The Father's Body-Shadow and Creativity in the Female

There is in the female a relationship between a positive connection to the father's body and the development of a creative life. Conversely, if a woman has experienced only a negative connection to her father's body, then a life of creative fulfillment will often chide her. In this case, she must be willing to assert her own creative bright shadow in order to rescue her creative life from the dark cave of her father's shadow. Lastly, the inner union of heroic man and creative feminine bright shadow is necessary if a woman is to experience her life as creatively meaningful.     

Renewal of object relations through dream-work

In this paper I describe my work with a suicidal patient. The patient was a woman who failed to realize her creative potential in a much wished for and unattainable profession of teacher and transferred all her energy and desire for leadership into her family life. The slogan of her life was the pathetic phrase: 'Everything or nothing!' Her views on life differed from those of her husband who, at the age of 48, started a love affair with a 25-year-old woman. In relation to this, the patient became depressed and attempted suicide twice (by poisoning) in two years. From the Toxicology Department she was referred to the Psychiatric Department where she was treated as an out-patient.     

Cross-Border Family Therapy: An Innovative Approach to Working with Latina Refugee Women in Therapy

In the era of transnationalism, family therapists working with immigrant women are provided with the space to be innovative in their search for alternatives to Eurocentric approaches. Doing so can help therapists to best serve working-class immigrants and refugees who arrive in North America to escape violence and poverty. The case presented in this article highlights the cross-border interconnectedness between a Salvadoran refugee woman in Canada and other people in her life. The woman's sources of resilience were her emotional and spiritual connections with her extended family and community members who lived in her country of origin and in the United States. Implications for practice are presented last.     

Tracking the Logos

Anna-TeresaTymieniecka writes of a “dynamic skeleton for future fusions of sense” rising from the seemingly disjointed situation of philosophy and details how her phenomenology of life can put flesh on it. Examined here are her efforts to: uncover the deep-lying intelligibility of life by emphasizing the role of the logos of life in connection with meaning structures developed by Husserl; undertake a critique of phenomenological reason; delineate life’s path, not from cognition in isolation, but from within the fullness of human functioning in all its complexity; give Husserl’s phenomenology a metaphysico-existential foundation; analyze the human creative process penetrating the very individualized meanderings of life; show how the creative logos reaches into communal/societal life and opens the way to spiritual and sacral horizons of experience.     

Allergic to People: Building Bridges in a Ripped Psychic-Soma

An exploration of the use mind/body metaphors in a woman whose physical, environmental and psychoneurotic trauma culminated in an irreversible colostomy. She lived in a world of concrete symbols, her primary process damaged such that she could not create generative symbols to process her trauma. She regressed to a state of infantile megalomania, recoiling from the external reality of subjective others. Her introjective disorder mirrored her digestive disorder as she could absorb neither good objects nor good nutrients. The analytic situation has been an auxiliary fecal container and we work to bridge her mind body split with mind/body metaphors. As she reclaims lost development mastery, she displays a symbolized sphincter. As her capacity to form symbols grows, she rages and mourns for the loss of her fantasized ideal parents and her ideal body.     

Transitional Faith: A Developmental Step Toward Religious Maturity

Nonjudgmental exploration of religious concerns may be a vital component of psychotherapy with religiously oriented clients. This article summarizes a recent stage model of psycho-religious functioning that was developed to help psychotherapists work with religious material in clinical practice. Following this introduction a case study is presented that illustrates my clinical work with a young woman in the transitional stage of development. The presentation depicts the entanglement of her spiritual struggles with her emotional and interpersonal conflicts. Because transitional faith is a pivotal point in the developmental spectrum, counselors and therapists working with clients in this stage can play a key role in promoting clients' spiritual development.     

“because a fire was in my head”

This is a case study of a woman in midlife, trying to negotiate a transition from family attachment to sexual love and intimacy. The move was derailed earlier by traumatic adolescent losses, her denial of her lesbian identity, and the onset of bipolar disorder. By entering therapy, following her dreams and synchronous life events, and enduring another bipolar break, the woman was able to make the transition and become more completely herself.     

More than just child’s play: symbolic expressions of illness and spirit

While spiritual well-being is integral to health, little is known about the spiritual lives of children in the context of illness. Because the spiritual is often a hidden domain of life, exploration of the topic can be challenging, especially when dealing with children. Language is not always sufficient for describing such deeply held experiences, even for adults. Therefore, finding creative ways to elicit experiences of the spiritual is important when attempting to gain a more robust understanding of this phenomenon. Drawing from a larger study that used hermeneutic phenomenology to explore spirituality among ill children, this paper provides an interpretation of ill children’s play experiences and describes how these experiences provide a means of uncovering the spiritual in children’s everyday lives as they cope with life-threatening illness. Findings also provide insight into how play can be used in the promotion of spiritual well-being.     

My <Emphasis Type="Italic">Ishvara</Emphasis> is Dead: Spiritual Care on the Fringes

Human suffering speaks differently to different lived contexts. In this paper, I have taken a metaphoric representation of suffering, Ishvara, from the lived context of a Hindu immigrant woman to show that suffering is experienced and expressed within one’s lived context. Further, a dominant narrative from her world is presented to show that the same lived context can be a resource for spiritual care that could reconstruct her world that has fallen apart with a suffering experience. Having argued that suffering is experienced and expressed within one’s lived context, and that lived context could be a resource, in this paper I present that spiritual care is an intervention into the predicaments of human suffering and its mandate is to facilitate certain direction and a meaningful order through which experiences and expectations are rejoined. Finally, I observe that spiritual care is an engagement between the lived context where suffering is experienced and the spiritual experience and orientation of the caregiver.     

A Living Life, A Living Death: Bessie Head��s Writing as a Survival Strategy

This paper explores Bessie Head's writing as a survival strategy through which she transformed her lived experience into imaginative literature, giving meaning and purpose to a life under permanent threat from the dominant group first in South Africa and later in Botswana. This threat included the destructive effect of the many fixed labels imposed upon her including: a 'Coloured' woman, the daughter of a woman designated mad, an exile, a psychotic, a tragic black woman, and a Third World woman writer. Her endeavours to avoid and defeat such limited, static definitions produced work characterised by contradiction and paradox, through which she asserted her right to survive and determined, like Makhaya in When Rain Clouds Gather, to establish 'a living life' in place of the 'living death that a man could be born into' (Head 1989, 136). Through a combination of Head's personal letters and papers and her published work, it can be seen how her particular preoccupations and experiences including her life in exile, her beliefs about her origins, her relationship to her absent mother, her distress, her madness and her need for love and for work were transformed into writing which expresses not only the destructive circumstances of her life but also its life-affirming aspects. Her writing was also a means by which she could create identities to express the dangers she encountered from the all-pervasive power structures which influenced her life and her sense of self, as well as ways to transcend them, enabling her to say in the last years of her life 'I am no failure' (20.2.1986 KMM BHP).     

A Psychobiographical Analysis of Faith, Hope, and Despair in Suicide

This paper presents a psychobiographical analysis of a young woman who committed suicide over 50 years ago. Among the documents analyzed are her letters, a high-school diary, creative writing, college newspaper book reviews, and academic papers. Using both an Eriksonian and object-relational theoretical framework, the roles of faith, hope, and despair in suicide—and the ways in which these were represented in the young woman's self-system—are analyzed. Although she possessed strong elements of both faith and hope, along with a will to implement them in a purposeful manner, she was prone to the defense mechanisms of splitting, devaluation, and dissociation, which led to an inability to create an abiding sense of self that may have prevented her descent to despair. Among other issues discussed in the article are the usefulness of psychobiography as a method of studying suicide and both the benefits and limitations of spiritual faith in countering depression and suicide.     

Individuation of women

The period between 30 and 40 years of age is probably the normal time developmentally for women to complete the individuation from their mothers. Because of the change of object from the primary object (mother) to the secondary object (father), as well as the lack of a narcissistic triumph over the mother comparable to that of a boy's penis, a woman's psychosexual development is more difficult and prolonged. The girl must resolve her attachment to the omnipotent mother and work through her Oedipus complex by deidealizing the father, recognizing that her anal-sadistic impulses do not castrate men, before she can completely individuate. Only then does she become an autonomous, complete woman. Passive-dependency in women is not a mature adult state, as several authors hold, but a partially resolved individuation from the mother, now transferred onto men. Becoming attached to men, idealizing them, they devalue themselves in order not to regress to the omnipotent preoedipal mother. Adulthood (30-40 years) is the time when this resolution can occur because there have been sufficient narcissistic achievements for the woman, enough distance from the actual preoedipal mother, and an opportunity to observe that their own anal-sadistic impulses toward men have not castrated or destroyed them, as well as an opportunity to see men as fallible and human. This is a reason so many woman return to school and begin careers in their 30s. This incomplete resolution is also a reason for fewer original discoveries and creative contributions by women than by men during the course of history. As society changes, this special difficulty for women to individuate may change as well, but I would predict that such change would not be as much as one might expect because of the unique psychosexual development of women.     

Sisters of the Heart Along the Way: The Power of the Female Mentoring Relationship

Women's mentoring relationships with other women can have powerful effects on professional development and enrich the lives of both mentor and protégée. Women psychology students and early career psychologists are tasked with integrating their personal and professional identities and overcoming gender-related barriers to professional growth and career success. Mentors provide assistance negotiating these and other challenges to the junior professional's development. The author shares her experience as a woman student and early career psychologist in the context of her relationship with her woman mentor. She discusses her reconciliation of stereotyped beliefs about being a woman and a professional psychologist; processes significantly influenced by powerful characteristics of her mentoring relationship such as supportive encouragement, modeling, transparency, and spiritual connectedness. The author then explores the link between the relational qualities in the mentoring relationship and an enhanced overall approach to clinical work with patients. Last, the benefits of women's intimate relationships are discussed, followed by references that explore benefits and challenges, and models and strategies for women mentoring women. The author concludes that as a sister of the heart relationship, the mentoring bond between women can be a healing and empowering attachment.     

Art in support of life: Caravaggio and the plague

In the struggle with COVID-19, art offered a way to face the solitude of the lockdown. The focus of this paper is primarily on Caravaggio’s painting The Seven Works of Mercy, with references to other paintings to amplify some aspects of the artist’s approach to life and his uniqueness in the artistic landscape of his time. Darkness was part of Caravaggio’s research for spiritual truth and by entering the stories of his life and exploring the tales told through imaginative expression in his paintings, it is possible to understand his process of exploration of ancestral darkness. The author uses her imagination to reflect on how art can help to contact the profound fears buried in the unconscious which are now being awakened by the pandemic. The contemplation of this painting facilitated the emergence of emotions related to the darkness of our time, with the discovery that empathy and mercy offer a way to come to terms with the pandemic. This approach demands a different understanding of reality with Caravaggio’s dark creative world becoming a companion that permits the exploration of what is not yet thinkable in daily life. Images accompany the author’s research that relies on her imagination and amplifications.     

Evaluating children's use of symbol in some recent research

This paper explores a number of examples of what appeared to be recurring symbolic expressions of spirituality found in my recent research into the spiritual experiences of children in Victorian State primary schools. These expressions appeared in drawings and in conversation. In this paper I use hermeneutic phenomenology and a multidisciplinary approach to the literature, to explore the nature of symbol, in particular, the symbols of island, snake and mountain. I examine the children's use of these symbols, with their multiple meanings and function, to gain a greater understanding of their individual and collective spirituality and well‐being. This study can have applications in religious education. Through their symbolic expressions children may be enabled to explore meaning in their lives, and advance in their spiritual development. Moreover, examination by children of their own symbols may provide a bridge to understanding and exploring core ideas of religious faith, which are mainly expressed in metaphoric language. Exploring symbols can provide a way for children to exercise the imagination, grounded in bodily experience, to achieve open and enriching spiritual outcomes.     

ECOLOGICAL SAINTS: ADOPTING A GREEN GAZE OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF SAINT MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS

During this time of ecological crisis, spiritual guides are needed to provide inspiration and impel action. In the Roman Catholic tradition, saints act as role models and are associated with particular causes, locations, or professions. Who, then, are the ecological saints, whose witness can inspire hope and action in support of the environment? This article explores that question in two ways. First the writings and accounts of saints who are traditionally connected to the environment are examined to produce six indicators of the beliefs, characteristics, and actions of ecological saints. Second, a green gaze is applied to Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, a seventeenth-century educator who lived in what would become Montreal, Canada, by comparing her writings and accounts of her life to the six indicators of an ecological saint. Identifying more ecological saints can promote environmental responsibility, and the six indicators of an ecological saint can be the lens through which beloved saints are re-examined.     

Philosophy,writing, and liberation

In responding to the three creative interpretive discussions in the symposium on my book Philosophy and the Art of Writing, this paper explores the different styles of philosophical discourse and their role in the practice of philosophy as a way of life that extends beyond the discursive and that combines self-cultivation with care for others in the ethical-aesthetic pursuit of living beauty. In advocating this aesthetic model of philosophical life over a purely therapeutic model, I suggest how the former can incorporate the latter's concerns for spiritual health and liberation. In developing my response to the symposiasts while elaborating on the themes of my book, I consider issues of ineffability, creative performance, embodiment, truth, heroism, vulnerability, possession, art, spirituality, love, and liberation.     

Grace and Imagination: From Fear to Freedom

Creative use of our imagination is essential if we are to live a vibrant life. Although our use of imagination is often blocked by various fears, D. W. Winnicott's insights into play, aggression, and the use of transitional objects open up paths towards greater freedom. The sacred texts, symbols, and liturgies of our religious traditions can then become the toys which engage us in profound and re-creating soul play. Through grace and the evocative examples of our teachers, we can find ways to use our imagination more freely to deepen our spiritual life and psychological wholeness.     

Maternal spiritual health as a predictor of psychological well-being and resilience of her young adult offspring

The unique bond between a mother and her child has drawn the attention of many researchers through the years. Yet, there is a dearth of studies that inquire maternal spiritual health and its potential manifestation through the mother–child bond. Since associations between spiritual health, resilience and psychological well-being have been established through literature, it would be interesting to study how spiritual health of a mother might be a potential source of influence in the life of her child. The current study inquires whether maternal spiritual health can predict psychological well-being and resilience in her young adult. Sample data for the study were collected from 205 families (205 mothers along with their respective young adults, N?=?410). Results indicate maternal spiritual health is a significant predictor of psychological well-being (p?p?相似文献   

The Symbol and the Theory of the Life-World: “The Transcendences of the Life-World and Their Overcoming by Signs and Symbols”

This essay presents a phenomenological analysis of the functioning of symbols as elements of the life-world with the purpose of demonstrating the interrelationship of individual and society. On the basis of Alfred Schutz's theory of the life-world, signs and symbols are viewed as mechanisms by means of which the individual can overcome the transcendences posed by time, space, the world of the Other, and multiple realities which confront him or her. Accordingly, the individual's life-world divides itself into the dimensions of time, space, the social world and various reality spheres which form the boundaries or transcendences that the I has to understand and integrate. Signs and symbols are described as appresentational modes which stand for experiences originating in the different spheres of the life-world within the world of everyday life, within which they can be communicated, thereby establishing intersubjectivity. Schutz's theory of the symbol explains how social entities – such as nations, states or religious groups – are symbolically integrated to become components of the individual's life-world. The following paper reconstructs Schutz's concept of the symbol as a crucial component of his theory of the life-world, which is seen as an outstanding phenomenological contribution to the theory of the sign and the symbol in general.