From object to subject: pastoral supervision as an intersubjective activity

The author sketches the development of psychoanalysis in terms of its trends from notions of objectivity to intersubjectivity and how this movement can inform contemporary pastoral supervision. The article argues that these same trends may be noted in the development of contemporary educational and theological theories.     

THE NEED FOR TRUE CONTROVERSIES IN PSYCHOANALYSIS: THE DEBATES ON MELANIE KLEIN AND JACQUES LACAN IN THE RÍO DE LA PLATA

Controversies are part of the process of scientific knowing. In psychoanalysis, the diversity of theoretical, technical and epistemological positions makes the debate particularly necessary and by the same token difficult. In this paper, the author examines the function of controversies and the obstacles to their development, taking as examples the debates held in the Rao de la Plata (Buenos Aires and Montevideo) during the nineteen seventies, when the dominant Kleinian ideas came into contact with Lacanian thought. The author examines different examples of argumentative discourses, using concepts taken from the theory of argumentation. The major difficulties encountered did not hinge on characteristics pertaining to psychoanalytic theories (i.e. the lack of commensurability between them), but on the defensive strategies aimed at keeping each theory's premises safe from the opposing party's arguments. A true debate implies the construction of a shared argumentative field that makes it possible to lay out the different positions and see some interaction between them and is guided by the search for the best argument. When this occurs, controversies promote the discipline's development, even when they fail to reach any consensus.     

Engaging the Borders: Empathy,Religious Studies,and Pre‐Professional Fields

This article proposes that religious studies instructors can gain pedagogical insights regarding the value and teaching of empathy from pre‐professional health care and counseling fields. I present research findings from these fields to support claims that empathic skills are teachable. I then show that empathy has been established within the field of religious studies as important in order to understand the beliefs of the religious other. I conclude that religious studies educators should be concerned about how to teach empathy, and suggest that pre‐professional research findings point us in the direction of how to do this. Experiential exercises such as role‐playing and other simulation exercises seem to be most effective in teaching empathic skills. I present examples that demonstrate how listening exercises and the role‐playing of cases can be used in the religious studies classroom and can assist in the development of empathy for the religious other.     

THE NEUROSCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA: OR WHY GOD DOESN'T USE BIOSTATISTICS

Abstract. With the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience research exploring religious and spiritual phenomena, there have been many perspectives as to the validity, importance, relevance, and need for such research. In this essay we review the studies that have contributed to our current understanding of the neuropsychology of religious phenomena. We focus on methodological issues to determine which areas have been weaknesses and strengths in the current studies. This area of research also poses important theological and epistemological questions that require careful consideration if both the religious and scientific elements are to be appropriately respected. The best way to evaluate this field is to determine the methodological issues that currently affect the field and explore how best to address such issues so that future investigations can be as robust as possible and can become more mainstream in both the religious and the scientific arenas.     

Recent theoretical convergences in psychoanalysis and their epistemological importance

In this paper, the author starts by examining the recent occurrence of an increasing receptivity and critical exchange between different schools of psychoanalytical thought. Among its consequences have been convergences in the understanding of countertransference, especially through the hypotheses of projective identification and countertransferential enactment. The prevalence of these hypotheses points towards the fact that the community of analysts is bringing about an informal and convergent clinical research conducted by a wide and heterogeneous range of its members. The importance and epistemological relevance of this kind of 'informal clinical research' for the construction of psychoanalytical knowledge is emphasised. This process in psychoanalysis is compared with the evolution of knowledge in other scientific areas, highlighting their similarities and their differences. The author shows how Freud's 'mystic writing-pad'model can be expanded to represent the object of psychoanalytical investigation and to bring a better understanding of the reason why the hypotheses of projective identification and countertransferential enactment occupy such a central position in psychoanalysis. In addition, consideration is given to how this kind of research can help in the difficult task of finding criteria for the evaluation of different psychoanalytical concepts. Finally, the author demonstrates how, using this approach, some of the important divergences in contemporary psychoanalysis can be viewed from a new perspective.     

What kind of discipline is psychoanalysis?

Current controversies involving clinical, conceptual and empirical research shed light on how psychoanalysis confronts its nature and its future. Some relevant debates in which Wallerstein, Green, Hoffman, Eagle and Wolitzky, Safran, Stern, Blass and Carmeli, and Panksepp have participated are examined regarding the characteristics of their argumentation. Agreements and disagreements are explored to find ways that could have allowed the discussion to progress. Two foci are highlighted in these debates: (a) whether a clinical common ground exists in psychoanalysis and what kind of procedure could contribute to further clarification; (b) complementation of in‐clinical and extra‐clinical evidence. Both aspects are scrutinized: the possibility of complementing diverse methodologies, and the nature of the shared clinical evidence examined in clinical discussion groups such as those promoted by the IPA Clinical Observation Committee. The importance of triangulation and consilience is brought to bear regarding their contribution to the robustness of psychoanalysis. So as to strengthen a critical perspective that enhances the discipline's argumentative field, psychoanalysis should take into account arguments from different sources according to their specific merits. By doing this, psychoanalysis increases its relevance within the current interdisciplinary dialogue.     

论五种宗教对话观

宗教对话是国际宗教学界的一个热门话题、一个前沿领域。本文概要评述了五种最有影响的宗教对话观,即排他论、兼并论、多元论、兼容论和实践论,并力求对它们加以比较性的方法论反思。作者认为,这五种宗教对话观不仅各有不可忽视的理论根据,而且均有值得深思的理论得失。因此,从神哲学方法论上反省它们之间的学术论争,并权衡它们之间的理论张力,将有助于我们进而探索宗教对话领域的疑难问题及其理论突破点。     

PSYCHOANALYSIS IN SCANDINAVIA: PART ONE

During recent years, the neurosciences have entered into a dialogue with psychoanalysis, which has opened new perspectives for their integration. Despite these developments, reservations remain concerning the reducing effects of the neurosciences by overtly or covertly hiding the core elements of psychoanalysis. However, Freud made an explicit parallel between psychoanalysis and physics in their relationship with the unknown reality, and in their task of filling in gaps in knowledge. Freud's epistemological view implies that the relationship with the unknown reality unites rather than separates psychoanalysis from other sciences. On the other hand, in the clinical realm, Freud emphasized the autonomy of psychoanalysis. Instead of offering causal explanations, the value of the neurosciences to psychoanalysis depends on how well the knowledge derived from them can be integrated in psychoanalysis and given a clinical meaning. The primacy of clinical relevance also pertains to the findings of empirical outcome research.     

Beyond illusion: Psychoanalysis and the question of religious truth1

In this paper the author critically examines the nature of the positive, reconciliatory attitude towards religion that has become increasingly prevalent within psychoanalytic thinking and writing over the past 20 years. She shows how this positive attitude rests on a change in the nature of the prototype of religion and its reassignment to the realm of illusion, thus making irrelevant an issue most central both to psychoanalysis and to traditional Judeo‐Christian belief ‐ the passionate search for truth. The author demonstrates how the concern with truth, and specifically with the truth of religious claims, lies at the basis of the opposition between psychoanalysis and religion but, paradoxically, also provides the common ground for dialogue between the two. She argues that, as Freud developed his ideas regarding the origin of conviction in religious claims in his Moses and monotheism (1939), the nature of this common ground was expanded and the dialogue became potentially more meaningful. The author concludes that meaningful dialogue emerges through recognition of fundamental differences rather than through harmonisation within a realm of illusion. In this light, the present study may also be seen as an attempt to recognise fundamental differences that have been evolving within psychoanalysis itself.     

The Distinctiveness of Pastoral Counseling

The author maintains that if the field of pastoral counseling is to achieve an identity that will satisfy both theologians and psychologists, then two issues must be faced. First, pastoral counselors must resolve the dilemma between the humanistic values of the psychotherapeutic community and the theological values of the religious community. Second, pastoral counselors must articulate the empirical distinctiveness of their practice. The author argues that the value dilemma should be approached through a Christian humanism that integrates the sacred and the secular without collapsing them. The author concludes with a discussion of the cognitive developmental approach as an example of a promising model for pastoral counseling practice and research.     

A Delicate Knowledge: Epistemology, Homosexuality, and St. John of the Cross

In light of the intractable disagreements, both theological and theoretical, which emerge at every turn in contemporary discussions of homosexuality and religion, this essay advances an epistemological approach to the discussion. The advantage of an epistemological approach is that it sidesteps many of the narrow denominational discussions, making almost no reference to Romans, to natural law, or to a sexual ethic based on love and mutuality. By drawing upon analytic philosophy of religion (Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne specifically), I hope to show how a failure explicitly to face epistemological challenges has undermined pro-gay claims and arguments and contributed to religious confusion. Constructively, the work of St. John the Cross helpfully offers a powerful epistemological vision that importantly supplements the analytic projects of Plantinga and Swinburne, thereby helping us comprehend more fully what is implied and required in justified pro-gay religious conviction.     

BECOMING RELATED: THE EDUCATION OF A PSYCHOANALYST

The author uses a “professional memoir,” a story about his first experiences in clinical work, to illustrate what he believes to be certain fundamental aspects of an analytic attitude. Taking place in a psychiatric hospital, it is meant to highlight the central place of intuition, emotional receptivity, empathy, relatedness—and their inherent dangers—in engaging therapeutically with patients' emotional disturbances. The author postulates that these and related aspects of clinical psychoanalysis are not sufficiently emphasized in psychoanalytic training and are often eclipsed by idealizations of psychoanalytic theories and their derivative techniques, third‐party demands for evidence‐based data, preoccupations with neurobiological correlates of experience, etc. Despite the clinical fact that psychoanalysis can be extraordinarily helpful to patients, he questions whether clinical psychoanalysis is rightly regarded as a “treatment.”     

Lutheran perspectives on interfaith relations: Theological trajectories of study processes in the Lutheran communion

The global Lutheran communion has been engaged in theological reflection on interreligious relations for several decades. In the 1960s, the Lutheran World Federation embarked on theologically reflecting on its relations to the Jewish people. This led to a critical assessment of Luther's writings on Jews. 1984, the LWF established a desk to engage theologically with religious pluralism. Starting off from a theology of religions' approach the engagement of the global communion has become more contextual, dialogical, and collaborative over the years. This has led to a dialogical public theology which affirms dialogue and theology as sisters in a critical‐constructive engagement with one's own and other communities. Raising epistemological and theological questions in dialogue in view of religious actors' public accountability can help to prevent faith from mutating into ideology or manifesting itself as idolatry.     

“What ‘Great Cloud of Witnesses’? Isn’t My Own Religious Experience Enough?”

The author notes that current seminary students show great variation in their academic skills, in their familiarity with the basics of Christianity, and in their sense of, and skill in, theological method. This condition is both caused and exacerbated by the students' acculturation in American religious privatism, which makes them resist a critical and constructive examination of their views and hinders their understanding of theology as an undertaking of and for the Church. The author describes a number of pedagogical strategies, teaching techniques, and classroom exercises that have shown some effectiveness in overcoming these problems.     

Missional Discipleship

Most communities of the world, and particularly in the continent of Africa, are multi‐faith and multicultural. Christianity is a major religion in the continent that has succeeded in persuading adherents of African traditional religions to switch off from their indigenous belief and switch on to Christian belief. 1 Christianity is not the only religious faith in Africa. It has other sibling monotheistic religions and other religious expressions. Christianity, being a mission‐oriented religious faith, has a mandate to bring about transformation as reflected in its sacred text, the Bible. This article will explore how the transformation is stimulated and sustained. Meanwhile, it is necessary to state that African people were religious people even before the advent of Christianity and Islam. As a result, religion plays a critical role in their public engagements. Nevertheless, what may be investigated further would be whether religion, and Christian faith in particular, influences the people to be good citizens/disciples as they engage in the socio‐political and economic life of the society. The article seeks to use the notion of missional discipleship as a compelling stimulus for inclusive transformation in African societies.     

Rethinking the Great Commission: Incorporation of Akan Indigenous Symbols into Christian Worship

Symbols are communicative tools with performative functions in all cultures. Apart from their decorative functions, non‐Christian symbols adopted into Christianity have had a tremendous impact on Christian life since the early times, especially in liturgical practices. Through Western missionary activities, Ghana inherited Christian biblical‐liturgical art as has been developed in the home countries of the missionaries. However, since the 1960s Adinkra symbols have been incorporated into Christian worship and theology, receiving attention within secular and religious circles because of their communicative potential. On the religious level, some churches have adopted them as logos or incorporated them into architectural designs and liturgical art. This paper seeks to investigate what motivates various missions to choose particular Adinkra symbol(s) and what they hope to achieve with them. Furthermore, it attempts a theological reflection on the communicative potential of artefacts in Ghanaian Christianity as a response to the “Great Commission. “We approach the subject from a historical, contextual, and theological perspective, using selected Roman Catholic and Methodist churches in Ghana as case studies. The study employed unstructured in‐depth interviews and photo elicitations to trace the relationship between visual arts and religion, with particular emphasis on Christian visual arts and how they have informed Christianity in Ghana.     

From Enemy Combatant to Strange Bedfellow The Role of Religious Narratives in the Work of W. R. D. Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott

Psychoanalysis has a well-documented history of antipathy toward religion. As a consequence of the postmodern shift in philosophy, however, there are those who, albeit cautiously, are attempting to approach religion with a renewed spirit of dialogue and inquiry as a narrative among many narratives that has informed and even enriched the development of psychoanalysis.

In this spirit of dialogue, the author traces the influence of early religious affiliations on two object relations theorists, W. R. D. Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott. Fairbairn's early imbibing of Calvinist theology in Scotland and Winnicott's involvement in the Wesleyan church are detailed. The theological differences between these Protestant perspectives (which form counterpoints to one another) are clarified and the perspectives are positioned within the framework of British culture. These religious themes are then identified within the works of Fairbairn and Winnicott.

As a final consideration, the relational nature of the Judeo-Christian God, and the subsequent view of human life that flows from that theology, are posited as influential in the development of the relational shift in psychoanalysis. The author details the association between this shift and the seminal work of Fairbairn and Winnicott.     

Whence the Sovereignty?

This essay challenges an approach to political theology, exemplified by Clayton Crockett, that insists that divine sovereignty must be rejected to avoid the conception of political sovereignty developed by Carl Schmitt. Crockett conflates different understandings of God and God’s power, particularly ignoring the rise of nominalism and its influence over modern political theory. By attending to this history, we see that Crockett is incorrect to reject all classical onto‐theological or monotheistic definitions of God as the basis for sovereignty. The final section explores other theological options (Oliver O’Donovan, John Milbank, Jürgen Moltmann) that also challenge modern political sovereignty from within the classical Christian tradition.