Metapsychiatry and the Elusive Truth of Being

The legacy of the spiritual teachings of Dr. Thomas Hora (a training analyst at Blanton-Peale), known as Metapsychiatry, is introduced and its approach to and definition of a variety of spiritual terms and ideas is explained. The primacy of the distinction between reality and experience is presented, and the tools for discerning the difference, the two intelligent questions, are described. Brief clarifications of the nature of God, illusion, suffering, love, meditation, and enlightenment are offered, and the meaning of the elusiveness of the truth of being is identified.     

Children's judgment and recall of causal connectives: A developmental study of “because,” “so,” and “and”

The present study examined the acceptability judgments and recall performance of children aged 6,9, and 11 years with sentences expressing psychological cause-effect relations. Thirty-two sentences containing because medially, because initially, so, and and were generated from four clause pairs. Both probable and improbable event orders were used. The results indicated that children preferred because to so or and for statements of psychological causality. However, on both tasks, first and third graders frequently failed to attend to the temporal ordering specified by each sentence construction. The younger children also tended to judge all sentences acceptable, suggesting that they were concerned only with the probable association of event pairs, and not with the usual order of the events. Order of mention strategies did not occur in any group, suggesting that they arise only when children cannot make interpretations based on probable order of events. The data also indicated that the recall task is an unreliable index of rules for comprehension and production.This article is based on research conducted by the first author as partial fulfillment of the Ph.D. requirements for the Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin.     

A sermon from hell: Toward a theology of loneliness

Loneliness as part of the human condition is first explored from an experiential-philosophical perspective. A biblical survey suggests loneliness is normative to the faith experience and may portray a more realistic religiosity. Desert imagery in Scripture indicates a strong association among solitude, spiritual development, and potential dangers of spiritual deception. God's not yet-ness-itself a cause of existential loneliness—is paradoxically the way in which communion with God functions in the here and now. The creative use of solitude may enhance social, psychological, and spiritual well-being, and provide a way to theologize about personal isolation and disorientation.He is also editor of theHarding Journal of Religion and Psychiatry.     

The Origin of the Concept of “Allgemeinbildung” in 18th Century Germany

The German theory of education refers mainly to what is called Bildung. The historical sense of Bildung is not cultivaion, but cultivation for inwardness. This concept has two sources, the neo-platonic inner soul on one hand, pietistic piety on the other hand. The article shows that these sources had been part of European discussions before the development of national cultures after 1750. So the German concept of Bildung, famous for the German Sonderweg in culture and politics, had been composed out of non-German sources. The nationalizaiton of inwardness began at the end of the 18th century and was established in 19th century German Higher Education.     

Between Wonder and Doubt: Psychoanalysis in the Goal-Free Zone

This paper examines the experiential dimensions of wonder and doubt as one way to articulate the creative and growth-promoting tensions between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical model. Both forms of experience, it is argued, function as necessary elements in a psychotherapy that integrates psychoanalysis and spiritual praxes. Fundamental differences between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical models are examined. The notion of the gap serves to illustrate these diametrically opposed, albeit compatible and necessary, points of view. The multifaceted layers of movement between Buddhism and psychoanalysis typify interacting dynamics between the two disciplines and provide a focal point for discussion. The paper then explores parallels between the Zen Buddhist notion of Satori as explicated in the writings of D. T. Suzuki and Wilfred Bion's notion of O. Theoretical aspects of the discussion provide a backdrop for exploring clinical experience regarding the relationship between acceptance and change, the clinical relevance of the Buddhist notions of gaining idea and basic goodness. The author also explores relationships between presence as actuality and ideal; knowing and not knowing; wonder and doubt. Clinical material supports the theoretical aspects of the discussion.     

Letting Go: For Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Health

This article weaves together some fundamental spiritual and psychological principles, and draws on different perspectives on how people in the West can find healthy release in the concept of letting go.     

Carl Rogers and Martin Luther—A “reformation” in the helping professions

The 16th century schism in Christian thought leading to the Reformation has an interesting analogy in Carl Rogers' attempt to reform the helping professions. An exploration of this analogy clarifies much of the theoretical tension in the contemporary arena of pastoral counseling.     

The ABC's of the Christian family

Conclusion The ABC's of the Christian family are affection, balance, and companionship. If firmly set upon these bases, families can truly come to know the meaning of understanding love in the spirit of Jesus. This is true, for these ABC's are basic not only to our physical families, but also to our spiritual membership in the family of God.The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that wemay be also glorified together (Romans 8:16–17).     

Hypnotic aspects of spiritual experience

This article presents hypnosis as a concept, process, and perspective from which to view religious and spiritual events. Spiritual experiences are seen as internally-based occurrences which bear noticeable similarity to the characteristics of self-hypnosis. This is considered in reference to biblical accounts, mysticism, contemplation and the Jungian collective unconscious. Finally, the unconscious, which is accessed through hypnosis, is explored with regards to its role in spiritual experience.     

Sin,narcissism, and the changing face of conversion

Noting that current psychological discussions of conversion give far less attention to the sense of sin than did William James and his contemporaries, this article argues for renewed attention to sin and its role in the conversion experience. Using data from a survey of Christian laity on their attitudes toward the traditional deadly sins, the author concludes that the sins that trouble men and women today involve their narcissistic needs. As many seek relief from the tyranny of their narcissistic needs, the author contends that what would constitute conversion for them is the transformation of narcissism. Typical candidates for such conversion are adults, not adolescents.     

Pr?dikative klassen

We consider certain predicative classes with respect to their bearing on set theory, namely on its semantics, and on its ontological power. On the one hand, our predicative classes will turn out to be perfectly suited for establishing a nice hierarchy of metalanguages starting from the usual set theoretical language. On the other hand, these classes will be seen to be fairly inappropriate for the formulation of strong principles of infinity. The motivation for considering this very type of classes is a reasonable philosophy of set theory. Familiarity is assumed only with basic concepts of both set theory and its philosophy.     

“First Things First”: Maslow's Hierarchy as a Framework for Rebt in Promoting Disability Adjustment During Rehabilitation

Maslow's theory of hierarchical human needs can be integrated into a framework for identifying the psychological priorities of those faced with severe disablement and hospitalization. Within this framework can be identified a variety of behavioral and rational emotive interventions which can be tailored to the most logical sources of the key emotional discomforts in each category of Maslow's hierarchy. Interventions discussed range from those with a greater emphasis on educating and changing the staff-environment responsiveness regarding the patient's more basic and prepotent priorities, to an increasing focus on treating the patient's irrational belief system, as priorities at higher levels are addressed.     

Moral Responsibility, Determinism, and the Ability to do Otherwise

In his classic paper, The Principle of Alternate Possibilities, Harry Frankfurt presented counterexamples to the principle named in his title: A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. He went on to argue that the falsity of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP) implied that the debate between the compatibilists and the incompatibilists (as regards determinism and the ability to do otherwise) did not have the significance that both parties had attributed to it -- since moral responsibility could exist even if no one was able to do otherwise. I have argued that even if PAP is false, there are other principles that imply that moral responsibility entails the ability to do otherwise, and that these principles are immune to Frankfurt-style counterexamples. Frankfurt has attempted to show that my arguments for this conclusion fail. This paper is a rejoinder to that reply; I argue that he has failed to show this.     

Action incompleteness

The author has previously introduced an operator into dynamic logic which takes formulae to terms; the suggested reading of A was the bringing about of A or the seeing to it that A. After criticism from S. K. Thomason and T. J. Surendonk the author now presents an improved version of his theory. The crucial feature is the introduction of an operatorOK taking terms to formulae; the suggested reading of OK is always terminates.     

Pain as purgation: The role of pathologizing in the life of the mystic

Since Descartes, man has been defined in terms of body and spirit only. Yet there is a third term that is of crucial importance for the founding of a psychology of suffering. The realm of psyche, or soul, is a middle ground between the spirit and the body in which the psychological forces of one's life find expression. A psychological approach to the anguish of the suffering soul can be found within the writings of the early desert fathers as well as in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. The penitent must learn patience in the face of his suffering, before he can experience the joy of spiritual maturity.A famous anchorite came to take counsel on high things with the abbot Pastor, but the old man turned away his head, and the anchorite went away aggrieved. His disciple asked Pastor why he had refused to talk with a man so great and of such reputation in his own country, and the old man said that his visitor could speak of heavenly things, but that he himself was of earth. If he had spoken to me of the passions of the soul I could have answered him: but of the things of the spirit I am ignorant.Mr. Fischer is a member of the Psychology Department, University of Dallas, Irving, Texas 75060.     

Re-visioning resurrection: St. Paul and Swedenborg

St. Paul's spiritual body is envisaged as imaginal body, the wordimaginal standing for the intermediate realm of beings and events in Neoplatonism and Sufism. Swedenborg's world of spirits and angels conforms to this view and so is seen as contributing to a richer understanding of St. Paul in the sense of a good docetism. Crucial in this kind of revisioning the mystery of resurrection is the creative power of visionary imagination, which, in turn, is inseparable from the reality of the soul as thesitus of visionary events.     

From I: A/M to “Who am I?”—Aggregation/Massification and Trauma-Based Affects and Object Relations in Groups: A Response to Earl Hopper

Hopper's portrayal of the fourth basic assumption of Incohesion: Aggregation/Massification has two components: (1) a revision of Turquet's theory of BA Oneness to incorporate the polarity of aggregation and massification stemming from annihilation anxiety; and (2) a conception of the difficult patient as having an encapsulated psychosis. Hopper's theory of the encapsulated psychosis offers an important but incomplete perspective in explaining borderline and narcissistic pathology, as well as psychological trauma. In this response to Hopper, I suggest that the fourth assumption is in fact a still more primitive state of boundary opening and closing. I also see a need to differentiate trauma as such from borderline pathology, and further hold that the relationship between Hopper's British Independent theory and trauma theories based on dissociation needs to be clarified.     

Quantitative Versuche über die Prägnanz von Punktmustern

Summary The intention of the paper is to describe Prägnanz-phenomena in terms of information theory. Two different concepts for the application of informational variables to perceptual processes are discriminated. For several reasons, Attneave's concept (1951) is preferred: In the sense of information theory single figures can be treated as signal structures; thus the degree of regularity in them should be specifiable in terms of informational variables.Two quasi-informational parameters are used to describe the degree of regularity in simple dot patterns.It was expected that perceived figural quality of dot patterns would increase with the redundancy of spatially distributed messages. At a constant word-length (= constant number of dots), the quality perceived should be the better the lower the entropy (or uncertainty) of the figure.In several experiments the information measures used turned out to be closely related to different operationally defined response-variables for figural quality, e.g. figural goodness-ratings and exactness of the reproduction of dot-positions. Besides, an inverse relationship is observed between interestingness-ratings and redundancy measures.The results are discussed in terms of information theory and psychological concepts. It is shown, that it has important implications on the psychological theory of perception to regard the human perceiver as an information-decoding-system. Apparently there must be some dynamically active system which enables the perceiver to utilize the redundancy of spatial brightness-distributions for sure and quick recognition.     

Patterns of paralexia: A psycholinguistic approach

A sample of the literature on acquired dyslexia is reviewed with special reference to the nature of paralexic errors. Linguistic studies of six cases of dyslexia are presented, with appropriate neurological and psychological details; there are two cases of each of three hypothesized types of impairment, visual dyslyxia, surface (grapheme-phoneme) dyslexia, and deep (syntactico-semantic) dyslexia. Finally, a scheme for acquired dyslexia is proposed and related to the error patterns observed in normal adult readers and in children learning to read; our approach to lexical look-up is one that the diagram makers may have found sympathique.This is a revised version of paper presented at the International Neuropsychology Symposium, Engelberg, Switzerland, June 1971.