Page 128 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

Challenges for Christian Psychology

Discussion
Explain the drawing: “the Sun is God, the fall is God’s In periods of crisis and desperation, the imagi-
love and grace, the river is ongoing happiness, people are nary and the person’s Faith can play a compen-
my family and myself, the fire is the love of God and our
love, the sword is the protection of God, the monster is satory role in the face of “real” history. In fact,
devil or evil things, birds are happiness, trees are shadows the above examples ( Figures 1 and 2) suggest
of love, the numbers are years …our lives . that there is a link between God image and ima-
ginary (for further explanations, see Nguyen,
2014). Furthermore, the imaginary can be seen
as a very sensitive indicator of personal growth
and of historical evolution as well (Boia, 1944).
Using the structure of the imaginary as ground,
we can observe in Figure 1 that a high score on
Positive feeling of God image is related to to
synthetic category of the imaginary; a weaker
score on Positive God Image is related to an un-
structured category of imaginary. It is known
that the goal of the imaginary is not to annul
the real. On the contrary, its approach is to in-
tegrate the existing reality and give meaning to
the events attached to it. Durand (1999) also
sees the imaginary as a way of dealing with exi-
stential anxiety and with time passing by, since
Figure 2: Unstructured category one’s imagination permits him/her to master
the faces of time and death (Demers-Desro-
Explaining the drawing: I went through a lot of changes
from my childhood to my teenage years. But the major siers, 1982; Loureiro, 2008).
change came upon hearing God‘s voices 4 years ago. I was It should be noted that investigating the links
in a rough shape in my relationship with my husband, to between two constructs, images of God and the
the point that I wanted to give up my marriage. God sent imaginary, and looking at the links between
a message from a friend who introduced me to a marri- the categories of the imaginary of the AT.9 test
age workshop. I heard God’s voice: be patient, do your
best. Let God take care the rest. I started changing my with scores on God images, is explorative and
thinking. I asked myself what was the most important to innovative in the Vietnamese sample. Though
me: my family or what I want??? From then on, I started no previous empirical research has studied this
praying a lot. Any time I have to deal with anything bey- link, Bellehumeur (2012) proposed the asso-
ond my ability. I give it up to God. ” ciation between the imaginary and spirituality.

Furthermore, both Rizzutto (1979) and Durand
(1999) have suggested that the fields of images
Concerning Figure 2, it can be observed from are formed and reformed throughout one’s life;
the drawing that the nine elements of the dra- they are influenced by culture, religion, socio-
wing are not connected to one another. Even logy, life-events and so on, to help one deal,
if the storytelling explains some aspects of this not only with existential anxiety, but also with
drawing, this AT.9 is considered as unstructu- meaning making (Boia, 1999). Figure 1 and Fi-
red. The result of this AT.9 has also been exami- gure 2 indicate the link between the imaginary
ned in relation to the results obtained from the and images of God that sit in the depth of the
questionnaire on God image. Concerning this field of the imaginary (Rizutto, 1979). In fact,
questionnaire for this participant, the score of as observed in Figure 1, where the participant’s
the positive feelings of God image is 2.7 on a 5 image of God is positive is also the one whose
point-Likert scale). Compared with the partici- drawing and storytelling, a product of the AT.9
pant of Figure 1, this score on positive feelings test, is the most coherent, connected and posi-
of God is significantly lesser for the participant tive despite the adversity compared to the Figu-
of Figure 2. re 2’s participant who bears a less positive God

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