The good,the bad and the uncertainty: Trainees' perceptions of the personal development group

Background: Views about the purpose and role of personal development groups (PD group) in the counsellor training process are varied. Some argue they enhance self‐awareness, self‐exploration, the ability to be congruent and, ultimately, that they make for better practitioners. Others argue there is no clear evidence for such benefits and that they can actually be damaging to trainees. Aims: This study aimed to explore the beliefs of 25 trainees enrolled on counselling diploma or counselling psychology doctoral courses. It looked in particular at their perceptions of the purpose of PD groups and their expectations regarding support, difficulties and the scope of their participation. Method: Data was collected using open‐ended questions in an anonymous survey and was subjected to a thematic analysis. Results: Trainees appeared to hold mixed – and sometimes conflicting – views about the PD group. For some it was a positive endeavour that facilitated learning about self and clients, and helped in the processes of developing counselling skills and keeping the training group healthy. For others it was a feared space, which could elicit negative emotional experiences, and impact negatively on both learning outside of the PD group and the health of the group itself. Still others were unclear about its purpose. Hope/idealisation (of the process, the facilitator and course tutors) were also evident in the trainees' responses. Implications: Implications of these findings for counselling training are discussed.     

The Baltic Churches and the Challenges of the Post-Communist World

This article analyses and describes the recent history of the Baltic churches, their theological reorientation and the challenges they have encountered in the post-Communist Baltic society. The focus is on the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Lutheran churches whereas the Catholic and Orthodox churches receive less attention. It is first demonstrated that much has changed since the Second World War regarding the churches' membership numbers and their societal position. The article then pays attention to two phenomena that have caused much discussion not only within the churches but also among foreign observers: the fear that the Lutheran Church will surrender to the Catholic Church, and the quite opposite anxiety that the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod will grow too influential within Baltic Lutheranism. Finally, the author examines the way the Baltic churches have been involved in politics during the last two decades.     

The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI

The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the ‘Idea of Europe’ in papal thought against a background of changing political context – the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI.     

The Behavioral Genetics of Religiousness

Behavioral geneticists have sought to characterize the genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences in religiousness. Behavioral genetic methodology is described and twin and adoption studies of religiousness are reviewed. It is concluded that familial resemblance for religiousness is due largely to shared environmental factors in childhood and adolescence, but to genetic factors in adulthood. Additional evidence shows that there is a genetic correlation between religiousness and antisocial and altruistic behavior. Claims for the discovery of a “God gene” are premature and unlikely, as any genetic influence is likely to represent the aggregate effect of many genetic factors.     

Christian Mysticism and Science: The Phenomenological Dimension

Abstract

In this second of three papers, I identify three fundamental phenomenological themes that have informed Christian mystical theology and then explore how these themes might be given further understanding via natural science. The first theme, detachment, minimizes any association with the secular world in favor of humility and openness to God. Detachment is chosen in consciousness using a resonant global workspace linked through the hippocampus to reconstructions of both declarative and emotional memory. The second theme, infused contemplation, is concerned with God's top-down revelation to the recollected mind of the mystic. The resulting top-down resonance creates an appropriate theory of mind for infused contemplation, as the human mind is now more perfectly linked with the mind of God. The third theme is mystical union, which both theology and science claim occurs within consciousness. Starting in intentional consciousness, the mystic undergoes an unmediated surrender beyond cognition to non-intentional consciousness. Because God fills the center of our being, a resonating luminosity can thus occur arising from the union of God and self within pure consciousness.     

Incarnation Deep and Wide: A Response to Niels Gregersen

Abstract

This paper responds to Professor Niels Gregersen's theology of deep incarnation by doing three things. Section 1 summarizes and defines the idea of deep incarnation, with particular reference to what is intended by the key adjective “deep.” Section 2 engages Gregersen's proposal critically in relation to traditional options within the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. If Gregersen's language of “incarnation” is to be taken seriously as a proposal that is grounded in but goes beyond traditional ideas, its best chance for success lies in being as clear as possible about relationship with its traditional sources. Finally, Section 3 offers a few suggestions concerning the promise of deep incarnation for contemporary theology, especially for theology informed in part by serious engagement with the natural sciences.     

The Field of Science and Religion as Natural Philosophy

“Natural philosophy” is an important term from the history of science because it was used to describe the study of nature during medieval and early modern Europe. This article gives an overview of the history of natural philosophy, since the use and eventual disuse of the term helps one to understand the emergence of modern science. Following a suggestion by the historian of science Peter Dear, I argue that the term deserves to be rehabilitated because it draws attention to the complexities of scientific theorizing. The article concludes with an argument that the field of science and religion should be seen as an updated version of natural philosophy.     

Robert Burns in the counsellor's chair: A socio-cultural analysis of the Burns myth

To illustrate how difficult endings are, this paper first cites an Italian therapist's experience of the use of time with university students in Naples and then associates to contrasting examples in the novel, art, music and the cinema. It uses a dialogue about ending in the film Brief Encounter as a possible paradigm for what is needed in brief therapy. It then refers to the work of James Mann on different experiences of time which underlie the resistance to brief work. How can brief therapy contain the paradox between finite and infinite time? Incorporating another model of therapeutic intervention with the use of Milton Erickson's attitude to time and the unconscious, the paper then moves on to a clinical example, where treatment consisted of an assessment and five sessions. Here the practice of not interpreting the transference is challenged, along with an exploration of the concept of transference to the organization and the use of pre-treatment ‘maternal reverie’ associations. Using the combination of informal trance-like states with a clear focus on the ‘here and now’, the process of the therapeutic relationship is then worked with in the case material.     

The im-possibility of secular critique: The future of religion's memory

The legacy of secular critique, with its Greek, Christian, Kantian, modernist traces, constitutes an aporetic law (or contradiction). That law is this: a critical legacy, if it is critical, can affirm and sustain itself only by trying to separate it from itself (from the very crisis that it is). The legacy or history of ‘religion’ is always a history of such critique. Such a legacy always anticipates critiquing itself, its memory (of whatever kind – racist, sexist, colonialist, nationalist). Such a legacy of critique is always a legacy of crisis. However, the crisis of such a legacy cannot be resolved, because critique, as kairos/krisis (critical/decisive moment), can admit of no resolution. Yet the (secular) history of religion, if it is ever historical, can only be a history of such aporetic critique. Such an aporetic critique will be the heritage of religion's im-possible ¹ ?1. I write the word impossible/impossibility with and without a hyphen. When I hyphenate im-possible, I do so to remain true to Derrida's use of it. The im-possible is irreducible to either possibility or impossibility. Sometimes Derrida also writes the word without hyphenating it, but he still implies such irreducibility. future. It is an im-possible future because it will always be a promise, a promise to separate it from itself, a promise that will remain always deferred, always to come. Today, the promise of this secular critique is (in) democracy with its sovereign ‘decisive’ politics. We can no longer simply critique the (future) legacy of religion, understood this way. To do so is to fulfil that legacy's own messianic wish. This is the aporetic limit of secular critique. To think at the limits of the legacy of the critique of religion is to think the very question of the (secular) history of ‘religion’ and its others, that is, ‘religions’.     

Instituting heteronormative belief in the law: the case of California's Proposition 22

This paper is based on ethnography of the ‘worship time’ at ‘Breakfree’ Church, a Pentecostal congregation in suburban Perth. I begin by exploring the ritualistic ways in which music is used to catalyse an ecstatic experience. Making use of the metaphor of ‘break free’, borrowed from a popular worship song, I demonstrate that music is used in deliberate ways to assist people in leaving behind the profane and encountering the sacred. Drawing on the thought of theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, I explore the ways music facilitates and symbolises this experience. I demonstrate that for church members, the ecstatic divine-human encounter is the centre of their church worship and the antidote to difficult experiences such as grief or illness.