Rejoinder and Clarifications on Helminiak's (2001) “Treating Spiritual Issues in Secular Psychotherapy”

Abstract

This article responds to 3 response articles and, discerning fundamental and deeply felt differences of opinion, notes in the articles (a) insistence on importing religion into psychotherapy, (b) serious misunderstanding about the proposed psychology of spirituality, (c) argument primarily by appeal to authority, and (d) a remarkable amount of imprecision and ad hominem comments. Specifically, R. E. Watts (2001) confounds religion and spirituality in championing clients' spirituality; B. D. Slife and P. S. Richards (2001) curiously argue that all psychotherapy is theological and, to this extent, is immune to criticism; and A. Marquis, J. M. Holden, and E. S. Warren (2001) uncritically embrace Eastern metaphysics, which ultimately disqualifies Western psychological concern for evidence and conceptual coherence. Offering clarifications, this article suggests that the target article deserves further consideration.

The Problem of “God” in Psychology of Religion: Lonergan's “Common Sense” (Religion) Versus “Theory” (Theology)

“…To correct these supposed inadequacies, this movement would advance theistic psychology to the status of a standard “school” such as the psychoanalytic, behaviorist, humanistic, or cognitive (Bartz , 69; Slife, Reber, and Lefevor , 234). An extreme position, to be sure (Helminiak , , ; Helminiak, Hoffman, and Dodson ), theistic psychology is at least admirably up front about its insistence that scientific explanation must include the activity of God.…”

“…Echoing a famous medieval debate, Lonergan () made the same point: “Those with no taste for systematic meaning will keep repeating that it is better to feel compunction than to define it” (329). At stake is what I called “leveling the field…by obfuscation” (Helminiak , 47.2), namely, the refusal or inability to address theism in a theoretical mode; the insistence that commonsensical religion—personal piety and faith—be immune to criticism or questioning (Helminiak , 243–44; , 66); and the assumption that the achievement of accurate knowledge and its precise expression is a human impossibility in any case (Helminiak , 49, 53, 59; see , 133). Making the same point in yet another way, Lonergan () insists on the critical difference “between the religious apprehension of a doctrine and the theological apprehension of the same doctrine” (333).…”

“Theistic Psychology and Psychotherapy”: A Theological and Scientific Critique

“…In contrast, Robert Emmons (1999) and Ralph Piedmont (2005), to some extent, and clearly Roberto Assagioli ([1965] 1976), Viktor Frankl (1962[1969] 1988, and the School of Logotherapy (Institute of Logotherapy 1979) refrain from implicating metaphysical entities in their treatments of human spirituality (see Helminiak 1987;2008d). I have argued at length (Helminiak 1987;1996a, b;2001b;2005a; that, while fully open to theist extrapolation, a genuine psychology of spiritual-ity can and must have its ground in the human mind-namely, in the mind's experientially available, open-ended, self-transcending capacity for knowing and choosing, which Lonergan ([1957Lonergan ([ ] 19921972; called intentional consciousness or human spirit. In 1916, James Leuba had proposed such an approach to the spiritual: "The word does not imply anything supernatural.…”

“…According to Richards and Bergin's idiosyncratic usage, psychology, philosophy, and theology are seemingly the same discipline. Slife and Richards (2001) are lucid regarding this claim (Helminiak 2001a). Seconded by Sian-Yang Tan (2006, 261), Reber states that religion-not religious studies or theology-is a "discipline of study " (2006b, 195), a "discipline in academia" with its own "theory, method, or means by which to understand and treat human life" (p. 202); and, supposedly, despite proprietary definitions of truth and truth's criteria (Reber 2006a), religion stands on a par with a potential dialogue partner, psychology.…”

“…At its core, theology deals in reasonably accounting for the existence of things and, in a common version, sees God as Creator. In contrast, science deals with understanding realities whose existence is a given (Helminiak 1998). Hence, Marquis de Laplace's notorious response to Napoleon Bonaparte's question about the absence of God in his explanation of planetary motion was legitimate: "I have no need of that hypothesis."…”