Page 176 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 5

Trauma Recovery Training at a Seminary? Introducing Global Trauma Recovery Institute

Diane Langberg (USA)
The Role of Christ in Psychology

At various points in my professional life as a that reveals things in others of which they have
clinician I have had the privilege of teaching never even conceived. For example, I know
different courses in some of the seminaries in something of fear but I do not know experien-
the Philadelphia area. One of those courses has tially the fears of a paranoid personality. When
been on the theories of personality. Being a per- I hear someone tell me they are afraid I need to
ennial clinician, I could not help studying the find out what that experience is like for them
lives and personalities of the theorists them- rather than assume it is just like mine. Egocen-
selves. I was quite struck in looking at the li- tricity runs through clinical practice as much
ves of Freud, Jung, Rogers, Ellis or B.F. Skinner as it does theories. We will make many wrong
by how I could find the seeds of the theory in assumptions if we are not cognizant of the fact.
the biography of the man. It is not hard to see It is my observation that the development of a
Carl Rogers’ reaction against the rigidity and theory about persons needs an understanding
harshness of his upbringing in his humanistic of some existing personality as a basis. Is it to be
theory. The formative impact of Victor Frankl’s mine? Is it to be the personalities of those with
concentration camp experience on his logothe- which I associate? Shall I derive such a theory
rapy and a will to meaning is even more easily from my clinical experience with patients? It
traced. It should, of course, come as no surpri- is my belief that a true Christian psychology is
se since none of us really can speak or theorize based ultimately on the knowledge and under-
except out of our own experience. Those theo- standing of the personality of the Son of Man,
rists who have so profoundly shaped the field of Jesus Christ. We have, in our study of Christ, a
modern psychology were no exception. That is rich picture of a whole and healthy human per-
not problematic so long as we are aware of the son. We have a study of man as he was meant to
egocentricity of the genesis of what we offer as be in this world. My study of the human beings
explanations for human personality. There is a who enter my office must be informed by my
principle in the Scriptures that seems to apply study of the person of the Son of Man.
here: that which proceeds out of the man expo- A second premise, which leads me to this same
ses the heart of the man, i.e. tells us something conclusion, is that I do not think we understand
about the man. I think that is as true in the de- health and wholeness from the standpoint of
velopment of theories as it is in conversations disease, but rather the reverse. It is only as we
and choices. We must be honest about the fact comprehend wholeness that we can recognize
that our own theories are also rooted in some disease. I only understand that a one-legged
personality somewhere – if not one of the so- man is crippled based on my knowledge that
called greats, then perhaps in our own, or, more men are meant to have two legs. The more I un-
likely, in some hybrid of the two. Apparently derstand the function of two legs and the broad
personality theory needs the framework of an range of activities and experiences open to a
existing personality in order to develop. two-legged man, the more fully I comprehend
There is a clinical manifestation of this egocen- the limitation of having only one leg. Since one
tricity in our thinking as well. One of the things of the functions of a theory about persons is to
I find it repeatedly necessary to teach young tell us what is healthy and what is pathological,
clinicians is the fact that their patients are not it follows that we need a model of health from
like them. New clinicians encounter things like which to judge. Do we really suppose that we
sadness and assume it is like their sadness or can derive such a model from fallen creatures?
fear and think it is similar to their fear. Or, they Though you can grasp some idea of wholeness
hear a word, such as anxious or upset, and as- from broken pieces, truly the whole is greater
sume the definition is identical to theirs. They than the sum of the fragments, particularly
then easily miss or are thrown by pathology when the fragments themselves may be dis-

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