Christianity & Psychoanalysis: A New Conversation

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