11 Section Introduction: A Different ChristianityToday, the Orthodox church speaks of its own ‘Orthodox Psychotherapy.’ (Cf. the book of that name by Hierotheos Vlachos, Metropolitan of Nafpachos.) This idea properly expresses the early idea of the church and describes in some detail the basic methods used in Orthodox monasticism. However, investigations among Western individuals, (and including some Westernised individuals in Eastern Christendom,) suggest that a fairly lengthy preparation is necessary before most people possess sufficient piety to carry out the practises recommended. ABSTRACT TEXT 12. The First Christian MillenniumA preliminary look at a different way of understanding the history of Christianity. To understand the importance of doing this, we need to see how this will change our whole understanding of Christianity, past and present. It seems as if the original first millennial form of the Christian faith - the inner tradition of the early fathers - is now beginning to re-emerge into the Western world, and if this is so, it is necessary to see the importance of this event in the historical pattern - an event which has a true social significance. Like binocular vision, the second viewpoint given by studying Palamas gives added depth to our understanding of the faith. ABSTRACT TEXT 13. Christian psychology of the First MillenniumThe early church possessed a sophisticated psychological science that was very different from most medical psychology, although it came closer to modern developmental psychology. In fact, the aim of modern psychology is often very different from the Christian therapeutic method, whose primary aim could be regarded technically - in modern terms - as developmental. But in fact, it is developmental and therapeutic, in the sense that only more complete development restores human beings to their fundamentally good nature. ABSTRACT TEXT 14. A different kind of mind “For who has known the nous of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the nous of Christ.” ( I Corinthians ) The key to Christian psychological methods is found in the possibility of making changes to the deepest levels of the human psyche; changes that can create a new and different kind of mind, one which can never occur by chance. What then is the human mind, what changes it, and what can it become? The Greeks of the early church used several related words, particular nous, and psyche. But how can we obtain the 'nous of Christ?' The changed human mind contains something almost absent from the ordinary unawoken psyche, but first, it is our thinking which must change. The changed human mind contains something almost absent from the ordinary unawoken psyche, but first, our thinking must change. ABSTRACT TEXT 15. The ‘one thing needful,' and the need for a Christian psychology This Commentary describes one factor in what became the tradition of Prayer of the Heart, the need to put the Lord first not only in our lives, but in our minds and in our hearts. This, leading in time to a different way of life, is an essential element in the therapeutic use of Christian psychology of the early church. ABSTRACT TEXT | 
