"This book is written out of the conviction that "the local church should and can successfully assume responsibility within its ranks for restoring troubled people to full, productive, creative lives." Dr. Crabb has made a serious study of a biblically based approach to helping people who have emotional problems. "Koinonia" fellowship--the practice of true community--is an essential environment for healing and restoration. Dr. Crabb does not give simplistic answers, but rather makes a plea for "grappling...soul to soul with troubled lives." This can be done, he suggests, by those who are trained in counseling, in knowledge of scripture, and who possess an understanding of what the love of Christ really means in terms of His making their own lives worthwhile--thereby enabling them to lead others to more effective living patterns. An approach to counseling which can be rightly be called "Christian" will not overlook sin as fundamental to all ineffective, troubled living, nor will it be reduced to a simplistic model of confrontation and exhortation. Psychology often overlooks the sins; Christianity (as practiced and taught in many conservative churches) is often irrelevant to people as emotional beings (that is, persons with deep human needs who can experience excruciating psychological pain when those needs are not met). This book attempts to avoid both errors be recognizing that wrong thinking about needs and how to meet them leads to sinful patterns of living which leaves the person unfulfilled and miserable, vulnerable to a whole range of psychological disorders. Here is a balanced, reasonable view of people, problems and solutions that will serve as a framework within which a detailed, comprehensive, and practical view of biblical counseling can be articulated."--Publisher