This book makes a tremendously important contribution to the dialogue between Christian faith and the healing professions. Noting that "knowing what to do and how and when to do it characterizes the essence of spiritual discernment and differential diagnosis," John Chirban has focused this col-lection of articles around the critical issue of understanding in the therapeu-tic encounter. Drawing on the richness of the Orthodox Christian tradition, contributors identify rich resources to aid this process of therapeutic discernment. The result is a book that should be recognized for its value not only to Orthodox Christians but to all Christians with interest in under-standing the nature of personal formation, deformation and transformation.