommend this book to bishops, denominational officials, pastors, church officers and seminarians as a good introduction. Those desiring to plunge deeper into the church's mental/emotional health ministry will find the following books helpful: Larry Crabb's Connecting: healing for ourselves and our relationships a radical new vision; Dwight L. Carlson's Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded? Helping (Not Hurting) Those with Emotional Difficulties; Doug Murren's Churches That Heal: Becoming a Church That Mends Broken Hearts and Restores Shattered Lives; Wayne E. Oates' Behind The Masks: Personality Disorders in Religious Behavior; and Conrad W. Weiser's Healers--Harmed & Harmful.