Psychology and Spirituality
Pastoral Ministries Program,
Santa Clara University (last taught Winter 2002)
Lecture 2: Psychological Development
I: Infancy to Adolescence
Prayer
Human development:
St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish
ways." (1 Corinthians 13:11)
In what ways are you aware that you have changed since childhood?
In what ways has your spirituality changed? Your image(s)
of God?
Although Paul seems to speak as though he is at the end of the process,
his larger context reminds us that we live only partway to maturity:
(1 Corinthians 13:9-10) "For we know only in part, and we prophesy
only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to
an end. . .{12} For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will
see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully,
even as I have been fully known."
Another often quoted text from Proverbs says: (Proverbs 22:6) "Train
children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray." ("Instruct
a child in the way he should go, and when he grows old he will not leave
it." (Jerusalem))
Emphasizes that what happens to us, what we learn as children stays
with us throughout our lives.
Simply noting that "people change between childhood and adulthood"
is not particularly profound. But are there common patterns in that development?
Are there characteristic challenges, universal trends or forces that guide
growth in one direction or another? We mentioned that psychology is "the
scientific study of behavior." When we look critically at childhood development,
and ask what factors enable a child to grow into a healthy adult, we touch
on psychological issues.
Although various theories differ significantly in how they understand the
process of growth and development, it has now become a commonplace of our
psychologized culture that childhood experiences have great significance for
our sense of self and our relationship to others and (as we will investigate
further) our spirituality and relationship to God.
Newspaper article: San Jose Mercury, March 31, 1998:
Book- Ghosts from the Nursery, Tracing the Roots of Violence
by Robin Karr-Morse and Meredith S. Wiley (Atlantic Monthly Press, $25)
"the seeds of violence can be sown in the first 33 months of brain
development"
"The idea that the brain, unlike the heart or liver, is built by
experiences in the specific environments in which it finds itself...
It is not just set on a course by genetics as our other organs are.
If those early experiences are negative, it is built not only into
your psyche, but your physiological makeup."
"The first step is building empathy, making sure babies begin to
trust there is someone there for them and they are connected. The
connection is built as the cortex of the brain develops."
"Second is the regulation of very strong negative emotions."
"The third is the capacity for rational analysis and problem solving."
Freud: "psychosexual" theory of development
How libido (sexual energy) is experienced and channeled
Stages:
Oral- nursing, sucking. Satisfying nursing involves
blissful union with the mother; frustration may lead to apprehension
and pessimism
Anal (sadistic-anal); retention of feces-- both
pleasurable and means for manipulating others
Phallic: (male child); Oedipus complex--
fixation on mother and jealousy of father-- leads to Castration
Anxiety; if resolved, boy identifies with father; parental
attitudes are introjected and become the superego
Latency: libido energy directed outward to the
world, not primarily sexual
Genital: sexual maturation; intimacy and adult
sexuality
Religion for Freud: (last week's diagram)
Freud denied the reality of the transcendent; religious experience and
rituals are projected human needs.
Religion is "nothing but psychology projected into the external
world...One could venture to explain in this way the myths of paradise
and the fall of man, of God, of good and evil, of immortality, and
so on." (Freud, 1901,
p. 258-9).
Most specifically, Freud considered religion to be a shared
neurosis-- evidenced by neurotic people being attracted to
religion. The roots of religion to lie in the Oedipal complex:
God is the projected father; religion is a search to return
to protection
beginnings of religion found in the totem meal-- an attempt
to assuage the guilt at murdering the father (Freud, 1955, 1964).
Morality based in the introjection of the parental figure; the
superego is the controlling voice of the parent (Freud,
1961)
Religion is an attempt to master the Oedipus complex.
Religion is the return of the repressed.
Religion is a reaction to infantile helplessness.
Religion echoes infantile states of 'bliss'.
Religion is a mass delusion or paranoid wish-fulfilment.
Religion is a way to hold groups together.
This raises the question of the relationship of development and
spirituality
Nearly universally-- both believers and non believers understand that
our images of God and relationship to God is intertwined with our relations
with our parents and early religious experiences. Ana Maria Rizzuto's
study of the connection of parental images and God images in The Birth
of the Living God. (Rizzuto,
1979)
Story of altar boys-- Marshal Tito and Cardinal Cushing
Diagram: spirituality as us-- world-- others;
what kinds of things are important to learn for healthy
relationships?
How might the links be broken?
Human <---> God;
wounded linkages;
potential for healing
Limits of psych.-- can describe the woundedness and even the healing,
but no farther
Erik Erikson- psychosocial development; maturity not just
about sexual maturation, but about relationships to others
Erikson biographical notes
Born in 1902; raised in Germany as the son of a Jewish pediatrician
and his Danish wife. He did not learn until later that his biological
father had abandoned his mother before he was born, and that the pediatrician
was his step-father.
A gifted artist and "bohemian," spent early life wandering
around Europe and studying art in Germany
A friend invited him to teach at a school in Vienna for the children
of Freud's patients, colleagues and analysts-in-training; he became part
of Freudian circle, and eventually was trained both as a Psychoanalyst
and a Montessori teacher.
As the Nazis rose to power, Erikson left for America in 1933. In Boston,
he was the only child psychoanalyst and worked at the Harvard Psychological
clinic. He worked with sociologists and anthropologists and observed Native
American peoples in the Dakotas and Pacific Coast, leading him to insights
on how society's values and norms shape individual development.
need to develop basic trust in the world; threatened
by abandonment-- real or perceived; e.g. mother's flinching from being
bitten-- traumatic
Virtue: hope; sense of trust in the goodness of the
world; trust that wishes can be attained
Societal support for hope (and its mature expression faith)
is in religion; private longing for restoration and hope is joined
with others in ritual and shared faith
Failure in the stage leads to withdrawal-- an inability
to trust others or the world.
Image of God-- early distortions; reluctant parent? How
does our relationship to our parents shape our image of God?
"Christian wormism"-- Amazing Grace... that saved a worm
like me...
Linns and Fabrikant suggest prayer styles to heal each stage: Contemplative
prayer and healing the first stage (Linn,
Fabrikant & Linn, 1988)
Stage II: Early Childhood
Anal stage; control over feces-- retention and elimination; developing
muscle control
Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt: beginning of differentiation
from parents;
efforts toward self-control, if supported, help develop will
-- "the unbroken determination to exercise free choice as well as
self-restraint, in spite of the unavoidable experience of shame and doubt
in infancy." (Erikson,1964:
119).
Societally, will is safeguarded by the principle of law and
order