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cess environment. Psychoanalyst and psychologist Mar- would also be humanistic psychology with its redisco-
tin Dornes (1997), according to Daniel N. Stern, descri- very of holism, community psychology with its stron-
bes babies as astonishingly competent in relationships gly explicit value orientation, transpersonal psychology
with their own preverbal relational “language” (called with its rediscovery of
the “schema of being with”). Because the mechanism of transcendence within
transference relies on this pre-verbal abilities of the per- psychology, as well as
son, which are particularly suited to representing relati- the ideas of Buddhist
onship constellations and internal attitudes in people, a psychology or positive
detailed recording and analysis of transference in action psychology, and even
facilitates specific and holistic clearance of blame, and attempts to establish
thereby becomes a valuable aid in Phase II (settling up) of postmodern construc-
the Christian Psychology model. Infants can record ne- tivist thinking more
gative relationship experiences (that is offences!) in this strongly in psychology.
preverbal language, which leads later to relationship ex- Christian Psychology
periences mirroring the original situation (Dornes 1997) and all of these ap-
and therefore containing holistic information about the proaches have in com-
suffered wrong (relation and attitude dimension in figure mon their endeavor to
3). In a specific experiential design of analyzing the trans- research and analyze
ference situation (as a mirror of the original not yet forgi- aspects of the human Wolfram Soldan, Germany, is
ven experience) one can help a client in settling accounts psyche that have not a Physician, psychotherapist
(phase II of forgiving) in a holistic way. Along these same yet been studied in and one of the main lecturers
lines, the mechanism of projection was reformulated and mainstream psycho- for clinical psychology at the
newly fitted into forgiveness in the process model in such logy. But Christian IGNIS-Institute. He worked
a waythat theanalysis ofprojections canserve notonly in Psychology takes these two years in the DE‘IGNIS-
recognizing one’s own faulty structures in the psyche, but a step further as it as- Hospital, about five years as
also in detecting so-called “accounting to the wrong side”, sumes the existence of head of the former IGNIS-
e.g., of blame that falls objectively on the side of another the transcendent God Therapy-Center. His main to-
culprit, but which I have taken on as my own. who has spoken to us in pics include forgiveness pro-
his Word, providing in- cesses, dealing with the Bible
Summary of comparing sight into our psycholo- in counselling and sexuality.
In conclusion, here is a summary of comparing approa- gy as he intends it to be. wolfram.soldan@ignis.de
ches to forgiveness in Christian Psychology and main-
stream psychology.
1. The epistemological paradigms of Christian Psycholo-
gy differ from those of positivism, humanism, and post-
modernism, but they incorporate certain viewpoints of
each of the various paradigms.
Bibliography
2. The research methods of Christian Psychology are pri-
marily the same as in secular psychology. However, qua- Arnold, W., Eysenck, H. J. & Meili R. (1996). Lexikon der Psychologie
(2. Auflage). Augsburg: Bechtermünz.
litative and other humanities-specific research methods
are evident in this field, although a broadening in the Baskin, T., & Enright, D. (2004). Intervention Studies on Forgiveness:
A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Counseling & Development, (82), 79-90.
spectrum of qualitative methods employed will probably
be seen in the near future. Bezadi, A. & Hermann, A. (2008). Gemeindepsychologische Forschung
und Praxis in der Diskussion – Theoriebildungsprozesse und For-
3. By virtue of the reckoning with Godly revelations in schungsimplikationen. Forum Gemeindepsychologie, Jg. 13, Ausg. 2.
the written Word of God and also through a personal
Bohnsack, Ralf (2005) Standards nicht-standardisierter Forschung in
relationship with God, the following can come about: a) den Erziehungs- und Sozialwissenschaften. Zeitschrift für Erziehungs-
research questions which in secular psychology would wissenschaft, 8. Jg., Beiheft 4, 63-81.
not be posed at all, e.g., false mercy versus true mercy; Buber, Martin (1994): Ich und Du (12th ed.). Heidelberg: Lampert
b) differentiated definition-related characteristics in the Schneider.
constructs of secular psychology, e.g., the four-dimen- Gassin, E. (2000). Are Christians Obliged Not to Forgive? A Response
sional model of wrong or sin; c) an exposure of secular to Martin (1997). Psychology and Theology, 28, 36-43
constructs needing rebuilding, such as the construct em- Davison, G. C., Neale, J. M., Hautzinger, Martin (2007) (1998). Klini-
pathy, which in the typical secular formulation would not sche Psychologie (7th ed.). Weinheim, Basel: Beltz
fit into the forgiveness model, but was instead effectively Delitzsch, Franz (1855). System der Biblischen Psychologie. (1. Aufl.)
replaced with a considerably different formulation in the Leipzig: Dörffling und Franke.
construct of mercy. Denzin, Norman K. (2003). Symbolischer Interaktionismus in Flick, U.,
4. Christian Psychology can possibly be classified in psy- von Kardorff, E., & Steinke, I. (Hrsg.) (2003). Qualitative Forschung (2.
Aufl.) pp. 136-149 Reinbek: Rowohlt.
chology historyalongside thevarious attemptsmade thus
far to surmount the narrow epistemological pathways of Dornes, M. (1997) Die frühe Kindheit – Entwicklungspychologie der
ersten Lebensjahre.
scientific, positivist-oriented psychology. In this attempt Frankfurt: Fischer

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