The Bible, Wisdom and Human Nature

Page 116

The Bible, Wisdom and Human Nature

communication were the means by which working models were generated, maintained and transmitted to the next generation. This aspect of Bowlby’s theory provides a theoretical backdrop to the process of change evidenced in psychotherapy – a talking cure amidst an empathic, sensitive relationship. This issue will be expanded upon in the next chapter (‘Model of Psychotherapy’). Accounts of health and pathology which are centred around the issue of needy dependence on ‘the other’, such as those of Bowlby and Fairbairn, resonate well with an approach like the Waverley Model. It proposes that a mature dependence is a virtue, not a sign of immaturity as in the autonomous self of hyper-modernity. In addition, the concept that we internalise our relationships, ie that external experiences become part of our inner world, corresponds with biblical ideas of marriage (two become one); the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12), and that God in-dwells us. I have sought to affirm the value of a relational emphasis within modern psychological theories, especially via object relations and attachment theory as they began to deviate from Freud’s focus on biological drives. I have argued, however, that all three approaches can be complementary regarding explanations of motivation, rather than in opposition to each other. These theories give contemporary psychological credence to the relational emphasis of the traditional Waverley Model and are made more explicit in the adaptations of it for which this book argues. I have also outlined that from a biblical world-view, all three secular theories (even when regarded as complementing each other to form a broader notion of motivation) are limited by concepts that omit the benefit provided by a God relationship. This latter focus is distinctive of the Waverley Model in articulating the necessary specific ‘object’ (God) of mature dependency which thus defines ultimate health and pathology; normality and abnormality.

Abnormality and neuroscience In recent years neuroscientific research has added objective weight to the idea that relationality needs to be understood in embodied terms. Over the past thirty years, technological advances have made it 116

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Articles inside

Critique

52min
pages 144-180

Methods of change

1min
page 131

The Holy Spirit and change

5min
pages 132-134

Wisdom and the Holy Spirit

9min
pages 135-139

Analogy

4min
pages 141-143

Implications for counselling (a closer look

1min
page 140

Abnormality – individual agency and context

6min
pages 119-124

The focus of change

5min
pages 128-130

Assessment and diagnosis

4min
pages 125-127

Abnormality and neuroscience

5min
pages 116-118

Critiquing inwardness – implications for therapy

8min
pages 83-89

Repentance

7min
pages 90-93

Repentance and wisdom

9min
pages 94-98

Baxter, Scougal and motivation

3min
pages 81-82

Repentance and counselling

13min
pages 99-107

Augustine and motivation

7min
pages 77-80

Human motivation – a biblical theology?

5min
pages 74-76

Hughes and social context: psychosocial and social learning theory

12min
pages 67-73

Anthropomorphic metaphors

5min
pages 58-60

Hughes’ and Crabb’s relationality: ‘spiritual area’ of functioning

3min
pages 61-62

Relating theology and psychology

13min
pages 24-31

Image of God

27min
pages 42-57

Wisdom – a broad relationality

1min
page 63

Authority and sufficiency of Scripture

12min
pages 17-23

Sin

18min
pages 32-41

Relationality from the perspective of Genesis

5min
pages 64-66
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