Journal of Religion and Health, Vol. 22, No. 1, Spring 1983
An Essay on Psychotherapy and Religion R I C H A R D A. H U T C H ABSTRACT:Cultural innovation by thinkers of the early twentieth century created an intellectual impasse between competing u n d e r s t a n d i n g s of religion. Religion was understood as either transcendence and the sacred (e.g., Otto) or as fantasy and projection (e.g., Freud). W h e t h e r a cooperative symbiosis of these orientations toward religion can be achieved is the central and unresolved issue of this paper. " E x a m i n e d experience" is considered within religious studies and psychotherapy. Although not conclusive, the a r g u m e n t is t h a t examined experience is a means by which the desired symbiosis can be achieved. The essay is personal in t h a t it reflects the a u t h o r ' s struggle for understanding, especially as Western (e.g., Christian) and E a s t e r n (e.g., Zen) experiences are examined.
Now fills the air so many a haunting shape, That no one knows how best he may escape.
Faust, Part II, Act V, Scene 5
The battle for the mind In the development of both the history of religions and the psychoanalytic tradition, the second decade of the twentieth century constituted a time of crucial innovation. Though the origins of the "scientific study of religion" have often and correctly been traced to the writings of Max Mueller in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the publication of Rudolph Otto's Idea of the Holy in 1916 marked a shift in paradigms t h a t gave the disciplines a new direction and new life. And it was during the same decade t h a t Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams, which was the first in the series of great works through which he established psychoanalysis both as a therapeutic technique and as a tool for interpretation of culture and religion. As were a number of other important studies t h a t were written at about the same time (for example, Karl B a r t h ' s Commentary on the Epistle of the Romans in the theological field and Emile Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religion in the Reprint requests may be addressed to Dr. Richard A. Hutch, D e p a r t m e n t of Studies in Religion, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Qld. 4067, Australia. 0022-4197/83/1300-0007502.75
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~ 1983 Institutes of Religionand Health
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sociology of religion), the works of both Otto and Freud marked a strong reaction against the kind of increasingly arid rationalism that had become dominant in the West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, viewed in terms of their positive contributions, Otto and Freud presented very different and in many respects antithetical interpretations of religious experience and life. As even the most superficial reading of the two authors makes clear, Rudolph Otto understood religion in terms of transcendence, whereas Freud interpreted it in the context of fantasy and projection. Clearly, Otto's great contribution is to be found in his phenomenological analysis of the Holy as it was manifest in religious experiences of the classical type. For Otto the Holy was a sui generi category which differentiated religion from all other forms of human experience, and could be described only by generating a distinctive vocabulary that included such terms as ganz andere, mysterium tremendum, majestas, and mysterium fascinosum.' By way of contrast, Freud's discussions of religion were generally carried on in terms of infantile processes and conflicts which, in his view, produced the fantasies and projections that constituted the religious world. Although Freud left the way open for the kind of "higher reading" of his position that has been proposed by Peter Homans in his recent book, Theology After Freud, he himself tended to associate religious fantasies with illusion, and to utilize his concept of projection to bring into question any specifically religious or ontological reference of religious experience and beliefs. ~ Thus, a dichotomy was established that has persistently characterized the relationship between the religio-historical and Freudian styles of interpretation. Among historians of religion who have followed Otto in emphasizing transcendence and the sacred, psychoanalytic interpretations have generally been deprecated as an inadequate and even dangerous form of reductionism. And on the other side, among those who have adopted psychoanalytic perspectives and have continued to emphasize the dimensions of fantasy and projection, the work of historians of religion has been quite consistently ignored. Although subsequent historians of religion and psychoanalytic interpreters have remained true to the basic orientations that were established by Otto and Freud, significant advances have been made in both fields. Basically these developments can be characterized in terms of an increasing concern on the part of both historians of religion and psychoanalytic interpreters to deal with questions of cosmological and social order, and, in so doing, to give more serious attention to the phenomena of myth and symbol, of ritual and ethics, and of culture and social organization. Each tradition of interpretation has come at these questions from its own distinctive starting point; but by confronting similar issues and materials, scholars in the two fields have opened up new possibilities for dialogue, real encounter, and mutual stimulation. Moving beyond a purely theoretical and historical discussion, I will now examine the areas of the religio-cultural and the psychotherapeutic in an effort to ascertain whether progress can actually be achieved in a cooperative symbiosis of the two fields.
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The dialogue between psychotherapy and religion has been at times one of conflict and controversy, possibly because it requires both a rigorous effort to protect the integrity of each cognitive mode and a straining effort to demonstrate how these two ways of knowing are related. Fortunately, both perspectives meet in a common concern with understanding and influencing human behavior. Integral to each is the development of a disciplined and therapeutic mode of intervening in human behavior. It is "examined experience"--the resulting feedback of this disciplined intervention--that provides a new operational framework for the discussion of such problems of knowing and change. The sociologist Samuel Klausner, in his book Psychiatry and Religion, suggests that from a social frame of reference the task of the therapist and the role of the therapist are two different attributes. 3 The degree of social differentiation of task and role varies among societies and among professionals within a society. Much of the controversy among the protagonists of various psychological and religious attitudes stems from sociologic rather than ideologic conflict. Moreover, these social conflicts obscure the underlying ideologic conflicts. Klausner's outline of the social differentiation of task and role in psychotherapy produces four different ideologic positions. The reductionists maintain that there is only one task and one role. The material reductionists claim that mental health is solely a question of scientific psychology, while the spiritual reductionists phrase the entire problem in religious terms. The dualists believe that there are both spiritual and psychological problems but that one qualified person can accomplish both tasks. The alternativists claim that there is only one problem, usually psychological, b u t that either a minister or a psychotherapist can fulfill the task. Finally, the specialists maintain that there are two tasks and each task requires a specialist role. Historically, there was no task-role differentiation, and even today in primitive societies mental illness is defined as one t a s k - - a spiritual reductionism--and one role--the shaman who is priest-therapist. Ari Kiev, in his book Magic, Faith, and Healing, notes that in the simplest societies illness is seen as a spiritual blight from without and the role of the shaman is a spiritual one, exorcism of the evil spirit. 4 As societies become more complex, the shaman role and the task change. Whereas in the most primitive society the shaman assumes his role by virtue of what he is, in the more complex society he assumes his role because of skills and knowledge. Illness then becomes defined as a personal problem from within, instead of impersonal from without, and cures are ascribed to the medicines instead of to the supernatural power of the healer. Even in primitive societies, then, we see the beginning of a spiritualpsychological differentiation. The process of differentiation in Western society has culminated in the scientific medical model of mental illness that separates medical and spiritual specialists. This model, however, has not been accepted by those religious groups in our society where securalization of society has resulted in social agencies assuming responsibility for individual welfare, leaving these groups with concrete contributions to individual or social welfare. In consequence,
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two antithetical theologic attitudes developed. The ultrafundamentalists rejected secular society and claimed that the only legitimate interest of the church was salvation in the hereafter, while some liberals moved toward humanism, which redefined salvation as solely the here-and-now welfare of man. The ultrafundamentalists rejected psychology, while the liberals cloaked psychology in theology. So both groups became spiritual reductionists, although with exactly opposite goals, for the fundamentalists avoid psychology and the liberals sought to avoid theology. The practical result is that the ultrafundamentalist sects define mental health as a question of spiritual integrity to be treated by the spiritual methods of the minister, who is effective because of what he is, not what he does. 5 A s t u d y at the University of Washington found that fundamentalist ministers were defined by "spiritual call" rather than training, had the least education of all clergy, yet tried to handle most counseling problems through spiritual methods alone. 6 We can see that this task-role definition is much like the primitive shaman of the simplest society. That this does result in a successful practitioner is attested to by the success of the many faith healers. On the other hand, in some liberal denominations the minister's task is defined as that of the psychotherapist, namely, the relief of psychological distress. The minister is effective because of what he does, not who he is, and he is selected on the basis of training, not "call." He is a professional in direct competition with the secular psychotherapist. Ministerial self-justification results from defining the ministerial task and role in religious words. This is reflected in the formation of an association of pastoral counselors whose requisites for training remarkably resemble those of a psychoanalytic institute, and whose members do not work as clergy but are in private practice as professional psychotherapists who declare themselves to be "pastoral t h e r a p i s t s " - - t h e Western world "insight-givers"! At any rate, it is a fact that philosophers of the Far E a s t have a t t e m p t e d for thousands of years to break through the veil of appearances and anxiety and gain an insight into the human condition; in the course of that time they have made many discoveries that have only recently come to be known or appreciated in the West. The Zen connection He who knows does not speak; He who speaks does not know.
This statement, from among sayings of Rinzai Zen, gives the lie to the "insight-giver" before he so much as utters a word. If the psychotherapist took this statement literally, his sessions would be silent indeed. It is right for one who assumes the role of speaker, therefore, to consider the truth of that statement. Further, if this warning is understood completely, it constitutes a
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perfect vehicle for encapsulating the quintessence of those movements or s y s t e m s of thought known as Buddhism, Taoism, and the product of these two groups, Zen. 7 Anyone who has traveled the road of awareness, whether the way be called existential analysis, Judeo-Christian mysticism, or the quest for Tao, knows that understanding is a fortuitous prize that transcends the traveler and the traveled, a gift to be received at any time or not at all, and, most importantly, a state of his own being that is beyond the reach of any other being or condition. All mankind, no matter what its particular culture and society, is engulfed from its earliest years in the prescribed and proscribed patterns of thought laid down by its progenitors. And so man finds himself or, as so often happens, never finds himself, operating in an arbitrarily finite system, the finiteness of the system depending upon the particular culture into which he is born and the period of history during which he may live in the " s a m e " culture. For example, only two hundred years ago in Western culture anatomists operated contrary to law when they performed dissections; yet in that same society individuals had free access to narcotics. Today these poles, and many others, have been completely reversed. No matter what the particular contents of the cultural imposition, however, the man is made a thinking-feeling arm of that body social and is thereby less able to disengage himself from its assumptions and ways of behaving. Margaret Mead's research on the Mundugumor exemplifies this human predicament exceedingly well. ~ She states that the Mundugumor child is rejected by both parents and society at large almost from the moment the pregnancy is discovered. As a result, the life of the young child in this society is miserable. Yet, does the individual who is now mature look back and conclude, " N o child of mine will suffer as I did"? To the contrary, by accepting the same cultural premises as his forebears, he has the same set of reasons for behaving in the same way toward his own children and does so. What insights can Zen provide in dealing with this situation? In Zen the birth process of the whole man is very long and seemingly arduous. First, the umbilical cord connecting the man's body to its biological origins must be cut; then, years later, the cord connecting the man to his psychological origins must be cut, or better still, absorbed, digested, and used for growth as an individual. B u t how is this to be accomplished if the cord is regarded as an entity in itself to be preserved as is at all cost and if it is perceived as a lifeline long after it has ceased to serve that function? The transcendence cannot occur under such conditions, and it is the purpose of Zen to trick the individual into making this discovery for himself. There is no single trick in Zen that can effect so great a step, but there are many little ones in a wide variety of areas which gradually whittle away the ground of appearances and conceptualizations on which we have been standing. For example, a Zen master may, with gesticulation, ask his pupil, " W h a t happens to my fist when I open my hand?" Yet, again, why should this development of independence be necessary? The answer to this question depends upon one's values. If he
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wishes to maintain the status quo, to have the security of the known given him b y others instead of using that known as the stepping stone to discover and experience for himself, obviously the cutting is not necessary. If he does not wish to have the anxiety that such disengagement invariably brings, the cutting is in fact ill-advised. B u t in that man who is finally born psychologically as well as physically, what occurs? First, he discovers that the world of nature exists not only independently of his concepts of it, as he must already know intellectually, b u t in a manner and form that belie those concepts. By forgoing the concept he can somehow perceive the substance that underlies the intellectual construct, to see reality as it is rather than as he wishes it, assumes it, or forces it to be in his own mind. He comes to see that words, whether used singly or collectively, stand in relation to reality only as shadows to the objects that cast them. And those objects, when perceived directly, appear to be vastly different things from what they were in their shadow form. Then immediately one asks, " H o w do we use words to transcend words; how does shadow overcome shadow?" And we are thrown into a vertiginous irony, yet a vertigo that sometimes enables man to establish an equilibrium beyond that which he had before the attack. After the attack the experienced universe is only what an Easterner might designate as "chit," "hsing," or " t a t h a t a . " It is it, simply it, not a name or a value or some separate particle of experience, b u t that "it" is. At such a time the intellectual construct that had stood for this " i t " has a hollow and a false ring indeed2 B u t barely has this state been reached when he is catapulted into another most extraordinary discovery. The words he had used to refer to reality had enabled him to protect himself from it in the fullness of its being. The words he had equated with reality he could manipulate and had manipulated, b u t in reality he cannot manipulate. So, when he faces existence for the first time as it is, his protective intellectual manoeuvers have been stripped from him, and he must let be what is in his own thinking and feeling as well as what exists objectively. Even when he had his favored intellectual defenses, he could not alter objective reality, b u t at least in the world of his own mind he had the power to do so. Now, subjective experience as well as objective fact heats the retort of stress. And that intensity of experience leads him on to yet another realization. The man sees with pristine clarity that he exists only at a moment in time and space in the here and now. A n y a t t e m p t to exist psychologically in the past or future is to be cheated eternally of existence anywhere. One cannot live, except in fantasy, where he is not. In man's futile a t t e m p t s to live where he cannot, he works only to obliterate the actual present. When his actual present is being constantly ignored in the name of past or future, he is denied all complete existence and exists only in the world of his own imaginings. The counterfeit of his own wishes is substituted for reality of existence. Not all distortions of present reality are found through opium pipes. In this new experience man finds that meaning has increased enormously, not only in his specific experiences b u t in his total existence. And in typical fashion he a t t e m p t s to preserve it for future use. At that moment he discovers
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to his consternation that in attempting to grasp at and hold onto understanding, he has lost it. As Alan W a t t s points out so clearly, to have anything we must let it go. '~ If an individual has one day that special kind of enlightenment that a Zen master refers to as "satori" and that person decides on the spot that he absolutely must keep it, he loses it at that same instant. Perhaps some day that psychological preservative will be developed which can embalm even such an experience as "satori," b u t we are not doing it this season. T h e Christian w a y
To examine Christian approaches to the mental or, if you like, "spiritual" wellbeing of the individual, we may take into consideration those schools of Christian psychotherapy that aim toward the eventual liberation of their patients not only from their s y m p t o m s b u t also from the limited and often distorted perceptions that initially gave rise to the symptoms. While in Zen it is proposed that one cannot give insight to anyone, especially at the deepest levels (but he can provide some avenues through himself to understanding), the Christian psychotherapist maintains that psychotherapy is a prelude to spiritual therapy, which is the ultimate task of the therapist. Thus, Donald Tweedie argues that psychosis is sin, while other existential therapists, mainly of the Viennese school, state that psychological problems reflect spiritual ones. '' One of these others speaks of psychoanalysis as a partial salvation that introduces the patient to his need and treatment for total salvation. Another says, "The object of all psychotherapy i s . . . t h e acknowledgment of a transcendent hierarchy of values which should become, according to individual possibilities, a truth expressed in terms of one's own l i f e . . , this existential synthesis, however, can be free and effective only if it results f r o m . . , psychological analysis."12 It should be noted that these scholars are alike in that their psychology devolves upon Christian presuppositions, that psychotherapy is ultimately a religious task, and the role of the therapist is a spiritual one. There is also a growing group of scholars that maintains that the therapist must use both psychological and spiritual goals. Some who advocate this position make no specific theologic claims except generic moral ones, and include men like Viktor Frankl, many existentialists, and the editor of the J o u r n a l o f P s y c h o t h e r a p y as a R e l i g i o u s Process. 13
In the past, some scholars, including Freud, hotly denied the presence or relevance of spiritual aspects of man, because they felt that scientific psychology would replace the neurotic anachronism of church and clergy. Today, however, most of these advocates accept religious activities as perhaps satisfactory social means of achieving psychological goals. Some make the clergyman the poor man's psychiatrist; others see a collaborative relationship between psychological and spiritual, but no necessary integrative one. There have been many reports that emphasize that religious persons often have a different character structure and use different ego devices from their secular counterparts. '4 The therapist must understand the role of religious
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values in the character structure and be able to empathize with the patient's religious world view. The therapist m u s t watch his own countertransference, and as Margarita Bowers concludes, he must recognize when the patient's religious conflicts are real problems and respect the patient as a religious person.~5 The therapeutic process may result in drastic changes in a person's religion. He may give up his religion which was considered necessary for successful therapy by some of the early psychoanalysts. A number of psychoanalysts in the past have reported on the return to religion or strengthening and deepening of religion as the result of therapy? 6 Louis Linn and Leo Schwarz found seventeen such cases, and Bowers argues that the task of the therapist is to reconcile the unconscious religious attitudes of the patient with his conscious theologic attitudes.17 In these instances psychotherapy contributes to spiritual goals, but only incidentally. The spiritual benefits are a consequence of the changes in the individual that make possible spiritual commitment and maturation. The Jewish-American writer Chaim Potok comments that men have three gods: God as he is, God as m y group sees him, and God as I see him. ~s Freud was quite correct in Future of an Illusion when he described God as the projected father figure. What others have since shown is that God is also a projected mother figure, or even a very primitive part object from early infancy. Often a patient's reaction to God is based on these early childhood precepts, and his behavior reflects irrational early emotional identification instead of any rational, mature, theologic concept of God. '9 Consequently, how we experience God as a person may bear little relation to our verbalized theology of God. Numerous authors have stressed the parallel between the patient-therapist relationship and the patient-God relationship. If the patient has disturbed experiences in areas of faith, trust, and hope in his human relationship, he can hardly be expected to experience healthy faith, trust, and hope in relation to God. One therapist emphasizes that the curative factor in therapy is relationship and that both sin and mental illness involve separation from God, one's neighbor, and oneself. 2~Therapy at the psychological level provides the integration necessary to achieve synthesis at the spiritual level. One must experience the basic elements of love, faith, trust, and hope at the human level before one can experience them with God. Psychotherapy, then, can contribute to spiritual goals by providing fundamental emotional experiences that the person may subsequently use in his spiritual experiences, and it may clarify distortions of one's relationship to God. Rollo M a y along with other authors argues that existential-spiritual conflicts m a y lead to psychological symptoms. 2' Frankl calls this "no~genic" neurosis. ~ However, one phrases it, the claim is that unless the existentialspiritual conflict is resolved the psychological neurosis will remain. Caruso puts it that a fundamental shift in values must occur before a person can adequately deal with his neurosis. 23
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Less philosophically, Leon Salzman has described the maturational, integrative value that religious conversion may play in crystallizing a personality. 24Although all conversions are psychological phenomena at one level, and some conversions are solely ego-defensive manoeuvers, a religious commitment and involvement may provide the necessary framework upon which psychological integrity can develop. Faith m a y assist in the mastery of neurosis, although it does not enable the person to overcome his neurosis. This is supported by published clinical reports on the integrative value of religious experiences during the course of psychotherapy. ~ In these instances the psychological goals of therapy were assisted and implemented by religious experience. W e s t e r n g u r u or s h a m a n ?
It begins to become evident that the spiritual means of prayer, meditation, religious instruction--be it Western or Eastern oriented--are no longer the special province of the priest or the guru but m a y well be employed by the psychotherapist, even the Zen way to understanding. At one extreme are those who argue that the therapist should ultimately transmit to the patient a philosophy of life. In specific Christian terms, some thinkers argue that the therapist does not complete his task until he has brought the patient to a salvation experience. 26Others, like Daniel Goleman or Tarthang Tulku, would not go so far in directly influencing the patient, although they would consider it appropriate to pray, meditate, share religious experiences and methods of any trend, and offer explicit religious guidance. 27This m a y be because they feel that it will augment the psychological manoeuvers, or they may wish to enhance the patient's spiritual life. It is also noteworthy that some psycho analysts have suggested that analysis should result in a reconstitution of the patient's philosophy of life. Thus Max Levy-Suhl feels that psychoanalysis should become a secular "cure of the soul."z8 It is, therefore, apparent that m a n y different types of psychologicalspiritual interactions do occur in psychotherapy which m a y contribute to the goals of both. The development of psychotherapy as a two-person situation has misled people into the idea that psychotherapy is a scientific technique that operates apart from the culture and society of the therapist and patient. Earlier in this paper I called attention to Ari Kiev's book on primitive psychiatry, because one of its main themes is that the sociocultural context determines the definition of mental illness, the nature of psychotherapy, who is patient and therapist, and the methods and goals of psychotherapy. In the primitive food-gathering societies mental illness was a social illness, because a necessary laborer was lost. Hence, t r e a t m e n t had a direct social rehabilitative goal. The anthropologist Claude L6vi-Strauss has studied the role of the healer in primitive and modern society and notes remarkable parallels between the shaman and the psychoanalyst. 29 In both instances there is a "belief consensus" between the patient, the healer, and the audience. The shaman was effective because his role, methods, and social goals were defined by his society and accepted by him and the patient. The same is no less true
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t o d a y for psychotherapy. If the goal is explicit social change, the therapist is quite directly the agent of his society, as, for example, the prison psychiatrist who a t t e m p t s to rehabilitate the criminal. Some directive therapies, such as Joseph Wolpe's behavior therapy, try to eradicate specific s y m p t o m s through noncognitive means much like a surgical operation. Others, such as Albert Ellis's rational therapy and some "existential" therapies, use direct intellectual persuasion on the patient. Others yet, and in a simpler fashion, use direct, explicit, value~laden techniques in everyday psychotherapy dealings with psychotics, children, and borderline patients. In all these instances the modern-day psychotherapist, whether behaviorist, rationalist, existentialist, or orthodox analyst, is operating socially in exactly the same fashion as the shaman, only using different social techniques. This is not necessarily undesirable. As a matter of fact, it is indeed necessary where the goal is social change2 ~ Even with psychoanalysis, its techniques and goals reflect the egalitarian, democratic values of a secular, humanistic society. 3' B u t the goals of the shaman and the psychoanalytic psychotherapist are somewhat different. It may be appropriate for the therapist whose goal is social change to employ social supports as does the shaman. However, when the goal is personal change, it becomes important to remain apart from immediate social sanctions, so that there will be a social distance between patient and therapist. This facilitates adopting a nonnormative therapeutic stance during therapy. Only when these conditions are obtained can the therapy proceed toward its goals2 2 The psychotherapist working toward social change may not actually be in a social role much differentiated from the shaman role. B u t for Lhe psychotherapist working toward personal change the technical demands require a sharp differentiation in the social situation. If we examine the spiritual-psychological nature of psychotherapy in this light, we can see that the minister, like a shaman or a parent, has a very close social-emotional tie with the patient and that this is an important advantage in his role as definer of social and moral values and behavior2 3 It gives the minister as counselor a unique lever for dealing with certain social misbehavior and intercurrent life crises. Parsons points out that, like a parent, the church is a necessary " b o u n d a r y structure" for the maintenance of both the personality and society. 34 On the other hand, this very strength is its weakness, for the involvement precludes objective, detached analysis, as Thomas Szasz clearly indicates in his work, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis2 5 In contrast, because of his social-emotional distance, the psychotherapist can challenge, explore, and clarify2 ~ B u t this very strength of psychotherapy is its weakness. H a r t m a n n makes it obvious that psychoanalysis provides knowledge but not guidance, that it makes for unity b u t not goodness. Psychoanalysis can only investigate values; it cannot create them2 7 Conclusion
As a finale, it seems to me appropriate to state my opinion--generated by an overview of the perused a u t h o r s - - t h a t no one can really " k n o w " for another person, b u t one can, and often must in education and psychotherapy, provide
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some elements of knowledge out of which the hearer may himself know. Least of all can we know at the deepest level for another person. And yet those who have gone deeply into the recesses of the personality, as in psychotherapy or some Asian religions, often find that they can best help others when they lose self-consciousness and try least, when they listen with the heart rather than the mind, and when they know that the precise words the individual uses are not what he is saying but only the vehicle that will transport them to his world. According to Zen, to look, to listen, to feel, to sense all that is around one in its immediacy in the here and now, unstrained by the filters of intellect and its attendant words, appears to be a key to the door of understanding. There are many others, and I have tried here to examine a few. But to insert any one of the manifold keys does not insure the door's opening. And the very understanding of that fact is one of the keys. So, unexpectedly the door opens, and there is no longer an I and an it but an all, no longer a past and a future but a now that transcends itself. At this point the rest is silence--and that silence in my own heart is stentorian.
References 1. Otto attempted to relate man's religious experience to his rational capacities through his discussion of what he called "schematization"; however, even his strongest admirers have recognized that his efforts at this point did not meet with great success. 2. Homans, P., Theology After Freud. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1970. Also, Jung in Context: Modernity and the Making of a Psychology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1979. 3. Klausner, S.Z., Psychiatry and Religion: A Sociological Study of the New Alliance of Ministers and Psychiatrists. New York, Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. 4. Kiev, A., ed., Magic, Faith and Healing. New York, Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. 5. Cumming, E., and Harrington, C., "Clergymen as Counselors," A m e r J Sociology, 1963, 69, 234-243. 6. Kennedy, R.J., and Linksy, A.S., "Attitudes and Activities of the Clergy in the Area of Mental Health." In Braceland, F., ed., Faith, Reason and Modern Psychiatry. New York, 1967. 7. See Watts, A., Psychotherapy East and West. New York, Pantheon, 1961: The Way of Zen. New York, Pantheon, 1957; also Kelman, H., "Eastern Influence on Psychoanalytic Thinking," Psychologia, 1959, 2, 71-78. "Communing and Relating," Amer J Psychotherapy, 1960, 14, 70-96. 8. Mead, M., Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York, New American Library of World Literature, Mentor Books, 1950. 9. See Watts, The Way of Zen, op. cit. 10. The Wisdom of Insecurity. New York, Pantheon, 1951, p. 4. 11. Tweedie, D.F., The Christian and the Couch. Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1963; Daim, W., Depth Psychology and Salvation. New York, Ungar, 1969; and Caruso, I.A., Existential Psychology. New York, Herder & Herder, 1974. 12. See Daim, op. cir., Caruso, op. cir., p, 129. 13. Frankl, V., Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. New York, Washington Square Press, 1963, Rickel, W., "Is Psychotherapy a Religious Process?" In Oates, W., ed., Mental Health. New York, Channel Press, 1971. 14. See inter alia, Bronner, A., "Psychotherapy with Religious Patients," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1964, 18, 475-487; Lorand, S., "Psychoanalytic Therapy of Religious Devotees," International J. Psychoanalysis, 1962, 43, 50-58; Stanley, G., "PersonaLity and Attitude Characteristics of Fundamentalist Theological Students," Australian J. Psychology, 1963, 15, 121-123.
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15. Bowers, M., Conflicts of the Clergy. New York, Nelson, 1963. 16. Ekstein, R., "A Clinical Note on the Therapeutic Use of a Quasireligious Experience," J Amer. Psychoanalytic Association, 1956, 4, 304-313; Reissner, A., "Religion and Psychotherapy," J. Individual Psychology, 1957, 13, 165-170. 17. Linn, L., and Schwarz, L., Psychiatry and Religious Experience. New York, Random House, 1958; also, see Bowers, ot). cit. 18. Potok, C., Wanderings. Sydney, Hutchinson of Australia, 1978. 19. See inter alia, McCann, R.V., "Developmental Factors in Growth of a Mature Faith," Religious Education, 1965, 50, 147-155; Rokeach, M., Three Christs of Ypsilanti. New York, Knopf, 1964. 20. Bruder, E., "Psychotherapy and Some of Its Implications," J. Pastoral Care, 1952, 6, 28-38. 21. May, R., et al., Existence. New York, Basic Books, 1958. 22. See Frankl, o19. cit. 23. See Caruso, op. cir. 24. Salzmann, L., "The Psychology of Religious and Ideological Conversion," Psychiatry, 1953, 16, 177-187. 25. See Linn and Schwarz, op. cir. 26. See Tweedie, Daim, and Caruso, op. cir. 27. Goleman, D., "Meditation and Consciousness: An Asian Approach to Mental Health," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1976, 30, 41-54; see also Tulka, T., Reflections of Mind. Emeryville, Dharma Publishing, 1975, pp. 1-19. 28. Levy-Suhl, M., "The Role of Ethics and Religion in Psychoanalytic Theory and Therapy," International J. Psychoanalysis, 1946, 27, 81-95. 29. L6vi-Strauss, C., "The Sorcerer and his Magic." In Structural Anthropology. New York, Basic Books, 1963. 30. Goodman, H., "Value Judgments, Mental Health, and Psychotherapy," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1963, 17, 651-659. See also Wolff, W., "Facts and Values in Psychotherapy," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1954, 8, 466-486. 31. Erikson, E., Insight and Responsibility. New York, W.W. Norton, 1964. 32. Szasz, T., Tile Ethics of Psychoanalysis. New York, Basic Books, 1965. 33. Kadushim, C., "Social Distance between Client and Professional," Amer. J. Sociology, 1962, 67, 517-531. 34. Parsons, T., "Mental Illness and 'Spiritual Malaise': The Role of the Psychiatrist and of the Minister of Religion." In Hoffman, H., ed., The Ministry and Mental Health. New York, Associated Press, 1960. 35. See Szasz, o19. cit. 36. See Kadushim, op. cit. 37. Hartmann, H., Psychoanalysis and Moral Values. New York, International Universities Press, 1960.
An Essay on Psychotherapy and Religion R I C H A R D A. H U T C H ABSTRACT:Cultural innovation by thinkers of the early twentieth century created an intellectual impasse between competing u n d e r s t a n d i n g s of religion. Religion was understood as either transcendence and the sacred (e.g., Otto) or as fantasy and projection (e.g., Freud). W h e t h e r a cooperative symbiosis of these orientations toward religion can be achieved is the central and unresolved issue of this paper. " E x a m i n e d experience" is considered within religious studies and psychotherapy. Although not conclusive, the a r g u m e n t is t h a t examined experience is a means by which the desired symbiosis can be achieved. The essay is personal in t h a t it reflects the a u t h o r ' s struggle for understanding, especially as Western (e.g., Christian) and E a s t e r n (e.g., Zen) experiences are examined.
Now fills the air so many a haunting shape, That no one knows how best he may escape.
Faust, Part II, Act V, Scene 5
The battle for the mind In the development of both the history of religions and the psychoanalytic tradition, the second decade of the twentieth century constituted a time of crucial innovation. Though the origins of the "scientific study of religion" have often and correctly been traced to the writings of Max Mueller in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the publication of Rudolph Otto's Idea of the Holy in 1916 marked a shift in paradigms t h a t gave the disciplines a new direction and new life. And it was during the same decade t h a t Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams, which was the first in the series of great works through which he established psychoanalysis both as a therapeutic technique and as a tool for interpretation of culture and religion. As were a number of other important studies t h a t were written at about the same time (for example, Karl B a r t h ' s Commentary on the Epistle of the Romans in the theological field and Emile Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religion in the Reprint requests may be addressed to Dr. Richard A. Hutch, D e p a r t m e n t of Studies in Religion, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Qld. 4067, Australia. 0022-4197/83/1300-0007502.75
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~ 1983 Institutes of Religionand Health
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sociology of religion), the works of both Otto and Freud marked a strong reaction against the kind of increasingly arid rationalism that had become dominant in the West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, viewed in terms of their positive contributions, Otto and Freud presented very different and in many respects antithetical interpretations of religious experience and life. As even the most superficial reading of the two authors makes clear, Rudolph Otto understood religion in terms of transcendence, whereas Freud interpreted it in the context of fantasy and projection. Clearly, Otto's great contribution is to be found in his phenomenological analysis of the Holy as it was manifest in religious experiences of the classical type. For Otto the Holy was a sui generi category which differentiated religion from all other forms of human experience, and could be described only by generating a distinctive vocabulary that included such terms as ganz andere, mysterium tremendum, majestas, and mysterium fascinosum.' By way of contrast, Freud's discussions of religion were generally carried on in terms of infantile processes and conflicts which, in his view, produced the fantasies and projections that constituted the religious world. Although Freud left the way open for the kind of "higher reading" of his position that has been proposed by Peter Homans in his recent book, Theology After Freud, he himself tended to associate religious fantasies with illusion, and to utilize his concept of projection to bring into question any specifically religious or ontological reference of religious experience and beliefs. ~ Thus, a dichotomy was established that has persistently characterized the relationship between the religio-historical and Freudian styles of interpretation. Among historians of religion who have followed Otto in emphasizing transcendence and the sacred, psychoanalytic interpretations have generally been deprecated as an inadequate and even dangerous form of reductionism. And on the other side, among those who have adopted psychoanalytic perspectives and have continued to emphasize the dimensions of fantasy and projection, the work of historians of religion has been quite consistently ignored. Although subsequent historians of religion and psychoanalytic interpreters have remained true to the basic orientations that were established by Otto and Freud, significant advances have been made in both fields. Basically these developments can be characterized in terms of an increasing concern on the part of both historians of religion and psychoanalytic interpreters to deal with questions of cosmological and social order, and, in so doing, to give more serious attention to the phenomena of myth and symbol, of ritual and ethics, and of culture and social organization. Each tradition of interpretation has come at these questions from its own distinctive starting point; but by confronting similar issues and materials, scholars in the two fields have opened up new possibilities for dialogue, real encounter, and mutual stimulation. Moving beyond a purely theoretical and historical discussion, I will now examine the areas of the religio-cultural and the psychotherapeutic in an effort to ascertain whether progress can actually be achieved in a cooperative symbiosis of the two fields.
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The dialogue between psychotherapy and religion has been at times one of conflict and controversy, possibly because it requires both a rigorous effort to protect the integrity of each cognitive mode and a straining effort to demonstrate how these two ways of knowing are related. Fortunately, both perspectives meet in a common concern with understanding and influencing human behavior. Integral to each is the development of a disciplined and therapeutic mode of intervening in human behavior. It is "examined experience"--the resulting feedback of this disciplined intervention--that provides a new operational framework for the discussion of such problems of knowing and change. The sociologist Samuel Klausner, in his book Psychiatry and Religion, suggests that from a social frame of reference the task of the therapist and the role of the therapist are two different attributes. 3 The degree of social differentiation of task and role varies among societies and among professionals within a society. Much of the controversy among the protagonists of various psychological and religious attitudes stems from sociologic rather than ideologic conflict. Moreover, these social conflicts obscure the underlying ideologic conflicts. Klausner's outline of the social differentiation of task and role in psychotherapy produces four different ideologic positions. The reductionists maintain that there is only one task and one role. The material reductionists claim that mental health is solely a question of scientific psychology, while the spiritual reductionists phrase the entire problem in religious terms. The dualists believe that there are both spiritual and psychological problems but that one qualified person can accomplish both tasks. The alternativists claim that there is only one problem, usually psychological, b u t that either a minister or a psychotherapist can fulfill the task. Finally, the specialists maintain that there are two tasks and each task requires a specialist role. Historically, there was no task-role differentiation, and even today in primitive societies mental illness is defined as one t a s k - - a spiritual reductionism--and one role--the shaman who is priest-therapist. Ari Kiev, in his book Magic, Faith, and Healing, notes that in the simplest societies illness is seen as a spiritual blight from without and the role of the shaman is a spiritual one, exorcism of the evil spirit. 4 As societies become more complex, the shaman role and the task change. Whereas in the most primitive society the shaman assumes his role by virtue of what he is, in the more complex society he assumes his role because of skills and knowledge. Illness then becomes defined as a personal problem from within, instead of impersonal from without, and cures are ascribed to the medicines instead of to the supernatural power of the healer. Even in primitive societies, then, we see the beginning of a spiritualpsychological differentiation. The process of differentiation in Western society has culminated in the scientific medical model of mental illness that separates medical and spiritual specialists. This model, however, has not been accepted by those religious groups in our society where securalization of society has resulted in social agencies assuming responsibility for individual welfare, leaving these groups with concrete contributions to individual or social welfare. In consequence,
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two antithetical theologic attitudes developed. The ultrafundamentalists rejected secular society and claimed that the only legitimate interest of the church was salvation in the hereafter, while some liberals moved toward humanism, which redefined salvation as solely the here-and-now welfare of man. The ultrafundamentalists rejected psychology, while the liberals cloaked psychology in theology. So both groups became spiritual reductionists, although with exactly opposite goals, for the fundamentalists avoid psychology and the liberals sought to avoid theology. The practical result is that the ultrafundamentalist sects define mental health as a question of spiritual integrity to be treated by the spiritual methods of the minister, who is effective because of what he is, not what he does. 5 A s t u d y at the University of Washington found that fundamentalist ministers were defined by "spiritual call" rather than training, had the least education of all clergy, yet tried to handle most counseling problems through spiritual methods alone. 6 We can see that this task-role definition is much like the primitive shaman of the simplest society. That this does result in a successful practitioner is attested to by the success of the many faith healers. On the other hand, in some liberal denominations the minister's task is defined as that of the psychotherapist, namely, the relief of psychological distress. The minister is effective because of what he does, not who he is, and he is selected on the basis of training, not "call." He is a professional in direct competition with the secular psychotherapist. Ministerial self-justification results from defining the ministerial task and role in religious words. This is reflected in the formation of an association of pastoral counselors whose requisites for training remarkably resemble those of a psychoanalytic institute, and whose members do not work as clergy but are in private practice as professional psychotherapists who declare themselves to be "pastoral t h e r a p i s t s " - - t h e Western world "insight-givers"! At any rate, it is a fact that philosophers of the Far E a s t have a t t e m p t e d for thousands of years to break through the veil of appearances and anxiety and gain an insight into the human condition; in the course of that time they have made many discoveries that have only recently come to be known or appreciated in the West. The Zen connection He who knows does not speak; He who speaks does not know.
This statement, from among sayings of Rinzai Zen, gives the lie to the "insight-giver" before he so much as utters a word. If the psychotherapist took this statement literally, his sessions would be silent indeed. It is right for one who assumes the role of speaker, therefore, to consider the truth of that statement. Further, if this warning is understood completely, it constitutes a
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perfect vehicle for encapsulating the quintessence of those movements or s y s t e m s of thought known as Buddhism, Taoism, and the product of these two groups, Zen. 7 Anyone who has traveled the road of awareness, whether the way be called existential analysis, Judeo-Christian mysticism, or the quest for Tao, knows that understanding is a fortuitous prize that transcends the traveler and the traveled, a gift to be received at any time or not at all, and, most importantly, a state of his own being that is beyond the reach of any other being or condition. All mankind, no matter what its particular culture and society, is engulfed from its earliest years in the prescribed and proscribed patterns of thought laid down by its progenitors. And so man finds himself or, as so often happens, never finds himself, operating in an arbitrarily finite system, the finiteness of the system depending upon the particular culture into which he is born and the period of history during which he may live in the " s a m e " culture. For example, only two hundred years ago in Western culture anatomists operated contrary to law when they performed dissections; yet in that same society individuals had free access to narcotics. Today these poles, and many others, have been completely reversed. No matter what the particular contents of the cultural imposition, however, the man is made a thinking-feeling arm of that body social and is thereby less able to disengage himself from its assumptions and ways of behaving. Margaret Mead's research on the Mundugumor exemplifies this human predicament exceedingly well. ~ She states that the Mundugumor child is rejected by both parents and society at large almost from the moment the pregnancy is discovered. As a result, the life of the young child in this society is miserable. Yet, does the individual who is now mature look back and conclude, " N o child of mine will suffer as I did"? To the contrary, by accepting the same cultural premises as his forebears, he has the same set of reasons for behaving in the same way toward his own children and does so. What insights can Zen provide in dealing with this situation? In Zen the birth process of the whole man is very long and seemingly arduous. First, the umbilical cord connecting the man's body to its biological origins must be cut; then, years later, the cord connecting the man to his psychological origins must be cut, or better still, absorbed, digested, and used for growth as an individual. B u t how is this to be accomplished if the cord is regarded as an entity in itself to be preserved as is at all cost and if it is perceived as a lifeline long after it has ceased to serve that function? The transcendence cannot occur under such conditions, and it is the purpose of Zen to trick the individual into making this discovery for himself. There is no single trick in Zen that can effect so great a step, but there are many little ones in a wide variety of areas which gradually whittle away the ground of appearances and conceptualizations on which we have been standing. For example, a Zen master may, with gesticulation, ask his pupil, " W h a t happens to my fist when I open my hand?" Yet, again, why should this development of independence be necessary? The answer to this question depends upon one's values. If he
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wishes to maintain the status quo, to have the security of the known given him b y others instead of using that known as the stepping stone to discover and experience for himself, obviously the cutting is not necessary. If he does not wish to have the anxiety that such disengagement invariably brings, the cutting is in fact ill-advised. B u t in that man who is finally born psychologically as well as physically, what occurs? First, he discovers that the world of nature exists not only independently of his concepts of it, as he must already know intellectually, b u t in a manner and form that belie those concepts. By forgoing the concept he can somehow perceive the substance that underlies the intellectual construct, to see reality as it is rather than as he wishes it, assumes it, or forces it to be in his own mind. He comes to see that words, whether used singly or collectively, stand in relation to reality only as shadows to the objects that cast them. And those objects, when perceived directly, appear to be vastly different things from what they were in their shadow form. Then immediately one asks, " H o w do we use words to transcend words; how does shadow overcome shadow?" And we are thrown into a vertiginous irony, yet a vertigo that sometimes enables man to establish an equilibrium beyond that which he had before the attack. After the attack the experienced universe is only what an Easterner might designate as "chit," "hsing," or " t a t h a t a . " It is it, simply it, not a name or a value or some separate particle of experience, b u t that "it" is. At such a time the intellectual construct that had stood for this " i t " has a hollow and a false ring indeed2 B u t barely has this state been reached when he is catapulted into another most extraordinary discovery. The words he had used to refer to reality had enabled him to protect himself from it in the fullness of its being. The words he had equated with reality he could manipulate and had manipulated, b u t in reality he cannot manipulate. So, when he faces existence for the first time as it is, his protective intellectual manoeuvers have been stripped from him, and he must let be what is in his own thinking and feeling as well as what exists objectively. Even when he had his favored intellectual defenses, he could not alter objective reality, b u t at least in the world of his own mind he had the power to do so. Now, subjective experience as well as objective fact heats the retort of stress. And that intensity of experience leads him on to yet another realization. The man sees with pristine clarity that he exists only at a moment in time and space in the here and now. A n y a t t e m p t to exist psychologically in the past or future is to be cheated eternally of existence anywhere. One cannot live, except in fantasy, where he is not. In man's futile a t t e m p t s to live where he cannot, he works only to obliterate the actual present. When his actual present is being constantly ignored in the name of past or future, he is denied all complete existence and exists only in the world of his own imaginings. The counterfeit of his own wishes is substituted for reality of existence. Not all distortions of present reality are found through opium pipes. In this new experience man finds that meaning has increased enormously, not only in his specific experiences b u t in his total existence. And in typical fashion he a t t e m p t s to preserve it for future use. At that moment he discovers
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to his consternation that in attempting to grasp at and hold onto understanding, he has lost it. As Alan W a t t s points out so clearly, to have anything we must let it go. '~ If an individual has one day that special kind of enlightenment that a Zen master refers to as "satori" and that person decides on the spot that he absolutely must keep it, he loses it at that same instant. Perhaps some day that psychological preservative will be developed which can embalm even such an experience as "satori," b u t we are not doing it this season. T h e Christian w a y
To examine Christian approaches to the mental or, if you like, "spiritual" wellbeing of the individual, we may take into consideration those schools of Christian psychotherapy that aim toward the eventual liberation of their patients not only from their s y m p t o m s b u t also from the limited and often distorted perceptions that initially gave rise to the symptoms. While in Zen it is proposed that one cannot give insight to anyone, especially at the deepest levels (but he can provide some avenues through himself to understanding), the Christian psychotherapist maintains that psychotherapy is a prelude to spiritual therapy, which is the ultimate task of the therapist. Thus, Donald Tweedie argues that psychosis is sin, while other existential therapists, mainly of the Viennese school, state that psychological problems reflect spiritual ones. '' One of these others speaks of psychoanalysis as a partial salvation that introduces the patient to his need and treatment for total salvation. Another says, "The object of all psychotherapy i s . . . t h e acknowledgment of a transcendent hierarchy of values which should become, according to individual possibilities, a truth expressed in terms of one's own l i f e . . , this existential synthesis, however, can be free and effective only if it results f r o m . . , psychological analysis."12 It should be noted that these scholars are alike in that their psychology devolves upon Christian presuppositions, that psychotherapy is ultimately a religious task, and the role of the therapist is a spiritual one. There is also a growing group of scholars that maintains that the therapist must use both psychological and spiritual goals. Some who advocate this position make no specific theologic claims except generic moral ones, and include men like Viktor Frankl, many existentialists, and the editor of the J o u r n a l o f P s y c h o t h e r a p y as a R e l i g i o u s Process. 13
In the past, some scholars, including Freud, hotly denied the presence or relevance of spiritual aspects of man, because they felt that scientific psychology would replace the neurotic anachronism of church and clergy. Today, however, most of these advocates accept religious activities as perhaps satisfactory social means of achieving psychological goals. Some make the clergyman the poor man's psychiatrist; others see a collaborative relationship between psychological and spiritual, but no necessary integrative one. There have been many reports that emphasize that religious persons often have a different character structure and use different ego devices from their secular counterparts. '4 The therapist must understand the role of religious
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values in the character structure and be able to empathize with the patient's religious world view. The therapist m u s t watch his own countertransference, and as Margarita Bowers concludes, he must recognize when the patient's religious conflicts are real problems and respect the patient as a religious person.~5 The therapeutic process may result in drastic changes in a person's religion. He may give up his religion which was considered necessary for successful therapy by some of the early psychoanalysts. A number of psychoanalysts in the past have reported on the return to religion or strengthening and deepening of religion as the result of therapy? 6 Louis Linn and Leo Schwarz found seventeen such cases, and Bowers argues that the task of the therapist is to reconcile the unconscious religious attitudes of the patient with his conscious theologic attitudes.17 In these instances psychotherapy contributes to spiritual goals, but only incidentally. The spiritual benefits are a consequence of the changes in the individual that make possible spiritual commitment and maturation. The Jewish-American writer Chaim Potok comments that men have three gods: God as he is, God as m y group sees him, and God as I see him. ~s Freud was quite correct in Future of an Illusion when he described God as the projected father figure. What others have since shown is that God is also a projected mother figure, or even a very primitive part object from early infancy. Often a patient's reaction to God is based on these early childhood precepts, and his behavior reflects irrational early emotional identification instead of any rational, mature, theologic concept of God. '9 Consequently, how we experience God as a person may bear little relation to our verbalized theology of God. Numerous authors have stressed the parallel between the patient-therapist relationship and the patient-God relationship. If the patient has disturbed experiences in areas of faith, trust, and hope in his human relationship, he can hardly be expected to experience healthy faith, trust, and hope in relation to God. One therapist emphasizes that the curative factor in therapy is relationship and that both sin and mental illness involve separation from God, one's neighbor, and oneself. 2~Therapy at the psychological level provides the integration necessary to achieve synthesis at the spiritual level. One must experience the basic elements of love, faith, trust, and hope at the human level before one can experience them with God. Psychotherapy, then, can contribute to spiritual goals by providing fundamental emotional experiences that the person may subsequently use in his spiritual experiences, and it may clarify distortions of one's relationship to God. Rollo M a y along with other authors argues that existential-spiritual conflicts m a y lead to psychological symptoms. 2' Frankl calls this "no~genic" neurosis. ~ However, one phrases it, the claim is that unless the existentialspiritual conflict is resolved the psychological neurosis will remain. Caruso puts it that a fundamental shift in values must occur before a person can adequately deal with his neurosis. 23
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Less philosophically, Leon Salzman has described the maturational, integrative value that religious conversion may play in crystallizing a personality. 24Although all conversions are psychological phenomena at one level, and some conversions are solely ego-defensive manoeuvers, a religious commitment and involvement may provide the necessary framework upon which psychological integrity can develop. Faith m a y assist in the mastery of neurosis, although it does not enable the person to overcome his neurosis. This is supported by published clinical reports on the integrative value of religious experiences during the course of psychotherapy. ~ In these instances the psychological goals of therapy were assisted and implemented by religious experience. W e s t e r n g u r u or s h a m a n ?
It begins to become evident that the spiritual means of prayer, meditation, religious instruction--be it Western or Eastern oriented--are no longer the special province of the priest or the guru but m a y well be employed by the psychotherapist, even the Zen way to understanding. At one extreme are those who argue that the therapist should ultimately transmit to the patient a philosophy of life. In specific Christian terms, some thinkers argue that the therapist does not complete his task until he has brought the patient to a salvation experience. 26Others, like Daniel Goleman or Tarthang Tulku, would not go so far in directly influencing the patient, although they would consider it appropriate to pray, meditate, share religious experiences and methods of any trend, and offer explicit religious guidance. 27This m a y be because they feel that it will augment the psychological manoeuvers, or they may wish to enhance the patient's spiritual life. It is also noteworthy that some psycho analysts have suggested that analysis should result in a reconstitution of the patient's philosophy of life. Thus Max Levy-Suhl feels that psychoanalysis should become a secular "cure of the soul."z8 It is, therefore, apparent that m a n y different types of psychologicalspiritual interactions do occur in psychotherapy which m a y contribute to the goals of both. The development of psychotherapy as a two-person situation has misled people into the idea that psychotherapy is a scientific technique that operates apart from the culture and society of the therapist and patient. Earlier in this paper I called attention to Ari Kiev's book on primitive psychiatry, because one of its main themes is that the sociocultural context determines the definition of mental illness, the nature of psychotherapy, who is patient and therapist, and the methods and goals of psychotherapy. In the primitive food-gathering societies mental illness was a social illness, because a necessary laborer was lost. Hence, t r e a t m e n t had a direct social rehabilitative goal. The anthropologist Claude L6vi-Strauss has studied the role of the healer in primitive and modern society and notes remarkable parallels between the shaman and the psychoanalyst. 29 In both instances there is a "belief consensus" between the patient, the healer, and the audience. The shaman was effective because his role, methods, and social goals were defined by his society and accepted by him and the patient. The same is no less true
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t o d a y for psychotherapy. If the goal is explicit social change, the therapist is quite directly the agent of his society, as, for example, the prison psychiatrist who a t t e m p t s to rehabilitate the criminal. Some directive therapies, such as Joseph Wolpe's behavior therapy, try to eradicate specific s y m p t o m s through noncognitive means much like a surgical operation. Others, such as Albert Ellis's rational therapy and some "existential" therapies, use direct intellectual persuasion on the patient. Others yet, and in a simpler fashion, use direct, explicit, value~laden techniques in everyday psychotherapy dealings with psychotics, children, and borderline patients. In all these instances the modern-day psychotherapist, whether behaviorist, rationalist, existentialist, or orthodox analyst, is operating socially in exactly the same fashion as the shaman, only using different social techniques. This is not necessarily undesirable. As a matter of fact, it is indeed necessary where the goal is social change2 ~ Even with psychoanalysis, its techniques and goals reflect the egalitarian, democratic values of a secular, humanistic society. 3' B u t the goals of the shaman and the psychoanalytic psychotherapist are somewhat different. It may be appropriate for the therapist whose goal is social change to employ social supports as does the shaman. However, when the goal is personal change, it becomes important to remain apart from immediate social sanctions, so that there will be a social distance between patient and therapist. This facilitates adopting a nonnormative therapeutic stance during therapy. Only when these conditions are obtained can the therapy proceed toward its goals2 2 The psychotherapist working toward social change may not actually be in a social role much differentiated from the shaman role. B u t for Lhe psychotherapist working toward personal change the technical demands require a sharp differentiation in the social situation. If we examine the spiritual-psychological nature of psychotherapy in this light, we can see that the minister, like a shaman or a parent, has a very close social-emotional tie with the patient and that this is an important advantage in his role as definer of social and moral values and behavior2 3 It gives the minister as counselor a unique lever for dealing with certain social misbehavior and intercurrent life crises. Parsons points out that, like a parent, the church is a necessary " b o u n d a r y structure" for the maintenance of both the personality and society. 34 On the other hand, this very strength is its weakness, for the involvement precludes objective, detached analysis, as Thomas Szasz clearly indicates in his work, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis2 5 In contrast, because of his social-emotional distance, the psychotherapist can challenge, explore, and clarify2 ~ B u t this very strength of psychotherapy is its weakness. H a r t m a n n makes it obvious that psychoanalysis provides knowledge but not guidance, that it makes for unity b u t not goodness. Psychoanalysis can only investigate values; it cannot create them2 7 Conclusion
As a finale, it seems to me appropriate to state my opinion--generated by an overview of the perused a u t h o r s - - t h a t no one can really " k n o w " for another person, b u t one can, and often must in education and psychotherapy, provide
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some elements of knowledge out of which the hearer may himself know. Least of all can we know at the deepest level for another person. And yet those who have gone deeply into the recesses of the personality, as in psychotherapy or some Asian religions, often find that they can best help others when they lose self-consciousness and try least, when they listen with the heart rather than the mind, and when they know that the precise words the individual uses are not what he is saying but only the vehicle that will transport them to his world. According to Zen, to look, to listen, to feel, to sense all that is around one in its immediacy in the here and now, unstrained by the filters of intellect and its attendant words, appears to be a key to the door of understanding. There are many others, and I have tried here to examine a few. But to insert any one of the manifold keys does not insure the door's opening. And the very understanding of that fact is one of the keys. So, unexpectedly the door opens, and there is no longer an I and an it but an all, no longer a past and a future but a now that transcends itself. At this point the rest is silence--and that silence in my own heart is stentorian.
References 1. Otto attempted to relate man's religious experience to his rational capacities through his discussion of what he called "schematization"; however, even his strongest admirers have recognized that his efforts at this point did not meet with great success. 2. Homans, P., Theology After Freud. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1970. Also, Jung in Context: Modernity and the Making of a Psychology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1979. 3. Klausner, S.Z., Psychiatry and Religion: A Sociological Study of the New Alliance of Ministers and Psychiatrists. New York, Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. 4. Kiev, A., ed., Magic, Faith and Healing. New York, Free Press of Glencoe, 1964. 5. Cumming, E., and Harrington, C., "Clergymen as Counselors," A m e r J Sociology, 1963, 69, 234-243. 6. Kennedy, R.J., and Linksy, A.S., "Attitudes and Activities of the Clergy in the Area of Mental Health." In Braceland, F., ed., Faith, Reason and Modern Psychiatry. New York, 1967. 7. See Watts, A., Psychotherapy East and West. New York, Pantheon, 1961: The Way of Zen. New York, Pantheon, 1957; also Kelman, H., "Eastern Influence on Psychoanalytic Thinking," Psychologia, 1959, 2, 71-78. "Communing and Relating," Amer J Psychotherapy, 1960, 14, 70-96. 8. Mead, M., Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. New York, New American Library of World Literature, Mentor Books, 1950. 9. See Watts, The Way of Zen, op. cit. 10. The Wisdom of Insecurity. New York, Pantheon, 1951, p. 4. 11. Tweedie, D.F., The Christian and the Couch. Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1963; Daim, W., Depth Psychology and Salvation. New York, Ungar, 1969; and Caruso, I.A., Existential Psychology. New York, Herder & Herder, 1974. 12. See Daim, op. cir., Caruso, op. cir., p, 129. 13. Frankl, V., Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. New York, Washington Square Press, 1963, Rickel, W., "Is Psychotherapy a Religious Process?" In Oates, W., ed., Mental Health. New York, Channel Press, 1971. 14. See inter alia, Bronner, A., "Psychotherapy with Religious Patients," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1964, 18, 475-487; Lorand, S., "Psychoanalytic Therapy of Religious Devotees," International J. Psychoanalysis, 1962, 43, 50-58; Stanley, G., "PersonaLity and Attitude Characteristics of Fundamentalist Theological Students," Australian J. Psychology, 1963, 15, 121-123.
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15. Bowers, M., Conflicts of the Clergy. New York, Nelson, 1963. 16. Ekstein, R., "A Clinical Note on the Therapeutic Use of a Quasireligious Experience," J Amer. Psychoanalytic Association, 1956, 4, 304-313; Reissner, A., "Religion and Psychotherapy," J. Individual Psychology, 1957, 13, 165-170. 17. Linn, L., and Schwarz, L., Psychiatry and Religious Experience. New York, Random House, 1958; also, see Bowers, ot). cit. 18. Potok, C., Wanderings. Sydney, Hutchinson of Australia, 1978. 19. See inter alia, McCann, R.V., "Developmental Factors in Growth of a Mature Faith," Religious Education, 1965, 50, 147-155; Rokeach, M., Three Christs of Ypsilanti. New York, Knopf, 1964. 20. Bruder, E., "Psychotherapy and Some of Its Implications," J. Pastoral Care, 1952, 6, 28-38. 21. May, R., et al., Existence. New York, Basic Books, 1958. 22. See Frankl, o19. cit. 23. See Caruso, op. cir. 24. Salzmann, L., "The Psychology of Religious and Ideological Conversion," Psychiatry, 1953, 16, 177-187. 25. See Linn and Schwarz, op. cir. 26. See Tweedie, Daim, and Caruso, op. cir. 27. Goleman, D., "Meditation and Consciousness: An Asian Approach to Mental Health," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1976, 30, 41-54; see also Tulka, T., Reflections of Mind. Emeryville, Dharma Publishing, 1975, pp. 1-19. 28. Levy-Suhl, M., "The Role of Ethics and Religion in Psychoanalytic Theory and Therapy," International J. Psychoanalysis, 1946, 27, 81-95. 29. L6vi-Strauss, C., "The Sorcerer and his Magic." In Structural Anthropology. New York, Basic Books, 1963. 30. Goodman, H., "Value Judgments, Mental Health, and Psychotherapy," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1963, 17, 651-659. See also Wolff, W., "Facts and Values in Psychotherapy," Amer. J. Psychotherapy, 1954, 8, 466-486. 31. Erikson, E., Insight and Responsibility. New York, W.W. Norton, 1964. 32. Szasz, T., Tile Ethics of Psychoanalysis. New York, Basic Books, 1965. 33. Kadushim, C., "Social Distance between Client and Professional," Amer. J. Sociology, 1962, 67, 517-531. 34. Parsons, T., "Mental Illness and 'Spiritual Malaise': The Role of the Psychiatrist and of the Minister of Religion." In Hoffman, H., ed., The Ministry and Mental Health. New York, Associated Press, 1960. 35. See Szasz, o19. cit. 36. See Kadushim, op. cit. 37. Hartmann, H., Psychoanalysis and Moral Values. New York, International Universities Press, 1960.
