The basic questions the author answers for discussion are:

1. What, in general, is sickness, and what, specifically, is mental illness?
2. What is therapy and what is a cure? When can we say that someone is healed or cured?
3. What means or methods do we have at our disposal to effect treatment, as this is understood by theology?

Zizioulas provides answers to these questions on the basis of certain fundamental principles of Orthodox theology. Among the Fathers of the Church, he turns particularly to St. Maximus the Confessor, a father of the 7th century.