From Libido to Love: Relational Psychoanalysis and the Redemption of Sexuality

The author presents a case which posits the profound growth potential of relational psychoanalysis when it is grounded in a thoroughly Christian world view. Prefacing the case of Graciella, is a brief overview of pertinent relational and Christian concepts. The movements of this psychoanalysis are then interpreted as composed of three transference cadences: Abandonment and the longing for nurture; Rejection and the plea for acceptance, and Destruction and the survival of the object. Graciella's maturation toward intersubjective relationships, educational and career achievements, and spiritual and artistic formation are chronicled. Verbatim patient interactions as well as patient dreams, poetry and journal entries lend poignancy to the narration. ********** Rare in these days of managed care and "drive-thru" sanctification is the opportunity to practice a psychotherapy that even modestly resembles a discipling journey. Rarer still, is the likelihood of finding a patient willing to commit to this kind of journey and to do so wholeheartedly. It is of one such journey, a fortuitous confluence of both journey guide and soujourner, that I write. As journey guide, I have studied the ancient maps of our souls contained in holy writ. Unchanging in accuracy, they have been my continual reference points as I with regularity deliberate over, and update the therapeutic journey to which I invite my patients. Practicing a distinctively Christian relational psychoanalysis has, for me, most closely paralleled the two-tiered pathway to the healing of human suffering that Scripture charts: an addressing of the human mind and heart in all of its complexity and conflict, superimposed on an even more foundational call to relationship, first with God and then with our neighbor. It is relationality that lies at the heart of our Christian experience. Relational psychoanalysis asserts, in agreement with Scripture, that we are born to relate. Furthermore, it elaborates in ways that elucidate and extend Scriptural principles, how relational dynamics propel the establishment, maintenance, enactment and repair of human struggles. Relational Psychoanalysis: Overview The compatibility of relational psychoanalysis and Christianity is no accident. Complementing the Freudian emphasis on the quest for "truth" in the face of human denial and defense, object relations theorists such as W. R. D. Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott (who were both raised in devoutly Christian homes), added to Freud's emphasis on "truth" (Word), the emphasis on "relationship" (Spirit) to dramatically alter Freud's Enlightenment-based and "hydraulically-driven" version of the human psyche (Hoffman, 2004). (1) Fairbairn and Winnicott asserted that the earliest mother/infant relationship established the seeds of brokenness [i.e. "fallenness"]. Relational patterns, (which today are being researched, catalogued, and validated through infant observation [Beebe & Lachmann, 1988; Main & Hesse, 1992; Sander, 1977, etc.]) are encoded, setting the child on a course which ensures the transmission of the "sins of the fathers." These patterns, Fairbairn (1952) theorized, become maintained in order to provide some semblance, though destructive, of attachment to one's primary caregiver. It is to these patterns that relational psychoanalysis addresses itself. Recognizing the patient's internal warfare between old patterns and new ways of being, the analyst allows himself/herself to be pulled into the battlefield in a process called enactment. Militating against the notion that there is only one broken person in the consultation room (Searles, 1979), relational psychoanalysis as a "two-person psychology" (Aron, 1996), and in keeping with a truly Christian view of human depravity, holds that the "old nature" (Christian rendering) of the analyst initially pulls him/her into the patient's and his or her own "fallen" relational patterns (Mitchell, 1988; Aron, 1996) and that this can be, if understood, a redemptive occurrence. …