Normative Thoughts, Normative Feelings, Normative Actions: A Protestant, Relational Psychoanalytic Reply to E. Christian Brugger and the Faculty of IPS

The present article is a response to E. Christian Brugger's 2008 article, Anthropological Foundations of Clinical Psychology, published in the Journal of Psychology & Theology (Volume 36, Number 1). In the article, Brugger argued that all psychological theories contain implicit anthropologies complete with values and ethics. Brugger called on theoreticians to overtly explicate their philosophical and theological model. He then presented such a system from his own Catholic tradition and invited authors from other Christian traditions to constructively interact. The authors of this article dialogue with Brugger's model using Reformed and Wesleyan theology and Relational Psychoanalysis. ********** In the Spring 2008 issue of the Journal of Psychology and Theology (Volume 36, Number 1), E. Christian Brugger and the faculty of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences published an article entitled Anthropological Foundations for Clinical Psychology: A Proposal. In their article, they argued that embedded within all psychologies and theories of psychotherapy arc implicit anthropological assumptions which contain value systems and judgments that are ethical in nature. Brugger further remarks that the values/judgments in these theories are often unacknowledged. While theories explicate what is considered pathological, the antecedent theories of normative behavior, or in ethical language, "the good," are rarely explicitly stated. Brugger is not the first to espouse this type of critique. Don Browning (1987) in his seminal book, "Religious Thought and the Modern Psychologies", (now in its second edition, Browning and Cooper (2004) persuasively argues a similar position, suggesting that each theory of psychotherapy contains latent "metaphors of ultimacy" (1987, p. 20). Browning examined several of the most popular schools of psychotherapy and demonstrated that each theory assumes unacknowledged, forgotten, and/or dissociated metaphors of ultimacy which actually make each theory a religio-ethical system replete with an implicit anthropology, values, morals, and derivatively a system of ethics. More recently, Richardson, Fowers, and Guignon (1999) as well as Cushman (1995) have also deconstructed modern psychology and psychotherapies, exposing their unacknowledged ethics and biases. In the wake of this deconstruction, Brugger challenges contemporary theorists to explicitly acknowledge the theological and philosophical anthropologies couched in his theory construction. Brugger believes there are three reasons why it would be helpful for theoreticians and clinicians to develop explicit accounts of the human person (i.e., an anthropology). "First, it is a way of evaluating the coherence of the ideas" (p. 5). "Second, it can assist the project of theory development" (p. 5). And third, "... formulating and publishing an account of human nature sets forth an example and invitation, even as a challenge, to other scholars forthrightly to follow suit" (p. 6). The present authors agree with Brugger's assertion that ethical psychological theory construction should be explicit with respect to anthropologies that animate those theories. We believe that Brugger's challenge to theoreticians and clinicians also contains implications that transcend academic and clinical settings. The Christian sub-cultures, and culture at large, are adrift on seas of pragmatism that engulf the human spirit in solution-seeking activities based on inadequate theological and anthropological assumptions. One need only read the current headlines to encounter the latest demise of a Christian minister/leader informed by such inadequate assumptions, with disappointing and even calamitous results. A return to mindful moorings of our narratives of ultimacy can anchor us and thereby deter perilous drifting. Brugger's call for full disclosure by theoreticians is consistent with contemporary philosophical hermeneutics, which recognizes the inevitability of embedded beliefs within every tradition. …