Emotion and Transformation in the Relational Spirituality Paradigm Part 1. Prospects and Prescriptions for Reconstructive Dialogue

Advances in several areas of psychological science in the last 20 years suggest that the time may be right to take up anew the challenge of constructing an integrative psychology-theology framework for studying the affective basis of spiritual transformation (Emmons, 2005). The objective of this three-article series is to outline a theology-driven metapsychology for one approach; a moral motive analysis of the role of emotion in spiritual transformation. Toward that end, these articles outline 1) a framework for conceptualizing a "Good Life" story (Murphy's MacIntyrean framework), 2) a paradigm for integrating conceptions of moral development and spiritual transformation (relational spirituality paradigm), 3) a theological tradition for clarifying the importance of multiple processes of change (apophatic tradition), and finally 4) an approach to modeling the affective basis of transformation (moral motive analysis). Collectively these articles attempt to delineate an interdisciplinary paradigm that is consistent with the sensibilities of Aristotelean virtue ethics (MacIntyre, 1984), contemporary moral motive theory (Emmons & McCullough, 2004), and the apophatic tradition of personality change (Jones, 2002). The purpose of the present article is, first, to summarize Murphy's MacIntyrean framework (Dueck & Lee, 2005) as a heuristic for theory-construction to be used in subsequent articles. Second, it discusses five trends in current psychological theory that highlight the need for of a new approach to emotion and transformation. Prospects and prescriptions for future theory and research are suggested throughout the article. ********** It is a mistake to think of psychoanalysis and Prozac as different means to the same end. The point of psychoanalysis is to help us develop a clearer, yet more flexible and creative, sense of what our ends might be. "How shall we live?" is, for Socrates, the fundamental question of human existence--and the attempt to answer that question is, for him, what makes human life worthwhile. And it is Plato and Shakespeare, Proust, Nietzsche, and most recently, Freud, who complicated the issue by insisting that there are deep currents of meaning, often cross- currents, running through the human soul which can at best be glimpsed through a glass darkly. This if anything, is the Western tradition: not a specific set of values, but a belief that the human soul is too deep for there to be any easy answer to the question of how to live. --Jonathan Lear, Open Minded The relevance of metapsychology for theory and research in psychotherapy and spiritual transformation cannot be overstated. Advances in several areas of psychological science in the last 20 years suggest that the time may be right to take up anew the challenge of constructing an "integrative" psychology-theology framework for studying the affective basis of spiritual transformation (Emmons, 2005). In recent psychotherapeutic and spiritual formation literatures we are witnessing increased interest in relational and emotion-focused approaches to personality change (Bucci, 1997; Fosha, 2000), and their application to spiritual transformation (Fredrickson, 2002; Hall, 2004; Shults & Sandage, 2006). This interest, in turn, derives in large part from four contemporary developments in the interdisciplinary study of personality and emotion: 1) the burgeoning literature on the psychology of positive emotions (Snyder & Lopez, 2007), championed in large part by Fredrickson's (2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, 2) the return of virtue conceptions of moral development (Worthington & Berry, 2005), promoted by the positive psychology movement (Seligman & Csikszentmihayli, 2000), 3) new conceptualizations of the "moral emotions" (affects) as motivators of prosocial action (Emmons & McCullough, 2004), facilitated by a "turn" in moral psychology away from Kohlbergian cognitive rationalism and toward "social intuitionist" accounts (Haidt, 2001), and 4) the proliferation of more "psycho-dynamically informed" (Westen, 1998) models of personality, featuring new integrations of social-cognitive and relational models of affective change (Fosha, 2000; Horowitz, 1991; Westen, 2002). …