by Pia Chaudhari
[Department of Psychiatry & Religion, Union Theological Seminary, 3041 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, USA]
[Pastoral Psychology, vol. 56, 2007; Published online, June 26, 2012; # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012]
Abstract. In exploring the theology of John D. Zizioulas in conversation with the psychoanalytic theory of Donald Winnicott, this paper highlights how the theological concerns of personhood, sin, faith, and redemption may correlate, without conflation, to healing in the psychoanalytic context. Using a particular chapter of Zizioulas’s book, Communion and Otherness; Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, this paper looks at Zizioulas’s notion of what constitutes personhood and discusses this in light of Winnicott’s understanding of development of the True Self and False Self. I underscore the emphasis placed by both theology and psychoanalysis on the need to experience both dependence and otherness in order to become a self, that we might heal from being a False Self (Winnicott) or ‘thing’ (Zizioulas) capable only of living in opposition and fragmentation and grow towards living in communion and authentic relationship. I conclude by contending that both disciplines, in this case, flow towards an elucidation of pathological narcissism and the need for the healing of this condition as addressed both from a theological as well as psychological perspective.
Keywords: Zizioulas, Winnicott, Theological anthropology, Psychoanalysis, True self, Personhood, Narcissism
Introduction
It has long been held that theology and psychoanalysis are uneasy comrades, to say the least. Yet, if we look to find the one area where they cannot help but at least regard each other from across the field, we find it is in the area of the human person. The field of Christian theological anthropology and the field of psychoanalysis find an obvious meeting point in their shared interest in personhood. Psychoanalytic theory takes its point of departure in part from the scientific method, using observable (as well as conjectured) natural behaviors and phenomena, and in part from subjective experience, while theology—in certain strands at least—roots itself in revelation not subject to natural law and in the ‘scandal of the particular.’ Thus it seems possible that in the place of the meeting of the revelation of God in the particular, in flesh and blood, with the idiom of the human person, namely in the field of personhood, we might find these two fields bordering and saluting each other, as Rilke might have said (Rilke 1993). The revelation of God in the particular has lifted—as Zizioulas writes—the particular to the level of the ontological (2006, pp. 32–36). Since psychoanalysis is also deeply concerned with the idiom of the person, one might certainly postulate that there would be a mutually enhancing dialogue to be had, a gesturing from both sides as to what constitutes human flourishing.
This paper, then, is an initial brief foray into the terrain of dialogue between Orthodox Christian theology, using primarily the writings of Metropolitan John D. Zizioulas, and psychoanalytic theory, using primarily the insights of Donald Winnicott. The focus is on a single chapter of Zizioulas’s book, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, as his descriptions therein of human capacity and incapacity and need for relationality resonate with Winnicott’s work related to issues of dependence and otherness as requirements for the living of a ‘true self.’
In a rich chapter, “Human Capacity and Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood,” Zizioulas delves deeply into the nature of the human being and human capacities and incapacities, as created by God (Zizioulas 2006). In this paper, I would like to touch on four areas of theological concern which can be seen in this chapter, namely the ways of contemplating personhood, sin, faith, and salvation/redemption. For each area, I would like to consider these concerns in light of psychoanalytic insights into movements of experience which may have resonance, looking at Winnicott’s discussions of the evolution of the self from earliest infancy, construction of the false self, creative illness, and recovery of the true self, with the hope in the end of finding the disciplines of psychoanalysis and theology to be enhanced by mutual engagement.
A brief word on method is required here. It is beyond the scope of this paper to outline a satisfactory method in a general sense for working within these two different disciplines. I will, however, note a word by Zizioulas on the topic. For Zizioulas, psychology is about subjective experience and, to the degree the world is not simply a product of our consciousness, experience does not equal ontology—it cannot be said to tell us what is ultimately ‘so’ about the world we live in. It is ontology which “must be given priority and ultimacy in our theological considerations” (2006, p. 57). When applied to theological anthropology, therefore, there is an essentialist basis which could be said (following this argument) to claim ultimacy over subjective experiences, including constructs of the self as viewed psychologically, and which— from a theological perspective—must help inform any psychological discourse. Yet, some psychoanalytic theorists, such as Winnicott, also postulate the notion of a True Self and so begin to enter into discourse that approaches ontology, in the sense that it also enters into essentialist discourse, although at the same time it should be noted that Winnicott seemed more comfortable speaking about the True Self as a way of highlighting the False Self, rather than as a tangible construct of its own (Winnicott 2007). Because these profound areas of both human experience and belief, that of True Self living and that of faith, speak of one’s own-most depths of aliveness and much mystery, my hope is to hold these disciplines gently together while considering the following discourse, without trying to force them into direct correlation with each other, and yet staying alert for areas of convergence.
Ways of contemplating personhood
From the outset of his discussion in the chapter “Human Capacity and Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood,” Zizioulas (2006) points to the profound distinction, and need for discernment, between the ‘fallen’ state of humanity and that which was originally intended by God. This discrepancy applies not only to experience, but also to how we contemplate ourselves as humans. Our very methods of self-understanding have been altered by the fall. He thus puts forth the question of whether humanity can understand itself through an introspective movement, i.e., as self-referenced, or whether humanity can only understand itself if the human is “approached as an indefinable being which can be grasped only by being put in the light of his ability to relate to extra-human realities” (italics mine) (2006, p. 207). This is a point which Zizioulas will make over and over again, namely. that the key to understanding humanity is not to seek a substance which comprises the nature of humanity, or of each human, but to name the relationship that defines us as human. In Zizioulas’ theology, it is our ability to ‘self-transcend’ through relationship with God that makes us fully human, that makes us ‘persons’ as opposed to ‘things’ (2006, p. 210). He writes:
“[Humanity’s] personhood should not be understood as . . . qualities that are in some sense ‘possessed’ or ‘contained’ by the human individuum. On the contrary, being a person is basically different from being an individual or ‘personality’ in that the person cannot be conceived in itself as a static entity, but only as it relates to. Thus, personhood implies the ‘openness of being’, and even more than that the ek-stasis of being, that is, a movement towards communion which leads to a transcendence of the boundaries of the ‘self’ and thus to freedom.” (2006, pp. 212–213)
This goes flat against the current and prevalent notions of autonomy and sovereignty of the individual, ideals which are perpetuated vastly by popular culture. If one truly exists only in relationship, then any sense of ‘sovereignty’ needs to be re-assessed in light of the notion that an individual is only a person when he or she is in relationship, i.e., is self-transcendent. And, perhaps more surprisingly, herein lies freedom. Thus, as Zizioulas writes elsewhere in the book, we are created for freedom for relationship, rather than freedom from relationship (2006, p. 10). I will return to this notion again later.
Psychoanalytically, there appears to be far more truth to what Zizioulas is gesturing towards theologically than there is in the secular notion of autonomy. The object-relations school of psychoanalysis has discussed the defining factor of relationships in the development of the self. Donald Winnicott, a pediatrician and psychoanalyst who spent his life working with both children and adults, once provocatively announced that there is no such thing as a baby (Winnicott 1987). By this he meant that there is no such thing as a baby who exists on its own; there is always baby and mother (or ‘mothering one’). He called this the nursing couple. The baby develops a sense of self only in relationship to the mother, and later to the extended environment. While there is a basic—and perhaps pre-existent and to some degree pre-determined— ‘self’ there, it cannot come into being without relationship. Hence our earliest developmental process, even that which leads to a seemingly independent life which might appear to mesh with notions of autonomy, cannot be arrived at without both sufficient dependence and the presence of an ‘other’ who first signifies our existence.
Interestingly, Orthodox theologian Christos Yannaras (1996) has also taken up a dialogue with psychoanalytic theory in a way that may bring further elucidation to Zizioulas’s notions of presence and absence. Using the Freudian theories of Jacques Lacan, Yannaras looks at the infant’s first experience of external presence, namely the breast of the mother. The infant arrives with an innate desire for relationship and is called into being by libidinal drive toward fulfillment of relationship, and this is inherent to the infant. Yet, it cannot actualize without a ‘signifier’ of this potentiality being met. The arrival, then, of a signifier (in the infant’s case, the breast) allows for the infant also to arrive truly. Yannaras writes: “The subject is born once the Signifier appears in the field of the Other—the potential of a response to the desire emerges” (1996, p. 84). Yannaras then goes on to reflect that, as the child is called into being by relationship with the mother, so ultimately are we called into existence by relationship with God. He writes: “The human person is born into the space of God. The impetus of a desire for a fulfilling relationship with Him, is His life-giving summons which establishes and constructs the human person as an existential event of erotic reference” (1996, p. 88).
Sin
For Zizioulas (2006), sin is the idolatry of turning to the created world alone for communion. Because we are created with the imago dei, that which seeks communion with God, we cannot escape the drive towards communion. This drive can, however, be perverted to the wrong direction, seeking fulfillment in creation rather than in the Creator. This is what Zizioulas calls ‘introversion.’[1]
In addition to having consequences for the life of the person, this distortion also has an impact on all of creation, for whom humanity was destined to provide a priestly function in order to bring the cosmos back into communion with its creator. Humanity’s introversion means that creation is denied access, through human beings, to its Creator and so it continues in disunion as long as humanity does.
Zizioulas writes that in the absence of communion, human existence occurs in a context of fragmentation:
“. . . and hence to an individualization of beings: each being acquires its identity not through the hypostatic differentiation which emerges from communion, but through its affirmation in contrast and opposition to the other beings. Difference becomes division and person becomes individual, that is, an entity affirmed by way of contrast to rather than of communion with other entities.” (2006, pp. 229–230)
This is in keeping with Zizioulas’ working through of otherness, earlier in the book, where he writes that in love differentiation occurs through affirmation of the other, rather than rejection of the other:
“By being ‘other’ and at the same time relational, the person differentiates by affirming rather than rejecting the ‘other’. In personhood there is no ‘self’, for in it every ‘self’ exists only in being affirmed as ‘other’ by an ‘other’, not by contrasting itself with some ‘other’. . . . Love is not a feeling or disposition of the ‘self’ towards an ‘other’. Rather it is a gift coming from the ‘other’ as an affirmation of one’s uniqueness in an indispensable relation through which one’s particularity is secured ontologically. . . . In love, relation generates otherness; it does not threaten it.” (2006, p. 55) [2]
This context of fragmentation and opposition has also, it seems, an epistemological component because the ‘splitting’ allows humanity to believe that they can separate knowledge from love, rather than knowing through love. If the space between the one and the other is that of opposition, rather than communion, then the only possibility becomes knowing ‘about,’ not knowing as part of loving (Zizioulas 2006, p. 230). This dichotomy between love and knowledge leads to a split between thought and action, and this is the beginning of hypocrisy. Zizioulas writes: “Once the possibility of knowledge arises as independent of and prior to the act of communion (love) with the other being, it becomes possible for man to dissociate his thought from his act and thus falsify the event of truth” (2006, p. 231).
There is much that can be said from a psychoanalytic perspective on both the movement toward ‘introversion’ (as understood by Zizioulas) and the splitting between thought and love. We may recognize that, psychoanalytically, a major movement that is considered pathological is the inability to recognize the ‘other’ as ‘other,’ though by this psychoanalysts do not necessarily mean God as ‘other.’ Nonetheless, psychoanalysts can be said to be dealing with the consequence of ‘sin’ all the time, in that it is the same fragmentation and oppositional destructiveness that leads to much of the environmental wounding with which analysts have to contend in their work.
For example, in Winnicott’s theories of the developing child, he posits the need for a ‘good enough’ environment within which the child can develop ‘normally.’ By this, he means an environment which provides adequate holding and which does not impose or impinge on the child too much, an environment within which the baby’s natural life force— what he calls motility potential—can be expressed and seek id satisfaction. When the environment is ‘good enough,’ this motility potential is, to a high degree, joined with the natural drive towards relating—eros. Thus, the development of a child involves a ‘fusion’ of motility and eros, meaning that the life force is used to relate to the world around it. However, when the environment fails to provide ‘good-enough’ mothering in the sense of holding and loving provision, a higher degree of motility potential fails to fuse with the erotic drive, and the motility remains ‘at large.’ In Winnicott’s theory, unfused motility potential needs to find opposition (Winnicott 1992). Thus, the erotic drive still exists, but it is now in competition with a defensive drive as well—what Zizioulas might call an introverted drive. In some cases, those of severe environmental impingement, the split is severe enough that the true self fails to develop and the core of the person remains hidden while a false self, built out from a shell and based on compliance and identification with the environment rather than an inherent aliveness, spontaneity, and creativity, begins to develop (Winnicott 1992, 2007). In Winnicott’s theory, the greater the split between eros and motility potential, the more the child must define itself in opposition to the environment in order to gain and hold a sense of self—an experiencing of the motility potential (1992). The oppositional and unstable nature of this false self is much akin to Zizioulas’s description of a fragmented world where individuals are defined by their opposition to each other.
Thus we might be able to see here a theory of the mechanics of what Zizioulas is talking about more generally. There is that within us which can thwart our natural instincts towards loving relatedness and instead push us defensively towards creation of a false self which can then only relate through opposition rather than communion.
Part of the work of analysis can be to try and recover the place where this splitting took place and hope that the natural drive toward integration will—if given enough space and provision in the analytic setting—re-establish itself. Yet, as per Winnicott, analysis also has its limits, and a fusion at a place of early splitting is not always possible (Winnicott 1992). Perhaps in these deep and early places of wounding, theology might offer the hope of the great mystery of the working of the Spirit through the psyche. Ann Belford Ulanov, in a book on Winnicott and religion, writes:
“Bolstering psychoanalysis, religion encourages ‘regression to dependence’ as part of its discipline, laid on our ardent spirit. If we would come to God, we must undergo our own small kind of kenosis. . . . Religion thus endorses regression to dependence; spiritual discipline builds up to this climax of emptying. Rather than something to be feared—for it remains fearsome—such a dark night of the soul signals progress. . . . Religion urges as not only possible but desirable what Winnicott says analysis cannot accomplish: a return to the emptied state, the dependent state, to find a new fusion of our loving and aggressive energies.” (Ulanov 2005, p. 63)
Theologically understood, we might imagine that if the world were not fallen, then the actual developmental stages of the child could more naturally unfold in such a way as to provide optimal fusion of eros and motility, and therefore a natural sense of communion, but that it is the brokenness of the fallen world which perpetuates the environmental impingement leading to psychological development that leads to further opposition and fragmentation. Yet it should be noted that the point of location of destructive aggression, or what some call the death instinct, in the child is a contested area, with some theorists arguing that it arrives inherent to the child, while others push more towards it being a reaction to the environment. While beyond the scope of this paper, that discussion would be relevant to notions of original sin versus any kind of recoverable ‘original goodness.’
Faith
There are areas in the chapter under discussion where Zizioulas (2006) also discusses issues that might most closely correlate to the experience of faith. For Zizioulas, a human being, confronted by the possibility of nothingness, the non-existence of death or annihilation, rejects this nothingness. He attributes this to the ecstatic personhood of humanity’s nature, which demands that a human, as person, be self-transcendent in communion with the Other. Therefore, nothingness is ontologically unacceptable for humanity. Thus, Zizioulas writes, “The fact that this absence remains unacceptable to man is due to his personhood which drives him towards communion, and this is what makes faith a possibility for him: he is confident in presence in spite of absence” (2006, p. 226).
Additionally, Zizioulas postulates that there is in humanity a longing for suffering. This may sound like masochism at first reading, but as I understand it Zizioulas means that there is a longing for the freedom to suffer the things that come to us to suffer, for in suffering our incapacity is revealed. I would add that perhaps in suffering, our incapacity is finally allowed, as against the pervasive model of the stoic and heroic individual who can surmount all obstacles. Zizioulas does not glorify suffering, but seems to see it as a way of encountering our own incapacity and, with that acknowledged, an encounter with our capacity as persons in reliance on God. He writes:
“Just as by frankly facing absence man becomes capable of faith in presence, in the same way by facing suffering and not turning away from it with the help of various ‘securities’ man affirms his freedom in a negative way. There is no romanticizing of suffering as there is no idealization of absence and death; these are man’s worst enemies. But the important thing in human existence is that the only way to abolish these things, the only way to conquer them, is freedom and this implies freedom to undergo them. The Cross is the only way to the Resurrection, and this does not take away from the Cross its utter shame and repulsiveness.” (2006, p. 234)
The call to relationship, the inner faith in presence in spite of absence, and the freedom to suffer that which it is given to us to suffer is re-visited as well by Winnicott in his extremely compassionate and creative views on illness. For Winnicott, some forms of illness, e.g., nervous breakdowns, can actually be a desire of the True Self to return to the place of wounding in order to—as Zizioulas might say—allow regression to the suffering of the wound, to return to a place of trauma in the hopes of rediscovering presence where before only absence was experienced and where a false self and life were built up around that absence (Winnicott 1989a, b). In the loving presence of an analyst, in Winnicott’s experience, and through the analyst’s loving adaptation to and devotion to the patient, the psyche can embark on a journey of healing that involves a creative regression, often to a place where dependence was missed. Thus, for Winnicott, cure often involves a return to dependence. It may look like, and indeed be experienced as, suffering but there is some resonance here with Zizioulas in that there is also a desire to suffer one’s own incapacity so that the capacity of dependence might be met and the true self begin to grow (Winnicott 1989a, b). Zizioulas’s (2006) notion of incapacity, and Winnicott’s (1989a, b) insistence that we acknowledge our essential dependence, as opposed to what Yannaras (1996) called “the torture of an existence that actively denies itself without, however, being capable of nullifying its hypostatic composition” (p. 88), both underscore the notion that the human being requires dependable otherness, true presence, in order to live fully as a person, and that there is no such thing as the autonomous individual in an ontological sense or a way in which we can ontologically tolerate true absence.
Redemption and salvation
Moving to a discussion of Christology and the Incarnation, and therein salvation, Zizioulas (2006) says that in Christ we see the fulfillment of the human being. Interestingly, he underscores that any perceived schism in the two natures of Christ, divine and human, is a reflection not of two natures in opposition, but of our fallen perspective—as discussed earlier—with its tendency to bifurcate and set things in opposition rather than communion. The human being, as person, is built for hypostatic communion with God. Therefore the human nature of Christ, as fully person, is fully in communion with God. This is the reconciling of human and divine in union, which is the process of theosis (see 2006, pp. 237–239).
For Zizioulas, the only way in which the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ makes an ontological difference for humanity is if God meets us in the created world, as the very ground of our being. Our personhood is possible through the personhood of Christ; thus, in Christ we find our own differentiated self, a self in communion with God. Through the human nature of Christ, the human being can come to realize his or her own imago dei, which, as Zizioulas writes, is not a static ‘human nature’ but the nature of a person in communion, more truly an imago Trinitatis.
How, then, might we use psychoanalytic theory to further press this movement from ‘introversion,’ the idolatry of being self-referenced and only communing with the created world (though as to whether that can even be called communion is debatable), to communion, a full expression of personhood through the ecstatic movement of self-transcendence toward the divine Other? And, might this understanding of transformative soteriology speak to human flourishing as understood from a psychoanalytic perspective?
I believe that both schools of thought converge around the area of narcissism.[3] While narcissism itself is a complex topic, for the purposes of this paper I define it simply as the refusal to recognize and relate to true otherness.
We have seen, through some of Winnicott’s theories, that environmental impingement upon the developing child leads to the creation of a false ‘compliant’ self whose job is to protect the true self, while the true self goes into ‘hiding,’ so to speak (Winnicott 2007). One could, perhaps, wonder if this isn’t a form of narcissism whereby the person is constantly caught in a relationship within themselves, between reflective and reflecting false selves, circling around a defense of the ‘true self,’ rather than relating from their core self to an Other. The world around, the created world, also becomes part of this inner cycle, and objects and nature and other people are viewed in light of the false self rather than as they are in themselves.[4] This also offers a model on why the creation so greatly suffers when human beings are not in communion with God and therefore, perhaps, their true selves. It becomes impossible to see the world as it is, to respect its otherness, and therefore to treat it with true respect. In this ‘fallen’ state, one might say creation exists simply as an object of the narcissistic subject.
Part of the challenge in an analysis of narcissism has therefore also to do with contending with both omnipotence and envy.[5] The person believes, in some part of themselves, that they control and create their surroundings in an omnipotent way; theologically speaking, it is an idolatry of the self. This makes sense if we consider the above discussion of the absence of cathection to the external world as external, rather than as somehow internalized. This also serves a defensive function of allowing an illusion of control and may serve as a defense against anxiety caused by deeply held envy; to allow for others to exist outside of one’s own omnipotence would threaten the defensive need to feel in control of the environment, thus otherness cannot be allowed and in some sense stands under the constant threat of envious destruction.[6] In psychoanalysis, the loving presence of the analyst, as well as the nourishment they offer—from their own resources and not as an extension of the patient’s omnipotence— provides the possibility of movement away from fear of otherness to a willingness to open to otherness. Psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin offers the following observation:
“By the same token, this relinquishing of omnipotent control is what makes it valuable to the patient because it means that there is somebody out there from whom I can receive and learn something that is not autogenerated. There is somebody, an Other, out there to whom I might connect. In short, since the outside can become a source of goodness, it becomes safe and even desirable to go outside. Otherness is not simply, inherently, threatening.” (cited in Hoffman 2010, p. 174)
This essential aspect of psychoanalytic transformation, the willingness to not only accept but engage with the other, and even receive from the other, goes back, I believe, to Zizioulas’s (2006) discussion of humans’ realization of their capacity in accepting their incapacity. We are called not only to give, but to receive. To accept dependence requires great strength. In fact, Winnicott believed that one of the root causes of the hatred of women is our inability to contend with our own essential dependence, as first modeled by an infant whose entire existence is one of dependence on the mother or the ‘mothering one’ (see Ulanov 2005). Yet, if we can accept that there is that which we need which we do not self-generate, and yet which is provided, then we can open to the other gratefully. In her book on Winnicott and religion, Ulanov reiterates this theme:
“Like being itself symbolized in God’s all-giving, when an analysand reaches the capacity to believe in an analyst’s constancy shown in ordinary devotion to treatment, then the frightening trauma can be relived and relieved in the transference, and together, analyst and analysand can welcome the new. We can trust the psyche to traverse the gap in development, knitting it into the tissue aliveness of the true self. The analyst does not have to create anything. Nor does the patient. The psyche will do it. We can rely on the psyche to display what being does with its communicative resilient capacities, just what God displays in the unceasing generosity of creation.We need only to return to the place where we can once again receive what is given.” (2005, p. 74)
The recovery and building up of a True Self is not the same as the process of theosis, but perhaps it is part of the call to a genuinely religious life. Winnicott posits: “At the earliest stage the True Self is the theoretical position from which come the spontaneous gesture and the personal idea. The spontaneous gesture is the True Self in action. Only the True Self can be creative and only the True Self can feel real” (2007, p. 148).
Religious life is no less dangerously prone to the functioning of the False Self than any other area of life. And yet, per Zizioulas, it would seem that God is calling to our deepest selves to authentically relate to that which exists outside of us, a capacity for which exists inherently in Winnicott’s True Self—and which gets thwarted by the False Self. It is, I believe, meaningful that this sense of True Self is also that part of us whence comes spontaneity, original creativity, and a sense of authentic aliveness (Winnicott 2007). I postulate, then, that while the recovery of the True Self, and hence a sense of genuine aliveness, is not the same as the process of theosis, the healing process—however fraught—of reconnecting with one’s True Self must surely be part of the religious life. The Spirit beckons us to the depths as well as to the heights, to the healing of psyche as well as of soul, to deeper and truer relationships with other persons and ourselves, as well as to God. It beckons us to life.
Conclusion
My hope for this paper is that it might provide some further texture to the discussion of what it means to be fully human—a person. The movement from what Yannaras calls “the self-torture of narcissistic egocentrism” (1996, p. 89) to the state of openness to the Other and relationship with the Other can be considered a theological movement, but it is also an inner movement that involves our relationship to all others and thus enters into the realm of psychology and relationships. I hope that this initial exploration of the insights of a particular psychoanalytic theorist in dialogue with Christian theology may help theologians consider with compassion and greater understanding the wounding that causes a human being to curl up into a defensive ‘thing’ (per Zizioulas) incapable of true relationship to an Other, and perhaps give impetus to further consideration of the work of the devoted healers whose call is—I believe—a sacramental vocation of helping to hold our ‘selves-coming-into-being’ in their loving hearts and hands; perhaps it will also further reflection on how the True Self may be nurtured in religious communities. I hope, too, that this exploration will invite analysts and therapists who are interested in theology to continue considering the possibilities for healing contained in the journey of faith and the encounter with the unconditional love and discerning wisdom of God, meeting us in the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the Church and the mysteries of sacramental life—a love which can, by grace, restore us from ‘thing’ to ‘person’ in an ever-unfolding journey of healing, growth, and theopoetic transformation into the image and likeness of God.
References
Hoffman, M. T. (2010). Christianity, psychoanalysis, and the hope of eternal return. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 29(2).
Rilke, R. M. (1993). Letters to a young poet. New York: Norton.
Symington, N. (1993). Narcissism; A new theory. London: Karnac Books.
Symington, N. (1998). Emotion and spirit. London: Karnac Books.
Ulanov, A. B. (2005). Finding space: Winnicott, God, and psychic reality. Louisville:Westminster John Knox Press.
Winnicott. D.W. (1987). Further thoughts on babies as persons. In The child, the family and the outside world (pp. 85–92). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.
Winnicott, D. W. (1989a). Fear of breakdown. In C. Winnicott, R. Shepard, & M. Davis (Eds.), Psychoanalytic explorations (pp. 87–95). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Winnicott, D.W. (1989b). On the use of an object and relating through identifications. In C.Winnicott, R. Shepard, &M. Davis (Eds.), Psychoanalytic Explorations (pp. 218–227). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Winnicott, D. W. (1992). Aggression in relation to emotional development. In Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis: Collected Papers (pp. 204–218). New York: Brunner/Mazel.
Winnicott, D. W. (2007). Ego distortion in terms of True Self and False Self. In Maturational processes and the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development (pp. 140–152). London: Karnac Books.
Yannaras, C. (1996). Psychoanalysis and Orthodox anthropology. In J. T. Chirban (Ed.), Personhood, Orthodox Christianity and the connection between body, mind, and soul (pp. 83–89). Westport: Bergin & Garvey.
Zizioulas, J. D. (2006). Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church. New York: T&T Clark.
[1] This should not be confused with psychoanalytic uses of the word ‘introversion,’ though one might find interesting comparisons between this aspect of Zizioulas and the theories of Ronald Fairbairn on introversion.
[2] For those interested in psychoanalytic theory, this work of Zizioulas may also be a fruitful dialogue partner in looking at schizoid splitting, such as in the theories of Ronald Fairbairn and Harry Guntrip.
[3] This sense of convergence between religion and psychoanalysis on the topic of narcissism is shared by psychoanalytic theorist Neville Symington (see Symington 1993, 1998). His theory of narcissism shares much with Winnicott’s theory of the development of the false self but diverges around areas of infant intentionality (see Symington 1993).
[4] Although Winnicott does not address narcissism as much as its derivates (Symington 1993), he is clear that ‘false self’ living involves the absence of constructive use of symbols and an impoverished cultural life. This has to do with the false self’s tendency towards compliance and imitation rather than object cathection, having in turn to do with the failure to negotiate early on the transition from the illusion of omnipotence to the establishment of external objects through the mediating function and ‘transitional space’ supplied by the mother’s (or mothering one’s) ‘good-enough’ responsiveness to the infant’s spontaneous gestures (Winnicott 2007).
[5] Here Symington also serves as a guide in his in-depth discussion of parallels between the religious/spiritual path and that of the analysis of narcissism. Both, he writes, have to do with contending with the immensely destructive forces of omnipotence and envy, the analysis of which is heavily emphasized by the British School (Symington 1998).
[6] For further discussion on the role of destructiveness and the establishment of object-relations, see Winnicott’s paper “The Use of an Object and Relating through Identifications,” where he discusses the need for the mother, or later the analyst, to survive attempts at destruction in order to become established in the mind of the infant (or later the patient) as fully ‘other’ (Winnicott 1989a, b).
