Page 170 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

A Portrait of a Christian Psychologist: Paul C. Vitz

Gilberto Safra (Brazil) Gilberto Safra, full
Comment Professor in the In-
stitute of Psycholo-
to Paul Vitz gy of the Univer-

sity de Sao Paulo,
Brazil. Teaches
Since rationalism, the intellectual project of the psychotherapy and
West has been theorizing about human beings,
suspending their enigmatic condition and re- psychoanalysis and
is a researcher on
ducing them to an idea, a thing, an object, a contemporary psy-
concept. However, in view of any attempt at
intellectual apprehension, man is a being that chopathology, psy-
chology of religion.
by his very nature deconstructs any rational
or theoretical formulation. Understanding of Presents a perspec-
tive in psychothe-
man through any universal concept―whether rapy where there is
economic, sexuality, or the will to power―is to
understand him through an abstraction, which a need to approach
the human being in
sickens him and establishes a situation of silent
and imperceptible barbarism that in most cases his ontological per-
spective.
will only be understood in its magnitude after
a long time, when its effects are already unde-
niable.
A significant problem is that trying to explain
the human phenomenon by means of a univer- our everyday lives. They lead us to review the
sal concept creates hyper-reality. The concept course of our field, calling us to substantiate our
of hyper-reality refers to the creation of false professional activity on the fundamental issues
realities or simulacra, which will determine of human destiny, which means being positio-
and organize human living. All hyper-realities ned over the human ethos.
constitute what is fake and apparent, leading The contribution of Paul C. Vitz in his arti-
the human beings to uproot their ethos. In con- cles attempts to discuss critically the effects of
temporary clinical practice, people come to us a clinical practice based on reductionism and
in deep desperation for not finding the face in materialism, which are hegemonic perspecti-
themselves and the others. They live like a mask ves of modernity. Modernity has promoted the
between masks and, at the time they take it off, growth of individualism and self-sufficiency. I
there is nothing. Facing the others they ask: think that Paul Vitz triggers important discus-
Is there anyone behind that mask? These are sions that make explicit ontological facets of the
terrible agonies, which witness and denounce human condition. Among them, I highlight his
hyper-realities. People clamor for the chance to point of view that human beings can only be
formulate the issues of human destiny. They live properly understood if approached as beings in
in the agony of the ‚terrible‘, aiming for suffe- relationships. From this perspective, the questi-
ring. One thing is the agony of not-being; ano- on of love acquires another status: it becomes
ther is the opportunity to suffer as a result of the foundation of the human condition. The
events inherent to human destiny. Only those issues of forgiveness and hatred are then con-
who present their faces in front of other faces sidered as phenomena that find their best for-
are the ones that suffer. mulations through an anthropology that consi-
In order to have the possibility to help these ders the human being as a loving and relational
people, we have to recognize that our practice event. In this horizon, Paul Vitz‘s works not only
as therapists and psychologists is often sick, confront clinical perspectives derived from the
because it is mostly based on hyper-realities. modern design, but above all they make explicit
Our theories and practices are being challenged the fundamental ethical dimension in our work
by the clinical situations that we encounter in as psychologists.

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