Reveling in Complexity: Dittes' Male Metaphors and Their Bearing on the Crisis of Clergy Sexual Abuse

In Driven By Hope: Men and Meaning (1996b), James E. Dittes explores the distinctively religious character of men's experience in postindustrial modern western culture. In this article, I first explicate Dittes' developing perspective on men's experience—his middle way—by focusing on his exploration of classical and biblical metaphors of men's life experience, including Oedipus and Adam, the magi and the monarch, the pilgrim and the conquistador, and the son and father. Then, I extend Dittes' models of normative male development to reflect upon the current crisis around clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.     

Psychoanalysis and Eastern spiritual healing traditions

An exploration of the theory and practice of healing in the Eastern spiritual traditions reveals the centrality of the idealizing transference in the patient-seeker's interaction with the spiritual teacher or the guru although the aim and development of the idealizing transference in the spiritual traditions are quite different from those of self psychology. In its emphasis on the guru's empathy and in claiming that its meditative practices radically reduce the noise and glare produced by the sensual self which is the chief obstacle to the teacher-healer's empathic understanding of the patient, the Eastern healing discourse goes considerably beyond most traditional psychoanalytic formulations on the nature and communication of empathy in the analytic situation. The Eastern traditions' claim of a significant enhancement of the teacher-healer's empathic capacity through meditative practices, and its communication to the patient/seeker through other channels besides the verbal one, can make an important contribution to the discussion on the role of empathy in psychoanalytic discourse and, if the claim proves true, to a place for meditative practices in psychoanalytic education.     

The Connection between Perceived Workplace Discrimination and Viewing Work as a Spiritual Calling

Research shows that perceived workplace discrimination shapes an individual's job satisfaction and intent to leave a job. This study considers whether these impacts may be attenuated if an individual views their work as a spiritual calling. Using data from a nationally representative survey (N = 9,907), our analysis shows that perceived work discrimination due to race, gender, and religion are all independently associated with less job satisfaction net of a variety of other measures. Viewing work as a spiritual calling is associated with greater job satisfaction, even when accounting for traditional measures of religiosity. The negative impact of perceived discrimination on job satisfaction is weaker among those who view work as a spiritual calling. These findings provide evidence of the mechanisms underlying job satisfaction and have implications for understanding how religion might help mitigate the negative consequences of perceived discrimination in the workplace, or allow discrimination to potentially go unaddressed.     

Everyday mysticism: Spiritual development in later adulthood

Most cultures contain a belief that aging, with its long span of life experience, can lead to spiritual growth or development. Theories of spiritual development have focused primarily on stages of spiritual growth, with less attention to its relation to the cultural life course. This paper posits that contemplative, mystical experience is the primary psychological dynamic that enables the qualitative change in life perspective that we associate with spiritual growth. While theoretically possible at any adult age, this shift in perspective is correlated with physical and psychological aging, with the relaxation of social demands that typifies the life stages of later adulthood, and with the simple, close-to-home lives led by many individuals after age 75.     

Spirituality as a Dimension of Family Therapists' Clinical Training

From its psychoanalytic beginnings, therapy training has emphasized the crucial role the self of the therapist plays in the effectiveness of therapy. Attention initially focused on therapists' personal history and vulnerabilities and later included an exploration of their relationship style. Less emphasis has been placed on analyzing therapists' belief and meaning systems which inescapably influence their clinical conceptualizations, attitudes, and behaviors. This article defines spirituality as attributions of a personal nature which give meaning to life events, help transcend difficult experiences, maintain hopefulness, and lead to behaviors which honor connectedness and proposes a rationale for including the spiritual dimension in therapy and therapy training and steps graduate training programs and supervisors may take to raise therapists' spiritual understandings.     

Sufism and Gerotranscendence: The Impact of Way of Thinking, Culture, and Aging on Spiritual Maturity

This essay examines the similarities and dissimilarities between a gerotranscendental person's and a Sufi's view of ontological questions, of self and of social and individual relationships. Using the Life History Approach followed up by thematic semi-structured interviews, I studied thirteen Iranian Sufis residing in Sweden, dividing the interviewees into two groups according to the stage of their life in which they became familiar with the Sufi ideas: those who became familiar with Sufi ideas early in their life (30 years) are called early Sufis, and those whose familiarity with Sufi ideas came about in their later life (>30) are called later Sufis. The study posits that the existence of a cosmic view of self and the surrounding world can be observed among early Sufis due to their intemalization of the Sufi ideas in early life. Regarding later Sufis, we can hypothesize that the existence of such a cosmic view is not only due to the intemalization of Sufi ideas, but also to aging.     

Whose Consent is it Anyway? A Poststructuralist framing of the Person in Medical Decision-Making

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - This paper explores the value of a Poststructuralist psychoanalytic model of persons, or “Subjects,” as an expanded frame for the question...     

TOWARD A NEW CREATION OF BEING

Abstract. The author traces the path from split brains to basic beliefs by linking the deautomatized pattern of spiritual masters, as reorted in Rorschach protocols, with subsymbolic, parallel, distriguted processing, The older brain structures constitute humanity's common heritage, while the new brain constitutes particular cultural heritages. Expanding levels of complexity move from the limbic system throuh conitive left-mind vigilance and right-mind responsiveness to %Pelie patterns of proclamation and manifestation to the world-integrating mysticism of limbic input and the world-fulfilling action of the new brain. Whole brain activity combines emotional meaning and propositional explanation. Analogically seaking, the brain provides clues to understanding God. A ialectical theology parallels the reciprocal integration of brain processes. Whole brain belief originates in the old brain's evolutionary adaptation to our genetic inheritance and in the new brain's conscious intention to fulfill the will of God through our cultural inheritances.     

A Primer on Celtic Spirituality With Recommendations for Counseling Practice

Research suggests that expressions of Celtic spirituality are widespread among the U.S. populace (e.g., Pew Research Center, 2014; Sullivan, 2016). Adherents vary in their commitment levels, ranging from informal cultural participants to followers of structured forms of the faith tradition (e.g., Celtic Christianity, Wicca, Paganism). The counseling literature provides scant information on this movement and germane approaches to support clients who identify with this spirituality. To respond to this deficiency, we address the topic by contextualizing Celtic spirituality from definitional, historical, and thematic perspectives. Next, we consider implications for spiritually sensitive counseling practice. We include a case study, exemplifying potential adaptive counseling processes and interventions.     

Essential anxiety: COVID-19 in analytic practice

This paper explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on my relationship with analysands and my inner world. I reflect on the role of the archetypal Self during times of existential anxiety that may lead to an experience of ‘essential anxiety’. This term refers to a meeting by a fearful ego with an inward recognition of the Self, when faced with threat. The efforts to curb the spread of the pandemic changed our ways of life, while the virus itself threatened our existence in debilitating or outright destructive ways. But what also came into view, in sessions of analysis and supervision, was the creative instinct, and a celebration of life. The soul-to-soul relationship, and the connection with images of the archetypal Self, made the experience of existential anxiety at times an essential experience that facilitated psychological growth. I discuss some advantages of on-line Jungian analysis where, despite distance and partial view, the body still serves as container to hold important psychological material, conferring a sense of wholeness for analyst and analysand. The COVID-19 crisis is terrible and terrifying but it also provides an opportunity for self-regulation and individuation.