Panel: What could be Jungian about Human Rights work?

The question of whether Jungian analysts should move beyond the consulting room to engage with mental health issues that pertain to the collective is the focus of this paper. Two narratives are presented: one from the view point of a psychiatrist in Occupied Palestine, the other from the conflicted situation which faces an Israeli analyst. Despite the strong ambivalence that is experienced on both sides, there is a willingness to meet and to take a standpoint without necessarily coming to a resolution. A third position is offered by describing experiences from the South African perspective. The African notion of Ubuntu is offered as a moral entry point that states that community goes beyond one's own; from this point of view, Jungian analysts can do no other than to act.     

"THEISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY": A THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC CRITIQUE

I take the APA publication A Spiritual Strategy for Counseling and Psychotherapy (Richards and Bergin 2005), along with a devoted issue of Journal of Psychology and Theology (Nelson and Slife 2006), as a paradigmatic example of a trend. Other instances include the uncritical use of "Eastern" philosophy in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology, almost normative appeal to the "Sacred" within the psychology of spirituality, talk of "God in the brain" within neurological research, the neologism entheogen referring to psychedelic drugs, and calls for new specializations such as neurotheology and theobiology. In response to the legitimate ethical requirements of respect and openness regarding clients' religious worldviews, the trend is to make God an essential component in psychological theory. The argument is that God is active in the universe and especially in human affairs to such an extent that any accurate account of strictly psychological matters, not just a comprehensive, interdisciplinary purview that could include a distinct theological dimension, must include God as an explanatory factor. Less nuanced than standard theological thought about divine intervention—including a range of opinions from supernaturalism, to occasionalism, to providential and deistic naturalism—this trend would blur the epistemological differences between religion and science by appeal to claimed knowledge sources such as inspiration and revelation and thus undermine the achievements of evidence-based science and establish particularistic religious beliefs as standard explanatory accounts. The concern to include a spiritual, in contrast to a religious or theist, dimension in psychological theory is welcome; but elaborated approaches, such as my own and those of Roberto Assagioli, Viktor Frankl, and Ken Wilber, open to varied theological applications, already exist.     

GAPS IN THE ARGUMENT: A DISCUSSION OF CERTAIN ASPECTS OF COSMOLOGY

In this discussion review of Robert John Russell's collection of essays I agree with him about the necessity of human existence given the claims of Christian theology. I look in detail at his suggestions for speaking to this issue, especially his thesis of NIODA—noninterventionist objective divine action. I end up disagreeing with the suggestion and argue that in respects Russell is tackling the science-religion relationship in the wrong way.     

信任是改善医患关系的关键

目前医患关系紧张,医疗纠纷频繁,同时又是新闻媒体追逐的热点,追究其原因是医患之间的不信任。如果医患之间成为相互信任的朋友,医患之间多一些相互理解,医生掌握精湛的医术,具备良好的沟通能力,做一个充满阳光的常常带给患者乐观情绪、鼓励话语、轻松气氛的医生,加上医疗体制的改革,应该可以有效改善紧张的医患关系。     

HIERARCHIES: THE CORE ARGUMENT FOR A NATURALISTIC CHRISTIAN FAITH

This article takes on a perhaps impossible task: not only to reconstruct the core argument of Arthur Peacocke's program in science and religion but also to evaluate it in two major areas where it would seem to be vulnerable, namely, more recent developments in systems biology and the philosophy of mind. If his theory of hierarchies is to be successful, it must stand up to developments in these two areas and then be able to apply the results in a productive way to Christian theological reflection. Peacocke recognized that one's model of the mind‐body relation is crucial for one's position on the God‐world relation and divine action. Of the three models that he constructed, it turns out that only the third can serve as a viable model for theology if it is to be more than purely deistic or metaphorical.     

TAKING THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE SERIOUSLY WITHOUT CATEGORY MISTAKES: A RESPONSE TO IAN BARBOUR

In my response to Ian Barbour's criticisms, I first argue for the anthropological dimensions and contextuality of any theology. Next I examine and criticize Barbour's thesis that I am an in‐compatibilist about divine action. Finally I illustrate the fact that I see genuine opportunities for a dialogue between theologians and scientists without apologetics, category mistakes, or relegating theology to the fringes of science, by pointing to evolutionary explanations of religion.     

ALTRUISM IN NATURE AS MANIFESTATION OF DIVINE ENERGEIA

Abstract. Christian theological attempts to integrate scientific claims about altruism in nature have not been completely successful largely because Western theologies—particularly some Protestant versions—lack a theologically grounded ontological basis for speech about altruism, agape, and other forms of love. Patristic theologies of divine essence, energeia and logoi, most fully developed in Eastern Orthodox thought, provide just such an ontological basis upon which Christian thought can stand in order to demonstrate that altruism in nature does not challenge religious claims that moral behavior has transcendent meaning but rather suggests that it is itself a manifestation of the divine will.     

The Problem of Other Minds: Wittgenstein's Phenomenological Perspective

This paper discusses Wittgenstein's take on the problem of other minds. In opposition to certain widespread views that I collect under the heading of the “No Problem Interpretation,” I argue that Wittgenstein does address some problem of other minds. However, Wittgenstein's problem is not the traditional epistemological problem of other minds; rather, it is more reminiscent of the issue of intersubjectivity as it emerges in the writings of phenomenologists such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger. This is one sense in which Wittgenstein's perspective on other minds might be called “phenomenological.” Yet there is another sense as well, in that Wittgenstein's positive views on this issue resemble the views defended by phenomenologists. The key to a proper philosophical grasp of intersubjectivity, on both views, lies in rethinking the mind. If we conceive of minds as essentially embodied we can understand how intersubjectivity is possible.     

My Silent Story: Conflicted Memories,Silences and Intergenerational Traumas1

This article aims to present the interdisciplinary project “My Story from Silence”, conceived in 2022. The project represents a pioneering effort in assembling individuals from diverse communities, characterized by varying ethnic, national, and migratory backgrounds, along a historically dynamic border. Its primary objective was to provide a platform for these participants to articulate and share narratives previously shrouded in silence, offering insights into their historical pasts. Emphasizing reciprocal dialogue for the first time, the initiative fostered an environment where participants engaged in the dual act of narrating their own experiences and attentively listening to the narratives of others. These memories were explored in group workshops on both sides of the border. By combining elements of cultural anthropology fieldwork and analytical psychology, the workshops attempted to address hitherto unaddressed traumas and silent personal memories linked to major traumatic historical events such as fascism and Istrian exodus through the narratives of individuals. Three vignettes will illustrate the workshop dynamic and our Jungian understanding of it.