Psychology and Spirituality: Introduction

Psychology and Spirituality
Pastoral Ministries Program, Santa Clara University
(last taught Winter 2002)

Lecture 1: Psychology and Spirituality

Overview of course
1. Understand the interrelatedness of psychological development and religious development.
2. Become acquainted with how personality types affect all of our interactions and specifically our religious life.
3. Make linkages between the practice of prayer and psychological growth.
4. Understand psychological perspectives on evil and suffering.
5. Learn some ways to identify healthy and unhealthy spirituality.
6. The class is not group therapy– personal issues may get stirred up, and I am available for conversation outside.
7. Not a class in psychology of religion. We will touch on some issues, but the focus is on issues in spirituality, not systematic survey of approaches.
Syllabus:
1. Weekly themes and reading
2. Class discussion: vital part of class; I have one kind of expertise, but you all have others. Your experience and insight can inform our shared study.
3. Reflection Papers
4. Final paper and presentation
5. Web page
Logistics: prayer; snacks;
Psychology and Spirituality:
1. Which psychology? Which spirituality? What the relationship?
Psychology-
1. Brainstorm definitions
2. "Psychology is the science that studies behavior-- the actions, mental processes, and experiences of humans and other organisms. Any personal activity, whether shown outwardly or experienced inwardly, qualifies as a behavior." (Saccuzzo, 1987:4)
3. Science-- critical reflection; systematization
4. No such thing as psychology-- maybe psychologies-- systems of interpretation: As Sigmund Koch points out:
  "Characteristically, psychological events . . . are multiply determined, ambiguous in their human meaning, polymorphous, contextually environed or embedded in complex and vaguely bounded ways, and evanescent and labile in the extreme . . . Different theorists will-- relative to their different analytical purposes, predictive or practical aims, perceptual sensitivities, metaphor-forming capacities, and preexisting discrimination repertoires-- make asystematically different perceptual cuts upon the same domain . . . The cuts, variables, concepts will in all likelihood establish different universes of discourse, even if loose ones." (Koch, 1992 : 93)
  Koch suggests that this diversity might well be acknowledged by referring to "the psychological studies" rather than "psychology."
5. Historical development:
  1. Roots in psyche-- "life, soul" psychology in its earliest form meant the study of the soul and its ways; Tertullian's De Animae,
  2. Psychology itself began as a sub-discipline of theology; the term psychology was coined in the sixteenth century to describe, along with natural theology and angelography and demonology, the three branches of pneumatology or the doctrine of spirits. Shortly after, the term anthropology was created to refer to the science of persons, having the subdivisions of psychology (science of mind) and somatology (the science of the body). (Vande Kemp, 1986)
  3. Wilhelm Wundt in 1879 at Leipzig The effect of Wundt's "founding" of modern psychology was to wrest the discipline from its roots in philosophy and theology and replant it in the soil of rationalist, positivist science. "It was the stabilization of a meaning of a word . . . and an arrogation of that `new' meaning to sovereign status over all prior usages . . . Henceforward, the core meaning of `psychology' would be dominated by the adjectives scientific and experimental." (Koch, 1992: 8)
Spirituality:
1. Definitions?
2. Relationship to religion? Institutional? Piety? Religiosity?
3. Definitions of "Religion"
4. Sandra Schneiders: "the experience of conscious involvement in the project of life integration through self-transcendence toward the ultimate value on perceives." (Schneiders, 2000:4)
5. The quality of spirit-- "spiritus" distinct from "anima"-- soul; rational spirit
6. Relationship to God, the ultimate, the divine
7. Behaviors? Prayer; worship; attitudes;
8. In this course: Christian spirituality- tons of stuff on eastern spiritualities-- blending of humanistic psychologies and eastern ways; this course will focus on Christian spirituality
Relationship?
1. Why care at all? What has Vienna to do with Jerusalem? Language, images in popular culture Phrases such as "Freudian slip," "Oedipus complex," the "Unconscious," "projection" and "free association," once the specialized vocabulary of psychologists, have now become a part of daily conversation and the stuff of literature, movies and television. Scroggs writes, "We [modern Westerners] think psychologically; we evaluate our feelings psychologically. We are not aware of the specific content of the deep and hidden dimensions of our psyches, because we know that they are most often repressed and inaccessible to our consciousness; but we are aware that such dimensions exist and that they control our lives and actions more than do our conscious egos."(Scroggs, 1982) Peter Homans observes how psychoanalytic ideas in particular have become in America "a guiding set of ideas woven into the fabric of its institutional life," shaping a new social being which he denotes "psychological man." (Homans, 1979) (1)
2. Possible models for relationship of Psychology and Religion:
  1. Religion and psychology-- no relationship; they describe different worlds in different language; no connection between the two; sometimes called the parallel model
  2. Religion vs. Psychology: antagonism and hostility; from both sides. Both psychology and religion concern themselves with human beings, describe systems of value and paths to "salvation". In some ways the conflict between secular and sacred worldviews-- rationalist, positivist world vs. Faith, supernatural. Antagonistic model
  3. Psychology of religion-- analyze religion, at worst, reduce religious phenomena to psychological terms... God is nothing more than the projection of the father figure; Hierarchical approaches (usually described as the psychology of religion or the "scripture of psychology" (Carter) accept the relevance of the other, but subsume it under the categories and terms of their own. Interpretation from this perspective often takes the form of "remapping" terms to show how religious language corresponds to a theory or case history or in demonstrating that a psychological theory is "anticipated" or confirmed in religious tradition or practice.
    1. Wulff chart of the Psychology of Religion
  4. Psychology as religion-- in contemporary, secular culture, psychology often plays a role similar to that once played by faith. It is worth looking at this more closely as it is a significant thread in many self-help and "pop-psych" books today:
    1. Early psychologists often began from faith, but became alienated from their traditions; needed to integrate world view with increasingly scientific and secular perspective. Freud raised in observant Jewish home; Jung the son, nephew and grandson of Protestant ministers.
    2. Psychology filled a need for healing at a time when churches had come to neglect that aspect of ministry.
    3. Religious sentiments and qualities pervaded new science of psychology-- Freud "excommunicated" followers who did not follow his doctrine-- expelling heretics. Schools of thought splintered much like Protestant sects and movements. PC Vitz observes "encounter group psychology is much like revivalism; Fromm's psychology is close to the social gospel; self-help psychology is an expression of positive-thinking Protestantism (e.g. Norman Vincent Peale); transpersonal psychology and related types are analogous to Mind Cure and aspects of Christian Science" (Vitz, 1985:933).
    4. Significant points of substitution: much pop-psych built on what can be called "self-psychologies" briefly, characterized by:
      1. emphasis on integration of the conscious self as the goal of life
      2. belief that the "true" self is entirely good, unselfish and altruistic
      3. belief that individuals have unlimited capacity for free choice
      4. defects of personality due to learned social roles; need to break with the past
      5. importance of getting in touch with and expressing feelings
    5. In some churches, religious language is still used, but the thought patterns and definitions of psychology are reeally meant. There are, however, several points of conflict with this "pop psych" image of human life in scripture and Christian teaching (Alter addresses many of these issues) Sin; the call to "deny yourself and take up your cross, "etc.
  5. The challenge, then, is to affirm the validity of both psychology and spirituality without subordinating one to the other. Integrative models assume the unity of all truth and have tried to pursue a kind of "unified field theory" of religious and psychological discoveries. This effort also displays no more unanimity than any of the other debates in either psychology or religion.⁽²⁾ Rather, it might be better to conceive of the relationship of psychology and spirituality as a genuine dialogue. Neither is to be subordinated to each other, nor are they to be seen as identical. Instead of attempting a full integration of the two, it would be more valuable to pay attention to the points of intersection between them, asking how they inform and critique each other. (Ellens, 1981)
This class: As Jung once observed, the unique challenge that "in psychology, the means by which you study the psyche is the psyche itself...the observer is the observed. The psyche is not only the object, but also the subject of our science." (Jung, 1969: ¶ 277) This class is more than an intellectual exercise; we are both participants and observers in the dialogue. Each of you brings the expertise of your experience and insight to the intersections of psychology and spirituality. It will be our task to keep to the middle road-- this class is not a group therapy session, but neither is it a mathematics class. We will try to bring the stuff of our real lives as the material for critical reflection.
Introductions:
1. Give your name, a little about what you bring to the class, or what brought you.

Notes

1. Homans credits sociologist Philip Rieff for coining the term in 1959. Psychological [man] "is characterized by inner diffuseness; he can organize or structure the inner, personal, and private dimension of the contemporary world only through psychology, and meaning thus tends to be realized in the personal sector of life. As a result, his relation to social institutions is precarious; there is no firm, synergic connection between personal identity and the social order" (p. 3); see also Homans, The Ability to Mourn: Disillusionment and the Social Origins of Psychoanalysis, (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989), p. 267.

2. As dozens of articles in the Journal of Psychology and Theology will immediately attest (see Berry, C. M. (1980). Approaching the Integration of the Social Sciences and Biblical Theology. JPT, 8, 33-44; Breshears, G., & Larzelere, R. E. (1981). The Authority of Scripture and the Unity of Revelation: A Response to Crabb. , JPT 9, 312-317; Crabb, L. J. (1981). Biblical Authority and Christian Psychology. JPT, 9, 305-311; De Vries, M. J. (1982). The Conduct of Integration: A Response to Farnsworth. JPT, 10, 320-325; Ellens, J. H. (1981). Biblical Authority and Christian Psychology: II. JPT, 9, 318-325; Farnsworth, K. E. (1982). The Conduct of Integration. JPT, 10, 308-319; Farnsworth, K. E., Alexanian, J. M., & Iverson, J. D. (1983). Integration and the Culture of Rationalism: Reaction to Responses to `The Conduct of Integration': II. JPT, 11, 349-352; Guy, J. D. (1982). Affirming Diversity in the Task of Integration: Response to "Biblical Authority and Christian Psychology". JPT, 10, 35-39; Powlison, D. A. (1984). Which Presuppositions? Secular Psychology and the Categories of Biblical Thought. JPT, 12, 270-278; Rambo, L. (1978). Contradiction, Compromise, or Convergence: Relfections on Christianity and Psychology. JPT, 8, 126-129.

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