Page 59 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 10

Comment to

“Honoring & Nurturing

Conscience in Gwen White
Psy.D., is Pro-
Psychotherapy “ fessor Emeritus
from
Eastern
University whe-
In Honoring and Nurturing Conscience in Psy- re she formerly
chotherapy, Tipton, Vincent, and Voglewede served as Direc-
make a tantalizing offer to their readers with tor of the Doc-
two promises: 1) “review the literature on mo- toral Programs
ral development of the conscience within the in Marriage and Family therapy. She is a
relational context of attachment theory” and 2) licensed psychologist and founded Circle
“discuss the clinical implications of nurturing a Counseling in 1997, a counseling center in
healthy conscience in the therapeutic context.” Philadelphia offering professional mental
The authors present a wide literature review and health services grounded in faith.
attempt to define and summary broad and com- Having served at the Hospital of the Uni-
plex theoretical constructs related to conscience versity of Pennsylvania in the neuropsy-
such as “moral development,” “moral emoti- chology wing of rehabilitative medicine,
ons” and “mentalization” with notable success; her research interests include: the applicati-
however, at some points I wonder about what on of neuroscience to helping relationships,
might be lost in simplifying these concepts. For counselor training and supervision, spiri-
example, Allen, Fonagy, and Bateman (2008) tuality and counseling practice, mentoring
identify the complexity of mentalizing which relationships, compassion fatigue, trauma
involves multiple cognitive operations: per- and religious experience. She hastrained
ceiving, recognizing, responding, mirroring, therapists internationally in the identifica-
remembering, interpreting, etc. These leaders tion and treatment of Compassion Fatigue
of the mentalization movement in psychology and Integrating Spirituality into Clinical
might take exception to the simplification of Practice. She and her husband live in West
Philadelphia and enjoy their four adult sons
their ideas so briefly when they would attri- and their growing families with nine grand-
bute such significant and complex elements of children.
mentalization as attending to mental states in
self and other, inferring the mental states that
lie behind overt behavior and the cultivation of
awareness of multiple perspectives. All of these
additional elements would add richness to this
article’s argument that the exploration and sup-
port of conscience deserves substantial attenti-
on in psychotherapy.

The second promise that our authors make to avoiding processes of judging others by cir-
about the clinical implications of nurturing a cumstance, race or behavior seem important
healthy conscience in psychotherapy presents here (John 8:4-8, Matthew 7:1-5, Luke 10:30-
additional issues related to simplification and 37, etc.) The danger could be in simplifying
complexity. The authors present strong bibli- what a “healthy conscience” actually is. Aren’t
cal recommendations to attend to conscience. judgments about what is right and wrong fun-
These are important. The scripture, however, damentally complex? The authors present valu-
is complex and interpreting its contents all able ideas from the literature about the develop
the more complicated as is all human mental of conscience and attachment styles and note
processing. Our Lord’s admonitions related that difficult environmental inputs create inse-

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