Christianity & Psychoanalysis E-Book

• Herausgeber: IVP Academic
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Christian Association for Psychological Studies Books
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 473

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Unsurprisingly, given Sigmund Freud's understanding of religion, the conversation between Christianity and psychoanalysis has long been marked by mutual suspicion. Psychoanalysis originated within a naturalist, post-Enlightenment context and sought to understand human functioning and pathology--focusing on phenomena such as the unconscious and object representation--on a strictly empirical basis. Given certain accounts of divine agency and human uniqueness, psychoanalytic work was often seen as competitive with a Christian understanding of the human person.The contributors to Christianity and Psychoanalysis seek to start a new conversation. Aided by the turn to relationality in theology, as well as by a noncompetitive conception of God?s transcendence and agency, this book presents a fresh integration of Christian thought and psychoanalytic theory. The immanent processes identified by psychoanalysis need not compete with Christian theology but can instead be the very means by which God is involved in human existence. The Christian study of psychoanalysis can thus serve the flourishing of God?s kingdom. Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS) Books explore how Christianity relates to mental health and behavioral sciences including psychology, counseling, social work, and marriage and family therapy in order to equip Christian clinicians to support the well-being of their clients.

Leseprobe

CHRISTIANITY & PSYCHOANALYSIS

A New Conversation

Edited by Earl D. Bland and Brad D. Strawn

www.IVPress.com/academic

InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web:www.ivpress.comE-mail:[email protected]

©2014 by Earl D. Bland and Brad D. Strawn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press®is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at <www.intervarsity.org>.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from theHoly Bible, Today’s New International VersionTM, Copyright © 2001 by International Bible Society.Used by permission. All rights reserved.

While all stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.

Cover design: Cindy Kiple Images: spxChrome/Getty Images

ISBN 978-0-8308-9588-5 (digital) ISBN 978-0-8308-2856-2 (print)

For Beth Brokaw, who enlivened our hearts

Contents

Acknowledgments

1 A New Conversation

Earl D. Bland and Brad D. Strawn

2 Tradition-Based Integration

Ron Wright, Paul Jones and Brad D. Strawn

3 Contemporary Freudian Psychoanalysis

Brad D. Strawn

4 Ecumenical Spirituality, Catholic Theology and Object Relations Theory

A Threefold Cord Holding Sacred Space

Theresa Tisdale

5 Self Psychology and Christian Experience

Earl D. Bland

6 Intersubjective Systems Theory

Mitchell W. Hicks

7 Relational Psychoanalysis

Lowell W. Hoffman

8 Attachment-Based Psychoanalytic Therapy and Christianity

Being-in-Relation

Todd W. Hall and Lauren E. Maltby

9 Psychoanalytic Couples Therapy

An Introduction and Integration

Earl D. Bland

10 Brief Dynamic Psychotherapy

Michael W. Mangis

11 Christianity and Psychoanalysis

Final Thoughts

Brad D. Strawn and Earl D. Bland

Notes

References

List of Contributors

Index

Praise for Christianity and Psychoanalysis

About the Editors

CAPS

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Acknowledgments

By way of confession, Earl and I both grew up in fairly conservative Christian environments. For that reason it has been a long journey for us, first to psychology and then to psychoanalysis. This journey has been full of challenges, bumps and bruises, and some criticisms by fellow Christians and psychologists. It has included sacrifices of time and money spent in training above and beyond our doctoral programs. Nevertheless we would not trade any of it for the world. We believe that our journey into psychoanalysis has not only made us better psychotherapists but also better integrators (Christianity and theology) and even better followers of Christ.

Just as humans need others in order to develop and form, books also don’t come into being in a vacuum. This book might not have come to fruition were it not for the stimulating environment that has developed in the last few years through the Society for the Exploration of Psychoanalytic Therapies and Theology (SEPTT). SEPTT was the brainchild of Marie Hoffman and Lowell Hoffman (both trained psychoanalysts from NYU) who developed a psychoanalytic track as a part of the yearly conference of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS). This track began to grow while the Hoffmans were strategizing the development of the first and only psychoanalytic training institute with a distinctly Christian emphasis. From this dream the Brookhaven Institute for Psychoanalysis and Christian Theology (BIPACT) was born. Earl and I were both lucky enough to be invited to be early contributors and board members. We will always be grateful for this honor and for the amazingly enriching experiences of sitting in the Hoffmans’ home over the past few years, fellowshiping, dreaming, worshiping, praying together and listening to world-renowned psychoanalysts.

We would be remiss if we didn’t also thank other early contributing members to SEPTT and BIPACT, such as Mitchell Hicks, Natalia ­Yangarber-Hicks, Shawn Hoffer, Paula Hamm, John Carter, Linda Barnhurst, Roy Barsness and BIPACT’s pastor and spiritual director in residence, Beth Brokaw. All these individuals have further challenged us, loved us, supported us and enriched our thinking and work. And to BIPACT’s first graduating class of psychoanalytic candidates (Scott Hickman, Philip Hudson, Angela Allen-Peck, Adrianne Sequeira and Nancy Thurston) we say we are terribly proud of you and delighted to call you colleagues and friends.

I (Brad) would also like to first thank my parents who “allowed” me to change my major in college to psychology. I’d like to thank my wife, Suzanne, and my two boys, Evan and Keaton, for putting up with their psychologist husband and dad (i.e., “doctor of feelings”). Thanks for letting me visit bookstores, travel to strange conferences across the country and for reminding me at home just to be Dad. Thanks also to the San Diego Psychoanalytic Society and Institute for the hospitality they showed to me during my training. They warmly welcomed an overt Christian in their midst. And thanks to my colleagues, students and patients in San Diego (Point Loma Nazarene University), Bethany, Oklahoma (Southern Nazarene University), and Pasadena (Fuller Theological Seminary, School of Psychology) for all they have taught me. Finally, thanks for individuals who have graciously read portions of this manuscript and given their feedback: Ron W. Wright, Brent A. Strawn, George Horton, Lowell Hoffman, Paula. J. Hamm and Alvin Dueck. I would be remiss if I did not point out our gratitude for the substantial assistance provided by Nathaniel Strenger in the preparation of this book for publication.

Echoing Brad, I (Earl) am very grateful for the SEPTT community and the many treasured encounters I have enjoyed with those who desire to deeply explore the love of Christ and the transformative nature of psychoanalytic treatment. In addition to Marie Hoffman and Lowell Hoffman, and all those in the SEPPT community, I want to extend my appreciation to colleagues and instructors at the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute who not only provided me with training but continue to be a source of learning and professional growth. To my colleagues at MidAmerica Nazarene University I am grateful for the support and encouragement you have provided during this project. A special thanks to my administrative assistant, Shawnda Kahl, for her willingness to keep me organized so that I could find time to write in the midst of a busy academic schedule. Much gratitude also goes to the many students and patients I have had the privilege of working with over the last twenty-five years of my professional life. It has been an honor to learn with you and from you. On a more personal note, much love and thanks to my wife, Cayla, and my children, Alexandra and Austin, for their encouragement and support through this project.

Thanks to all those who were willing to read various chapter drafts and provide valuable critiques—Eric Johnson, John Carter, Beth Russell, Jim Olthuis, Scott Koeneman—many thanks. In particular I want to thank Rich Zeitner, whose influence on my professional and personal life has been substantial. His thoughtful and careful reading of chapter drafts was particularly useful. Finally we both want to thank InterVarsity Press and our tag-team editors Gary Deddo and David Congdon for the opportunity to write this book as part of a partnership between IVP and CAPS.

1

A New Conversation

Earl D. Bland and Brad D. Strawn

Any contemporary book on psychoanalysis and Christianity must acknowledge the mutual suspicion often characteristic of previous conversations between these two paradigms. Comparatively speaking, psychoanalysis is new to the game. When viewed from the perspective of historical knowledge, psychoanalysis reflects an understanding of humans that emerged in the later years of the modern era. Developing in a unique intellectual and cultural climate, Freud’s theories can trace their advent to a succession of movements both in philosophy and science (Gay, 1988; Burston & Frie, 2006; Orange, 2010b). Leaving an indelible imprint on our contemporary understanding of human psychological functioning, the provocative and enduring significance of psychoanalysis is difficult to measure.

Predictably, then, as psychoanalytic thinking encroached on traditional religio-cultural understandings of human functioning, contention with existing plausibility structures ensued. The comprehensive and appealing nature of psychoanalytic ideas not only infringed on traditional Christian anthropology but actively challenged long-held assumptions regarding the purpose and causes of human behavior. Provoking numerous responses from Christian critics, some of the dialogue has been accommodating and even favorable, while some has been dismissive or vitriolic (e.g., Bingaman, 2003; Küng, 1979; Lewis, 1952; Vitz, 1993). Both explanatory frameworks try to map the human psyche or soul, but differences have arisen over fundamental questions about the essential nature and motivation of human behavior, acceptable sources of knowledge, the purpose and meaning of human life, the causes of psychological problems and what it takes to cure these problems.

This book reexamines the interlocution of psychoanalysis and Christianity in light of contemporary movements in psychoanalytic theory, clinical practice and Christian theology. Our effort to engage in a new conversation is partially stimulated by major shifts in how human science is understood and the proliferation of theoretical, clinical and theological material related to the analytic treatment that has developed over the past forty years. To accomplish our task we hope to braid three strands of discourse that reflect (1) modern psychoanalytic thinking and practice, (2) relational notions of Christian theology and (3) an integrative strategy that emerges from particular Christian traditions. This book is about theory, faith and clinical practice. We begin with justifying a deep engagement between Christianity and psychoanalysis (chap. 1), followed by an argument to particularize integration efforts within unique theological and theoretical traditions (chap. 2). The remainder of the book calls on various contributors, all clinicians who are both Christian and psychoanalytically oriented, to enact these ideas by outlining how different psychoanalytic models engage their Christian tradition. At the end of this chapter we have also provided a clinical case, which is used by each author (except in chaps. 2 and 9) to highlight practical understandings that emerge from the nexus of theory, theology and clinical reality. To address the diversity of psychoanalytic thought we have also included chapters that address couples work (chap. 9) and brief models of treatment (chap. 10).

Science, Psychoanalysis and Religion: A Brief History

The tension between psychoanalysis and Christianity was in part fueled by Freud’s (1927/1961) avowed atheism and his somewhat provocative interpretation of religious experience as so much wish fulfillment. He identified science as the primary vehicle through which humanity would achieve its betterment and was put off by what he saw as the incorrigible nature of religious expression (Gay, 1987). Although recent scholarship has traced the religious and familial influences that may have subtended Freud’s theories (Hoffman, 2011; Rizzuto, 1998; Vitz, 1993), it seems clear that Freud, although not hostile to religion, dismissed its legitimacy from within a psychoanalytic frame. Curiously Freud would sustain an active lifelong engagement with religion in the face of his public aversion. However, those who have used Freud’s own psychoanalytic method as a means of understanding his paradoxical interest point to complex familial dynamics and a complicated cultural dance with his own Jewishness as unconscious contributors to Freud’s religious abjuration (Meissner, 1984; Rizzuto, 1998). Notwithstanding these more intimate aspects of Freud’s dialogue with religion, the fact remains that Freud’s embracing of a secularist frame was sustained by an unflagging confidence in Enlightenment science. He was merely providing an “education to reality” in his assertion about the illusory nature of religious experience (Freud, 1927/1961, p. 49). MacIntyre (1964) highlights this leading-edge interpretation of Freud’s unpretentious atheism:

His [Freud’s] atheism was of the simplest kind. He did not think that psychoanalysis was needed for the provision of new arguments to show that belief in God was false, but that, since belief in God was false, psychoanalytic theory might help to explain why men nonetheless believed. (par. 3)

Demonstrating the modern sensibility of Freud’s thinking, MacIntyre’s comment highlights the tension between Christianity and psychoanalysis as reflective of a broader cultural context that was questioning traditional religious interpretations of human experience, purpose and value.

A growing secularism was pervasive in the intellectual and cultural influences of the late nineteenth century as movements in science, philosophy, art and politics increasingly conceptualized human experience separate from the divine. Absent God, teleological shifts emerged as people began to see how life could be lived without explicit allegiance to creeds and institutional doctrine. As Taylor (2007) describes it, many became “interested in nature, in the life around them ‘for their own sakes,’ and not just in reference to God” (p. 90). Echoing the empirical stance of his time, Freud (1927/1961) argued that psychoanalysis was largely neutral and could be used either to refute or support religious sentiment. Psychoanalysis, in his view, was a value-free scientific methodology for the understanding of human functioning and pathology. Yet, like so many of his day, he believed religion had lost its ability to provide a compelling explanatory framework in light of the advances of science (which included psychoanalysis) and the evidences of human destruction so clearly seen during his lifetime. Psychoanalysis—like the Darwinian theory of origins, the advances in physics and biology, and philosophical deconstructions of theism—pointed to a robust naturalism, which precluded mystical and religious explanations of the world.

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that Freud was simply joining the modern chorus of religious critics because of religion’s failure to tame human aggression or account for modern discoveries in science. Freud was primarily interested in explaining the unconscious meaning of religious yearning so pervasive in human communities. As Jones (1996) persuasively argues, Freud’s psychological explanation of religious desire hinges on a primarily Western conceptualization of a patriarchal divinity, a Father God sought after as an extension of primitive totemism, “a longing for the father” (Freud, 1913/1950, p. 183). Further, as an extension of his own theory of psychosexual development and its apex, the Oedipal drama, Freud’s emphasis on patriarchal dominance, the concomitant childhood guilt and yearning for the father, unconsciously scaffolds conscious longings for closeness and communion with God. Jones (1996) extends his position by stating Freud’s critique of religion requires

a specific image of God. The patriarchal God of law and conscience is the only religion Freud will consider. If he were to give up that paternal representation of God as normative, his argument would lose much of its force. (p. 17)

The important implication of Jones’s argument is that as theology shifts, such as the contemporary view of relationality within the Trinity as a template for human-divine engagement (Grenz, 2001; Holmes, 2012; Shults, 2003), Freud’s construction of the psychoanalytic meaning of religious experience based on an exalted paternal figure declines in its explanatory value.

By the time of Freud’s writings, science had a fairly robust methodology for seeking knowledge and explaining its findings. With the diminishment of God and theological knowledge as essential for comprehending the natural world and human development, movements in science looked for universal certainties that would allow for confident predictability of the natural order (Murphy, 1997; Toulmin, 1990). Through methods of inquiry that searched for regularities in sensory data and material proofs, science built its knowledge edifice founded on empirical observations that presumed either naturalism or at least a value-free metaphysic. With the development of representative language that differentiated fact from value, scientific knowledge attempted to divorce itself from traditional knowledge that had for so long set the agenda for discovery and understanding. As Toulmin (1990) states, “one aim of 17th century philosophers was to frame all their questions in terms that rendered them independent of context” (p. 21). Metaphysical assumptions presumed the supremacy of the material realm and focused on explanations that could be reduced to understanding the world through the different properties of physics, chemistry, biology, physiology or other natural processes. This ill-fated, pervasive reductionism was perhaps most rabid in the logical positivists, who sought to base all knowledge on physics. From this reductive intellectual bent, values, ethics, culture and religion were not unimportant but became unverifiable domains of knowledge and thereby of little consequence to science. Also, given that science was investigating only natural phenomena, no value or ethical tradition could be extracted from its processes. Science was neutral, a technology useful for the advancement of human society.

In a mirror of this process, psychoanalysis adopted a systematic methodology for seeking knowledge and understanding of the human mind and behavior. Careful theoretical proofs were proposed using the case study method and concepts of human nature based on drive instincts, which flowed from the original Freudian understandings of Darwinian evolutionary theory, Lamarckian principles, and nineteenth-century progress in biology and neurology. Freud was an empiricist and conceived psychoanalysis within an organic causal frame wherein psychological processes were reduced to instinctual drives. While some have argued that standard English translations of Freud portray a rabid scientism that is not evident in his original writings (Bettelheim, 1982), others point out that overly structuralized images of Freud’s concepts such as id, ego and superego take away from Freud’s more flexible, immediate and personal style that is meant to portray varying degrees of complexity and open-endedness to his concepts (Ornston, 1982, 1985).1 Nonetheless, despite the psychological/relational nature of psychoanalytic technique, Freud never abandoned his convictions regarding the biological foundations of his metatheory (Sulloway, 1979). Freud’s ambition to explain complex psychological and relational dynamics via reductionist biological categories was in step with the scientific zeitgeist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although his singularity put him at odds with some of his contemporaries, in its early years Freud’s psychoanalysis flourished, especially in postwar America, where psychoanalytic constructs infused the modern cultural imagination.

After Modernity: Contemporary Changes in Science, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis

Assuming that all psychological theory is embedded in cultural contexts and reflects temporal philosophical and scientific assumptions, any contemporary critique of psychoanalysis must acknowledge the considerable intellectual shifts that have developed in the post-Freudian era. The well-known turn from what has been called modern to postmodern or postcritical thought has arrested much of the objective certitude modernity promised. While the hard sciences of physics, chemistry and to some extent biology continue to thrive with a largely reductive methodology, the human sciences of psychology, sociology and anthropology have found reductionist principles to be as constraining as they were enlightening. Thankfully new language has emerged to help scaffold our understanding in ways that are not antithetical to processes of reductionism, foundationalism and universality. While there is certainly room for the scientific discovery of universals and regularities, the value-neutral position of science has been soundly refuted. Naturalism and its scientific methodology are not value-neutral (Polanyi, 1958; Jones, 1994), tend to reflect a pervasive utilitarian ethic (Taylor, 2007) and reveal a context-dependent social knowledge that pursues particular goals emanating from background assumptions that are not always articulated (Longino, 1990). In other words, psychoanalytic knowledge, or knowledge of any type, is unavoidably shaped by forces of constructivism and hermeneutics. All therapeutic knowledge reveals a particular narrative structure that situates the clinical exchange as meaningful within a given relational matrix, culture, intellectual tradition and religious or ethical configuration. Knowledge is not detachable from the knower. It matters where one is from, one’s gender and race, the economic pressures faced, one’s cultural and religious traditions, the familial structure present during development, and the presence or absence of unique or traumatic life events. As these factors conspire with given biological and genetic potentials, human life at once becomes universal and particular. Our full understanding of a person is not complete until we have told the story of this life as understood not just in the distant categories of empirical classification but also in the intimate narratives of self-in-relationship, and with any story it matters who is telling the story and who is listening (McAdams, 2001, 2011).

With strong implications for the practice of psychoanalysis, theorists began to see how psychological experience was irreducibly embedded in a relational matrix, including the treatment relationship (Aron, 1996; Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983; Mitchell, 1988; Wachtel, 2008). Further, as science in general has moved to a place more comfortable with the ways that its truths are situated within certain value structures and tell the story of a particular culture or tradition, we are able to reevaluate the reductionist inclination regarding causal relationships. If explanations of human behavior cannot be reduced to biology and physics alone, how does one make sense of human functioning that accounts for nuanced and complex relationships between multiple levels of explanation? The critical nature of this question becomes evident in our current discussion because as soon as we attempt to explain human functioning in psychoanalytic or theological frames we move toward abstract, complex categories that may not link directly to physical or material substance. The ante goes up further when we attempt to develop a meaningful conversation between these two forms of dialogue. No longer are we looking for language of justification, trying to get each discipline to consider the truth claims of the other. Rather, the muting of the modern objectivist frame invites a new rapprochement between psychoanalysis and Christian theology. Distinct theological and psychoanalytic explanations of human behavior and functioning can share constructive explanatory space, operating within a framework that does not contend fundamental evidence from other domains of knowledge, most particular for our purposes, biology and neuroscience. At the same time we recognize that theological and psychoanalytic explanatory concepts are capturing particular qualities or domains of human functioning that are not fully explainable using the language of biology and neuroscience.

To clarify our point, science has attempted to explain complex phenomena, like human biological or psychological functioning using reductive methods, by looking for the smallest units of causation—­explaining the whole by understanding its component parts. In psychology this has taken various forms, most popular being behavioral learning theories and psychoanalytic drive theory. While some important gains were achieved via this reductive model, almost from the beginning there have been voices complaining about how complex dynamic systems such as human behavior and mental processes cannot be fully reduced to component parts. In the last fifty years or so these voices have risen to a crescendo, claiming loudly that human psychological functioning is more complex and dynamic than the component parts can explain (Nagel, 2012; Plantinga, 2011; Searle, 2008). The rise of systems theory and the linking of causal factors within complex systemic interactions have greatly increased our understanding of human psychological and relational functioning.

In addition to systems theorists who see relationship and individual psychological development contextualized within concentric levels of influence (Barton & Haslett, 2007; Stanton & Welsh, 2012), others see individual psychological development as firmly embedded within dynamic relational systems (e.g., the child-caretaker dyad) that mutually influence and regulate developmental processes (Beebe & Lachman, 1988, 1998; Siegel, 2012). In their seminal work on development from a nonlinear dynamic systems perspective, Thelen and Smith (1994) argue that human perception, cognition and motor systems develop within a self-organizing system. Knowledge and action emerge from a continuous dynamic exchange of sensory input, action and categorization of experience. In other words, psychological capacities such as thought, emotion, memory and self-reflective functioning, to name a few, emerge from biologically rooted and embodied developmental processes that continually organize and interact with perceptual and sensory input in a mutually regulating dynamic system. Complex human capacities are relationally derived and not reducible to their component parts. Reductive explanatory frameworks simply fail to account for many complex psychological phenomena.

Arising in this discussion is the concept of emergence, which can be defined as the tendency for complex systems to operate in a manner that produces higher-order properties, organization or ways of being that cannot be sufficiently predicted or explained by an analysis of their component parts (Brown, Murphy & Malony, 1998; Clayton & Davies, 2006; Peacocke, 2007). Because theology and psychoanalysis operate with immaterial concepts and hypothesize the existence of structures, functions and processes (e.g., self, soul, relationality) that exert causal influence that cannot be reduced to their biological or neurochemical correlates, we think of these constructs as verifiable emergent phenomena. For example, one of the most self-evident emergent phenomena is consciousness (Koch, 2004; Pinker, 1997). Because the exact neurobiological process of consciousness cannot be accounted for by neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, we can refer to consciousness as an emergent property of a sufficiently ordered human brain. Consciousness is not an epi­phenomenon; it emerges from neurophysiological processes and also exerts a causal influence on these neurophysiological processes. The bidirectional nature of causal influence is, of course, not equal; one must have a brain to have consciousness, but there are aspects of consciousness that influence the structure and nature of neurophysiological processes, what Peacocke (2007) has called “whole-part influence” (p. 27).

Similarly, psychoanalytic and theological concepts involve higher-order (meaning more complex and inclusive) levels of explanation that emerge from our correctly functioning neuroanatomical structures. One possible way of avoiding a layered model of reality is to think of what Silberstein (2006) called “systemic causation” (p. 204), where mental properties exert a causal influence on neurochemical operations because both are bounded within a human system. Silberstein elaborates:

The universe is not ordered as a hierarchy of closed autonomous levels such as atoms, molecules, cells, and the like. Rather, the universe is intrinsically nested and entangled. The so-called physical, chemical, biological, mental, and social domains of existence are in fact mutually embedded and inextricably interconnected. (p. 204)

Moreover, although each discipline’s conceptual language is an attempt to capture core human experiences in grammatical or verbal form so as to increase understanding, important psychoanalytic and theological concepts are not merely metaphors used to explain human behavioral tendencies, psychological processes or spiritual forces. We argue that many psychoanalytic and theological concepts can be considered ontologically real in that they have causal efficacy. This is considered to be a strong emergent position, which makes it possible to conceptualize emergent processes as having some causal impact on physical or biological substances (Gregersen, 2006). For example, one might consider relational or self-processes as influencing one’s biological or neurochemical functioning in a real way. At the same time we recognize “an antecedent bottom-up influence from the constituent physico-chemical level which has led to the emergence of biological, psychological, and social levels of organization” (p. 285). Psychoanalytic phenomena such as the unconscious, self, object representation and relational schemas involve real neurochemical traces and patterns that have their root in the natural system of neurophysiology. Parallel to nonreductive physicalist notions of soul (Brown et al., 1998) many psychoanalytic processes (e.g., object relations, transference reactions, enactments, identifications, attachment states) are complex emergent phenomena directly tied to affective motivations emanating from neurobiologically rooted need states evoked and shaped by developmental contexts (Lichtenberg, Lachman & Fosshage, 2011; Schore, 2009; Fosha, Siegel & Solomon, 2009). These ­affective states reflect neurophysiological processes but also function in a manner that alters and shapes cognition and behavior, which can exert a systemic influence on the same neurophysiological processes that give rise to affect, cognition and behavior.

In a similar manner, we can think of divine causation and creative activity as an immanent systemic potentiality in which new realities can emerge within sufficiently complex physical material (Clayton, 2006; Peacocke, 2007). Important to our consideration of integrating psychoanalytic and theological perspectives, we are not suggesting that divine action arises from brain processes. Rather we suggest that the essential transcendent, wholly Other, ontological status of God is in mutual harmony and in noncontradictory existence with his immanence. Happel (2002) discuses the notion of “transcendence within immanence” wherein God has chosen to “cooperate with human agency” (p. 304). We agree and argue for an immanental cosmology in which God is present and at work within the very nature of the material world (Lodahl, 1997). Aspects of divine action that have influence on individual humans somehow arise from the material brain’s complex processes, which exist because of God’s immanent creative qualities and by the very nature of God’s creative action. In other words this transcendent God who is “over all creation” is concurrently immanently present: “in him all things hold together” (Col 1:15, 17). As Paul says in Acts 17:28, “For in him we live and move and have our being.” He has created the potentiality for real communion with him, and we assert that the integration of theological understandings and psychoanalytic processes may provide a helpful model for conceptualizing this action.

Theology, Relation and Integration

If the divine-human relationship and human relatedness in general are as important as we are proposing, then we need to understand how this squares with recent developments in theology. Human relatedness includes and is dependent on such capacities as language, a theory of mind, episodic memory, conscious top-down agency, future orientation and emotional modulation (Brown, 1998). In fact it may be these capacities that create the condition for relatedness as an emergent property. While other animal species are capable of relatedness, the human capacity far surpasses and distinctly separates humans from other animals. The growing emphasis on relatedness in psychology resonates with a similar emphasis in contemporary theology.

For example, in recent years theologians have come to conceptualize the triune God in relational terms. This relational turn (Shults, 2003) in theology has subsequently led to a reconceptualization of the imago Dei in humans. Early understandings of imago Dei were conceptualized in substantive terms, which emphasized characteristics or capacities that humans and God shared, such as reason or will. As the triune God was conceptualized as a being of three persons in ever and constant self-­emptying relatedness marked both by particularity and unity (Balswick, King & Reimer, 2005), theological anthropology concurrently changed. It wasn’t a particular constituent that comprised the human (e.g., reason, will or even a soul) and made them like God; relationality most imaged God. In a similar fashion contemporary psychoanalytic anthropology purported that relatedness was not just some capacity that humans do—but who they are (Mitchell, 1988). Furthermore, relatedness is not a static concept, like a substance (e.g., will), but is constantly in motion. The imago Dei is most clearly evidenced in the between of human ­relatedness—as humans relate to self, others and God.

It is important to keep in mind that those who espouse relationality as a core construct do not see it as one more thing to be added to a pre­existing model or the newest kid on the block. Rather they believe that a turn to relationality changes everything. For Stanley Grenz (2001) it challenges hierarchical perceptions of gender and recasts human sexual desire as the quest for relational wholeness. For Miroslav Volf (1998) it reanimates ecclesiology and the essential relational function of the church. For Thomas Jay Oord (2010; Oord & Lodahl, 2005) we are able to revision holiness in light of God’s love as reflected in our interpersonal relationships, and for Robert Coleman (2000) relationality dictates our fulfillment of the Great Commission. For Warren Brown and Brad Strawn (2012) it places relational engagement at the center of our understanding and implementation of Christian formation.

The relational turn in theology has matched the relational emphasis found in much of modern psychology and particularly contemporary psychoanalysis. It is questionable, however, whether the literature on the integration of Christianity and psychology has followed this shift to relationality. Psychology, in its attempt to be a social science, has been known for its nomothetic propensities, its desire for labeling and categorizing, diagnosing and quantifying. Subsequently, many of the models for integration have imitated these tendencies. Historically, much of the integrative literature favors epigenetic and universal developmental models (e.g., Fowler, 1981) or categorical, encyclopedic and monolithic models (Sorenson, 2004a).

The early days of the integration between psychology and religion painted in broad brushstrokes. Authors dealt with psychology as a whole field and religion/Christianity as a single concept. More recently contemporary literature in the integration of theology and psychology has narrowed the focus. There have been many insightful and helpful books that have categorized or proposed models of engagement between psychology and theology (Carter & Narramore, 1976; Johnson, 2010; Greggo & Sisemore, 2012; Worthington, 2010). Other thinkers have attempted to apply a generic “Christian appraisal” to various clinical psychology theories (Browning & Cooper, 2004; Jones & Butman, 2011; Tan, 2011; Yarhouse & Sells, 2008). Then of course there are topical integrative works in which the integrator deals with specific subjects as diverse as neuroscience (Jeeves & Brown, 2009), forgiveness (Shults & Sandage, 2003) and many others. The field has grown at such a pace that some have argued that integration should be understood as a field in itself (Vande Kemp, 1996). There are graduate programs that specialize in integration, and conferences and professional organizations dedicated to the pursuit, and professional journals on the topic. Even the areas of integration and the already-mentioned authors are only a slice of the burgeoning literature.

Although we have great respect for all these contributors and believe that they have provided essential conceptual insights, it is our contention that they have not taken relatedness seriously enough. A relational model of integration based on a theological anthropology gleaned from trinitarian theology would respect the uniqueness and particularity of the task. When one is conducting Christian integration, it is essential to ask, Which Christianity, and which psychology? To be more specific, although a variety of integration models inform our field, we are drawn to relational models that explicitly allow for distinction and sameness in the pursuit of mutual engagement and reciprocity (Shults & Sandage, 2006). As Shults and Sandage (2006) point out, “it is particular persons-in-­relation (psychologists and theologians) who are experiencing integration. . . . [C]onceptual models have been shaped by our personal engagement in relation with one another and within the relation between psychology and theology” (p. 22). Relational integration will respect and specifically acknowledge the traditions of both the psychology and the theology being integrated. Sometimes an author will position him- or herself on one of these categories, such as psychoanalysis (e.g., Hoffman, 2011; Hoffman & Strawn, 2009, 2010; Jones, 1991, 1996; Strawn, 2007). But rarely have authors identified the specificity of both areas—specific branch/school of psychology/psychotherapy and school of theology—and rarely have authors attempted to explicitly situate their particular psychology and theology (Strawn, 2004).2 Notably the Christian psychology movement (Johnson, 2007; Sisemore, 2011) is attempting to move in this direction as they propose a “family of psychologies” within the totality of the Christian tradition (Eric Johnson, personal communication, October 12, 2012). For instance, recent publications from the Society for Christian Psychology emphasized an exploration of Catholic psychology (Brugger, 2009; Nordling & Scrofani, 2009) and Eastern Orthodox psychology (Trader, 2012).

Psychoanalysis and the Kingdom of God

In our struggle to conceptualize how psychoanalysis and theology may integrate, we situate ourselves within particular theological and theoretical traditions that give a distinction to our theological and psychoanalytic understandings of human beings: their development, pathology or fallenness, health and virtue, motivations and change processes. While we explore in depth the notion of traditioning our integration in chapter two, in this section we want to explore two justifications for our project. First, we address why we believe constructing a shared discourse between psychoanalysis and Christian theology will enhance our understanding human emotional and relational functioning. Second, we outline some specific ideas about how we see divine action working through psychoanalytic treatment for the alleviation of suffering and the furtherance of God’s kingdom.

We believe psychoanalysis captures a unique and important aspect of God’s ongoing creative activity in the world. More than metaphorical imagery, psychoanalytic theory is one of the best ways of explaining the human being at a level of understanding that is likely to promote healthy living and the ability to engage a full expression of the Christian life and spiritual formation—including the expression of its virtues and values. As our colleague Lowell Hoffman states, “Psychoanalysis as knowledge promotes an evolution of human awareness toward more honesty and more passion. Psychoanalysis is the most sophisticated method we are aware of for increasing the human capacity to love and create” (personal communication, April 28, 2012). And because of our immanental cosmology we understand God to be the author of and at work in the very processes of psychoanalysis. This assertion, however, does not mean we are relying solely on the psychoanalytic method and theory as the only framework wherein humans move toward the increased manifestation of the kingdom of God. In addition, the use of the terms loving and creating are meant to serve as heuristics or expedient terms to include the full expression of what it means to live a life manifesting the fullness of one’s humanness in dedication to the glory of God. Because the psychoanalytic process is relational at its foundation, love and creation imply the full embrace of human vocational functioning within redemptive relational communities.

On the heels of Marie Hoffman’s (2011) articulation of how the Christian narrative implicitly subtends aspects of the psychoanalytic ­tradition, we offer psychoanalytic thinking, theory and treatment as a contemporary exemplar of methods and processes that are most likely to facilitate Christ’s redemptive engagement with the least, the last and the lost. Since the Christian ethos places primacy on truth and recognizes the significance of hidden mental states and human motivations (Roberts, 1997), the sophisticated methodologies and models for accessing unconscious processes inherent in psychoanalytic therapy make it uniquely suited to advance our understanding of human development, health, psychopathology and change. Psychoanalytic treatment is intrinsically sensitive to the other and to mutual recognition within an embodied and evolving intersubjective exchange, privileging the importance of personal and cultural history (Altman, 2010). Heeding Dueck and Reimer’s (2009) call for a thick understanding of crosscultural and interethnic dialogue, psychoanalytic perspectives are ready-made for deep empathic immersion and valuation of the traditions and narrative our patients bring us. The extent to which therapy (including Christian varieties) participates and reflects the liberal democratic values that subtend most Western psychological theories, psychoanalytic sensibilities offer a therapeutic self-corrective in the form of therapist obligations to identify and understand how their own implicit perspectives may do violence to the ethnic, religious and cultural sensibilities of the patient (Reimer & Dueck, 2006). Moreover, the psychoanalytic stance can also serve as a remonstrance to unhinged religious superiority that lies deeply rooted in Western Christianity, especially the more virulent evangelical expressions (Taylor, 2011). Keen sensitivity to language, conceptual categories and the socio­contextual implications of therapeutic dialogue fit nicely in the psychoanalytic frame and allow for the co-construction of God images that are healing and life affirming. Randy Sorenson (2004a) used the image of kenosis, the self-emptying stance so essential to the imitation of Christ (Phil 2:7), as an exemplar of the passion, love and humility needed for the recognition of the patient’s alterity. Affirming the relational tilt in psychoanalysis, Sorenson argues contemporary psychoanalytic theory and treatment require the deep exploration of a patient’s connection to God. We agree and believe psychoanalysis, in the right context, can be used as a primary tool for psychological and spiritual formation; psychoanalytic therapies writ large embody relational redemptive processes crucial to the advancement of the kingdom of God. In fact we would go so far as to conceptualize psychoanalytic psychotherapy as one powerful means of spiritual formation and sanctification (Strawn & Leffel, 2001).

Finally, if, as we have said, theology and psychoanalysis speak about emergent phenomena embodied in natural psychophysiological structures, how does God affect his divine efforts within the boundaries of psychoanalytic praxis? Since we have extirpated Cartesian dualism as an unworkable paradigm in light of contemporary neuroscience and quantum mechanics, we must form some reasonable contemporary hypotheses about God’s action in the world and—most particularly for our purposes—the healing of mind and emotion through psychotherapeutic processes that brings one into the full experience of what it means to be Christian with its attendant virtues, values and relational priorities.

One option is to envision therapy as analogous to natural processes that God, in his transcendent wisdom, created a priori as available methods for the healing of human psychological and relational infirmities. In other words, these healing processes were created ex nihilo, and humans have discovered their efficacy as a means of therapeutic healing—not unlike the discoveries of penicillin or the polio vaccine. However, if this model lacks an immanental cosmology, familiar to some deistic theological discussions, God’s action exists within the closed natural system he created and no direct intervention is necessary or warranted to fulfill his purposes. While the arguments outlining the limitations of deistic theology are plentiful, not the least of which is a subversion of God’s capacity for supernatural intervention, this limited view also fails to provide avenues for meaningful integration that addresses the complex emergent relational phenomena so vital to theological and psychoanalytic understandings of God’s intervention in human affairs. The incarnation of Christ demands an understanding of God’s presence in the world that can account for the priority of relational immediacy of divine action. Despite the parsimonious nature of the watchmaker argument, it lacks sufficient explanatory breadth to account for clear indications in Scripture regarding the supernatural and invasive way God entered his divine creation.

In contrast, we follow Wegter-McNelly’s (2011) assertion that the trinitarian God “becomes freely and lovingly entangled with the world through the divinely incarnating act of creation and subsequently through humanly relating acts of blessing, justice, and compassion” (p. 125). Although the question of divine action is far from answered, there are a variety of solid scientific and theological arguments that attempt to embrace the explanatory findings of contemporary science while at the same time preserving the august and transcendent nature of God (Peacocke, 2006; Plantinga, 2011; Polkinghorne, 2004, 2009; Russell, Murphy & Stoeger, 2008). We will not articulate the depth of this ongoing area of study, but we must assume that any divine purposes that are manifested in psychoanalytic theory and practice will conform to the microphysical realities of creation inasmuch as these realities are determinative of the psychological and relational processes existent in psychoanalytic work. Moreover, following long traditions in theology, the mechanisms of God’s redemptive purposes are contained within communal and relational intersubjective fields, to which psychoanalytic therapies clearly speak. In contrast to creation ex nihilo, a construct that predates the doctrine of the Trinity, Wegter-McNelly (2011) argues the divine acts of the Godhead may be understood as “creatio ex relatione” (p. 133) or creation out of God’s entangled relational identity. “The deity of this God resides not in the persons as distinct from one another but within and among the persons as they are related to one another” (p. 129). The very process of creation entangles God with us as created beings while continuing to preserve his transcendent freedom and the freedom of creation to pursue its own activity. At their best, psychoanalytic therapies actuate the immanent presence of the transcendent, relational God wherein he is able to effect his purposes within and through the dialogic and intersubjective processes intrinsic in the psychoanalytic endeavor. God’s immanent, entangled presence within these relational connections affects healing; “in him all things hold together” (Col 1:17), implying the immanent presence of the divine within the honest, truth-seeking therapeutic processes that characterize psychoanalytic therapy, or all therapies for that matter, in their most virtuous form. Again, as M. Hoffman (2011) pointedly observed, Freud’s pervasive belief in self-deception surpassed even that of the Christian church. Although jarring in its extant use of secular Enlightenment language, “Freud’s call to the pursuit of truth in the therapeutic enterprise was a necessary return to honesty and humility” (p. 10). The patient and persistent trajectory of psychoanalytic treatment toward right understanding reflects life in the spirit so essential to Paul’s depiction of the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).

Final Thoughts

We conclude this chapter by summarizing two primary themes to keep in mind as you progress through the rest of this book. First, we ground our relational hermeneutic on an understanding that God is always mediated through his creation. His work on this earth is primarily in and through human beings, and we believe psychoanalysis is a recovery of ancient practices of relational healing that gives knowledge about human development, motivation, brokenness and recovery so essential to our fragmented age. Undoubtedly we come to this position through the particularity of our shared Wesleyan/Arminian theological backgrounds. From this vantage point there is no conflict between nature and grace. All of life is sacred and “filled with his glory” (Ps 72:19). God’s entanglement in creation is such a part of Wesleyan theology that John Wesley has been called a Christian humanist and even a panentheist (Stone & Oord, 2001).

Second, acknowledging our particularity and unity is the central task of this book. We begin by owning that we are not trying to create an encyclopedic or monolithic model of integration. We are integrating with a particular school of clinical psychology, namely, psychoanalysis. While psychoanalysis may share some commonalities (unity), there is also much specificity. For the rest of the book, save chapters two and nine, each contributor is explaining a particular school of psychoanalysis (e.g., ego, object relations, self, intersubjectivity, attachment, and relational), and we are asking each author to claim and explicitly state the theological tradition from which he or she will do theological work (e.g., Wesleyan, Reformed, Pentecostal, Catholic). Moreover, we are asking each author to interact with the following clinical material using his or her two explicit perspectives. We believe that this approach not only creates the opportunity for those interested in the integration of psychoanalysis and Christianity to delve deeper into the subject, but that it also offers a new challenge to future integrative thinkers. Chapter two deals with the integrative task at a philosophical and theoretical level, but in short, we believe that a relational approach to integration must recognize the tension between unique perspectives and a collective goal. We believe this is a kind of practiced hospitality with a postmodern sensibility that respects the self and other. To this end we hope we are successful.

Case Study: Tony

The following case acts as the main channel for our conversation and comparison of contemporary psychoanalytic perspectives. We hope to illustrate the power of unified diversity as various authors engage the case from a particular theoretical perspective and theological tradition.

Tony, a twenty-three-year-old Caucasian college graduate, sought therapy for a number of vague but perplexing difficulties. Tony reported a general inability to maintain connection in relationships with both men and women, and a troubling lethargy regarding vocational aspirations. Although he regularly dated, Tony had been unable to sustain a romantic relationship for more than a month or two. He would become bored and passive, slowly letting the relationship die. The girls he dated typically found his lack of interest and initiative frustrating, and they would end up being the originators of the breakup. He reported no close male friends; male relationships were marked by competition and distrust. Tony couldn’t decide whether he should pursue graduate school or stick with his current job till something better came along. At the time of intake Tony was a part-time caregiver for an adult male with Down syndrome.

Tony was a thinly built, average-height male who looked his age. He was talkative, engaging and appropriately groomed, but presented with slightly depressed affect. He entered once-weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy and quickly wanted to lie on the couch. He reported that he wanted to use the couch so that he could focus more on his own internal experiences and spend less time monitoring the reactions of his male therapist. Tony quickly took to free association on the couch and let his mind wander widely.

History revealed that Tony was the older of two children (one younger sister) from an intact family. He reported a warm but somewhat ambivalent relationship with his mother and a highly conflicted relationship with his father. As the primary homemaker, his mother was present and available for him during childhood, but he often experienced her as overly intrusive, both when he was a child and now as a young adult. During adolescence he resented being asked personal questions and having to give an account of his whereabouts and activities to her. When feeling intruded upon, Tony would become quiet and avoidant. On the other hand, he would frequently seek refuge with her from his father. With his father Tony felt that he could never measure up—especially as a man. He experienced his father as frequently disappointed in him, leaving Tony with feelings of shame and anger. For example, Tony reported that his father regularly challenged him by asking him questions at the dinner table that Tony couldn’t answer. His father would also push him to excel in sports or academics, and when Tony began normal adolescent separation from his father in terms of ideologies (e.g., political differences) his father would argue with Tony vehemently. Subsequently, Tony vacillated in his feelings toward his father, one moment desperately wanting his approval and the next minute belittling him as being uneducated and old-fashioned. Tony had a conscious fantasy that his father somehow held the key to his own manhood and that his father had never given it to him.

In addition to Tony’s concerns about closeness, he also was disturbed about his compulsive masturbation. Indeed, Tony could be obsessive and ruminative around a number of issues and behaviors (e.g., new ideas he was learning, whether he should ask out a particular girl, how he should go about applying for a job), but his sexual preoccupation and behaviors were especially distressing. Tony reported that he would engage in masturbation in almost any location where he could find some privacy (e.g., public bathroom, his car). He found these experiences to have a “driven quality,” which were regularly triggered by stress or “boredom,” and always self-soothing yet guilt inducing.

In summary, Tony was a young man suffering from a number of anxiety and depressive symptoms. His primary complaint was a sense of disconnection from friends and romantic relationships. In relationship to others he reported high levels of anxiety as he wondered if he fit in and was acceptable, or whether he was being taken for granted. He regularly felt competitive with others and had a vague sense that sometimes he might be driving others away due to this competitive stance. Ultimately he would collapse into depression and a vague sense of hopelessness.

Last, Tony was raised in a highly religious home. His parents, and especially his father, could be described as fundamentalists who practiced a literal interpretation of the Bible. Tony attended a Christian university. When his own religious perspectives were challenged, considerable tension and competition with his father ensued. Although Tony described himself as a Christian, he was not sure whether this influenced his daily life. For example, his beliefs about behavioral constraints of Christianity differed widely from his parents (e.g., alcohol consumption, premarital sex). Tony felt spiritually empty; he remained academically interested in theology, but any connection to or involvement with a personal God was absent.

2

Tradition-Based Integration

Ron Wright, Paul Jones and Brad D. Strawn

The practice of confession has long been understood as a means to make right a wrong—to admit fault in order to allow for the absolution of sin. But within the broader Christian tradition, confession has often meant much more. In many ways it is a pronouncement of particularity and subjectivity. To confess is to say, “Here we stand!” It is a declaration of identity, which includes both our strongest convictions and our greatest limitations. As such, this chapter is very much the confession of its authors. We first confess that our undertaking may require more than what can be fit into a single chapter. In fact, this chapter represents just the surface of what might be volumes of dialogue and may require more than the limited space that these pages allow. While we have done our best to pull together a cohesive argument, we acknowledge that our broader purpose may at times become unwieldy. Nevertheless, we push onward because each author of this chapter believes that such an undertaking is not just necessary for this book but also crucial to the broader conversation between psychological theory and practice and religious tradition.

So what is this undertaking that requires such a lofty and potentially cumbersome argument? The argument is that all psychological theory and practice, including psychoanalysis, should, and perhaps must, make room for the confession of the particularity of its participants, including the particularity that is the specific religious subtraditions to which the theorists or practitioners belong. For too long the particularity or subjectivity of the psychological theorist or practitioner has been removed from the conversation due to the belief that incorporating such elements of the person might contaminate a process that should otherwise be entirely objective and free from bias or prejudice. This modern belief specifically identified religious traditions as interfering with the scientific enterprise, spoiling it with its “values” and unverifiable claims. However, we will argue that such a belief has led to awkward integrative solutions, is inconsistent with contemporary clinical understandings and is inherently philosophically flawed.

Our first argument makes the case that all psychological theory and practice, including psychoanalysis, is moral discourse, and that it is erroneous to suggest that it can be entirely objective and neutral. The consequence of this Enlightenment fallacy is that the morality within psychological theories and practice has been largely the product of morally relative attitudes and opinions (emotivism) that have been disconnected from broader communities of moral discourse. Nevertheless, these moral claims remain unjustified outside the particular ethical and religious ­traditions that validate them.

Second, the historical separation of psychology from religion due to Enlightenment beliefs that science must maintain objectivity and neutrality has led to attempts by many Christian psychologists to find ways to reconcile psychological theory and practice with their own Christian faith systems through a process of integration. However, integration projects have largely been unable to escape the intrinsic values of the Enlightenment and, as such, have proposed solutions that are perhaps not as effective as they could be due to a still-too-broad, or “thin,” particularity. As such we will both propose and model a way to think in “thick” ways about the practice of integrating psychology and religious subtraditions.

Our third and final argument is based on contemporary psychoanalytic literature that argues that the subjectivity of the analyst cannot be reduced and must be taken more seriously in clinical practice. That is, integration is not just something that takes place on a theoretical level, but there is also a need to understand the place of the particularities of both the therapist and client in clinical practice. Taking seriously the subjectivities of both the patient and analyst provides room for the particularities of each, including religious subtraditions, to be part of the therapeutic process. As such, we are asking the participants of this book to take seriously their own particularity and subjectivity by considering how their own tradition-specific theologies and moralities influence their psychological theory and practice. We are asking our participants to join us in the practice of confession.

Integration as Moral Discourse

We begin our argument with a critique of the philosophical presuppositions that have led the social sciences, and subsequently psychological theorists and practitioners, to assume a stance of value or moral neutrality. In many ways this premise can be linked back to Freud. In An Outline of Psychoanalysis, Freud (1940/1989) states

It may be that there are still undreamt-of possibilities of therapy. But for the moment we have nothing better at our disposal than the technique of psycho-analysis, and for that reason, in spite of its limitations, it should not be despised. (p. 62)