Analogy

grounds for engagement with secular practices (‘analogy’); however, wisdom’s theistic and Christological aspects result in distinctiveness (‘critique’). This balance means that a wholesale absorption (syncretism) is avoided; secular insights may be appropriated (Hughes and Crabb’s ‘Spoiling the Egyptians’) where a Christian world-view is not compromised. Hurding, whilst offering an historical overview of the above factors, expresses the value of an approach encompassing both special and general revelation:

At best, the people of God have sifted, evaluated and challenged contemporary thinking in the light of Scripture; at worst, they have found the approach of the ‘two horizons’ too daunting and have either escaped into the bolt-hole of reaction or embraced the cosy anonymity of assimilation, taking in presuppositions and objectives of the surrounding culture with little or no critical reflection.195

The selection of topics covered is necessarily limited, and is intended to illustrate the above rather than offer a comprehensive, systematic coverage. The list extends Irving’s previous work on this topic. Given the discussion of wisdom earlier (Chapter 3), the supporting evidence will be predominately confined to secular therapies, specifically psychodynamic, person-centred and cognitive behavioural, as they represent three well established and prevalent modalities.

This approach assumes continuity between Christ in the life of the Church and the world. Dueck sums it up well: ‘This approach begins with God’s selfdisclosure and then moves by way of analogy from God’s covenant to creation, from God’s action to ours, from the Christ event to historical events.’196

Whilst there is not an absolute parallel across therapeutic modalities, generally speaking both secular psychotherapy and biblical wisdom assume the following:

a. The value of developing skills which aid successful practical living involving physical, emotional, cognitive, moral and spiritual realms. Some secular approaches explicitly utilise ‘skills training’ language when describing goals and methods of attaining them.197 Others dislike the modernist connotations of a skills training approach – control, mastery via an expert – to therapy. However, it could be argued that the values and practices which are adopted by the latter are really a different set of skills under another name; for example, for Olthuis ‘a way of being’ is clearly the key therapeutic ‘skill’ which is modelled so that clients likewise may adopt this ‘way of being’.198

b. The importance of human dignity. Each places a high value on persons as they are regarded as possessing inherent worth and are endowed with attributes and potential which are worth prizing.

c. Personal responsibility for choices and behaviour. In general terms people are regarded as volitional and thus therapists must avoid imposition of their own values and ways of living. This could be identified by the way therapists work with client transference (especially idealised forms). Therapists would thus avoid acting on the ‘pull’ of a client to become the ‘expert with all the answers’.199 The BACP fosters respect for client autonomy, and hence implicitly supports human agency and volition.

d. The value of reflection on suffering which become the means of growth and adaptation. As discussed in Chapter 3, biblical wisdom can also include direct instruction regarding the passing on of skills and knowledge. This element, according to Hurding’s scheme of ‘analogy’, best fits with cognitive behavioural approaches rather than psychodynamic or person-centred ones.

e. Human flourishing and growth occurs amidst an ongoing process of reflective learning and adaptation. This could be facilitated via personcentred or CBT values and practices.200

f. The value of tasks such as making judgments, gaining experience, introspection, gaining knowledge, skills, obtaining insights from

mistakes. In CBT for example, behavioural experiments set as homework may confirm new ‘balanced thinking’, or the converse. In the latter case this provides grounds from which the new ‘balanced belief’ may be discovered to be inadequate, and hence is further refined.

g. An individual’s psychological complexity including unconscious dynamics which require specific skills if they are to be worked through. Psychodynamic therapists give a special focus to this aspect of human functioning, although there is a broad consensus across approaches regarding the relevance of unconscious processes. Forshaw states: ‘we think of the wide agreement in psychology that the bulk of the individual’s self is held in a mysterious system called the unconscious.’201 Young, Klosko and Weishaar, from their cognitively-based approach, affirm many parallels (and some differences) with psychodynamic approaches, including working with transference and countertransference phenomena arising from the unconscious. Rogers, from a person-centred perspective, also accepts as valid the concept of transference phenomena, albeit that he believes acute transference is less prevalent than do psychodynamic therapists. Additionally, the personcentred therapist, whilst accepting the possibility of attribution biases towards them (transference) would expect to resolve them differently – by means of acceptance rather than interpretation, through which the therapist disproves negative unconscious distortions, or overly idealised positive ones. The latter may be achieved by the therapist’s self-acceptance as ‘less than ideal’ and hence the refusal to collude with the client’s projection.

h. The necessity of providing a safe space where a non-defensive deep exploration of self can occur – ‘to search and be searched’.202 Safety as a value is most readily identifiable with Rogers’ approach as it arises as a corollary to his second core condition for change, namely acceptance. Forshaw, from a contemporary, ‘relational’ psychodynamic approach, also espouses the virtue of safety (via acceptance and worth) if positive change is to occur. It may be less obvious that cognitive approaches also