Bodily experience between selfhood and otherness

In opposition to traditional forms of dualism and monism, the author holds that our bodily self includes certain aspects of otherness. This is shown concerning the phenomenological issues of intentionality, of self-awareness and of intersubjectivity, by emphasizing the dimension of pathos. We are affected by what happens to us before being able to respond to it by acts or actions. Every sense, myself and others are born out of pathos. The original alienness of our own body, including neurological processes, creates shifting degrees of nearness and remoteness, and allows for pathological deviations such as depersonalisation, paranoia or trauma. Such a phenomenology of body crosses the borderlines of different disciplines.     

Entertaining the stranger

This paper attempts to address the problematic of the other in analytical psychology. Despite the important contributions of Papadopoulos (1991, 2002) and Huskinson (2000, 2002) this question has not received the attention it warrants. Read in the light of Levinas' writings on otherness, Jung's tendency to characterize the self as unitary, autonomous and undivided may be seen as a defence against or even an erasure of otherness. However, a Derridean revisioning of this approach suggests that the ambiguities and paradoxes which Jung insisted were intrinsic to his intuitions about the self-concept have the potential to evoke a remarkably subtle vision of Selfhood manifesting within the very tensions generated between Same and Other. In conclusion, this experience of Selfhood is amplified in the light of some of the insights of contemporary German philosopher Waldenfels, with particular attention to the role of pathos in the encounter with alterity.     

The Clown's Use of Empathy: An Interview with Bob Berky

Excerpts from an interview with Bob Berky reveal the clown's keen understanding of empathic attunement, what psychotherapists, pastoral counselors, and persons in pastoral care maintain is a vital correspondence toward authentic interpersonal presence. Berky discusses the use of silence and movement to free the individual with whom he invites to his stage from rigid personas and limiting preconceptions. He underscores the life-giving possibilities of the laugh of recognition—the realization that we share a kindred experience of being human, and can release our unique potentials toward creative connection and difference.     

Open Theism: An Answer to My Critics

Abstract :  Open theism is a version of historic free will theism which posits God as granting to human beings significant freedom to cooperate with or to resist the will of God for their lives. God's goal is to make possible relationships of mutual love between God and creatures and therefore set up a dynamic give and take situation in which God can even be said to risk failure to the degree permitted by the overall plan. A debate has broken out as to whether open theism goes too far in its revision. I myself see it as a mere adjustment to standard Arminian thinking on the point of understanding the divine foreknowledge. In this article, I argue that, despite a goodly number of objections, the position deserves to be viewed as a legitimate option for Christian theology, yea even for "evangelical" theology.