Page 167 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

The Work and Thinking of David Benner

sons find their identity and their unique selves. limitation of any psychology which refuses to
Paul teaches that Christians are crucified with admit spiritual realities within its field of vision.
Christ but that paradoxically they continue to Humanity’s basic relational need, not just for
live, only now it is his power and presence living God but also for others, has often been over-
in and through them (Galatians 2:20). Indivi- looked or de-emphasized in psychology. Freud
duals do not merge with God in a fusion expe- pointed us in the wrong direction by identifying
rience where they become him and he becomes gratification of biological drives as the most
them. Rather both retain separate identities. basic need. Although contemporary behavioral
In a partial and imperfect way this truth is theorists are not likely to talk about basic needs,
also reflected in the biblical image of the she- implicit in operant learning theory seems to be
pherd and his sheep, an image frequently used an assumption not too dissimilar from Freud‘s
to picture God‘s relationship to Christians. The pleasure principle. It appears that people avoid
shepherd is with the sheep hut is not a sheep. pain and seek out pleasure, and this simple awa-
Even though the shepherd suffers the long cold reness provides basic guidance in the behavior
nights on the hillside with the sheep, suffering therapist‘s selection of reinforcers to change be-
nut only with them hut for them, the shepherd havior.
remains separate.
Interpersonal psychologists, following in the
The gospel is, in essence, the good news that tradition of Harry Stack Sullivan (1953), have
God came to provide for healing by taking been much more aware of the basic relational
humanity‘s suffering upon himself. But what needs. They have made the examination of a
has this to do with psychotherapy? How far can person‘s relationships the primary source of
we take such divine activity as a model for the data for diagnosis or personality assessment.
human helping relationship? Before considering They have done much to make clear that indivi-
this question more directly, it seems important duals are their relationships and that their need
to first consider some basic aspects of human for relationships is basic. However, the tradition
nature which may more clearly reveal God as which has given us the clearest understanding
a model, and humankind as the image of God. of the dynamics of this relational need within
personality may be object relations theory, a re-
The Imago Dei and Object Relations cent hybrid of psychoanalysis.
What does it mean to speak of humans as created Object relations theory has given particular
in the image of God? Traditionally the answer emphasis to early relationships between infant
to this question has been to identify attributes and parents or caretakers. The use of the term
of human personality such as reason, morality, “object“ reflects the mechanistic influence of
volition, and creativity which are said to corre- classical psychoanalysis as well as the earlier
spond to attributes of God. This is undoubtedly tendency to view people‘s struggles from the
a helpful beginning, but Barth (1962), Brunner outside rather than empathically. It is used to
(1947) and others have suggested that such a list refer to both animate and inanimate objects
misses a much more basic attribute which we since the infant relates to both in similar ways,
share with God, namely, our social nature. So that is, by developing internal representations
humanity, reflecting this quality of God, is also of them. American object relations theorists
intrinsically relational or social. (such as Kernberg. 1980) have developed this
The need for relationship is fundamental to approach within what remains a basically clas-
human nature, perhaps the most fundamental sical psychoanalytic framework. British theo-
need. People are created for intimate commu- rists, most particularly Fairbairn (1954), have
nion with God as well as others; apart from been more radical abandoning much of Freud’s
both relationships, they remain incomplete. metapsychology and replacing it with an equal-
Berkhouwer (1962) states that to look at people ly complex structural developmental theory. It
apart from their intended relationship to God is is in the work of Fairbairn that we find the most
to fail to understand them. This is an inherent complete understanding of humanity‘s intrinsic

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