Freud and Christian Morality

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What effect did Freud's theory have on Christian morality in Western Culture ?

-- steve edwards (steve_e7@hotmail.com), January 06, 2004

Answers

A difficult question to answer. Christians would probably answer that Freud offered a competing and threatening model of morality. You'll find a variety of books criticizing Freud from a Christian perspective in my annotated bibliography:

Vande Kemp, H. (1984). Psychology and theology in western thought, 1672-1965: A historical and annotated bibliography. In collaboration with H. N. Malony. Millwood, NY: Kraus International. See especially the sections on "Morals, Responsibility, and Sexuality" and on "The Freudian Perspective."

Probably the most interesting work was that of O. Hobart Mowrer, the great learning theorist, who challenged Freud's idea that most guilt was neurotic and wrote about the significance of real guilt.

You might also check books written by Peter Homans and Donald Browning of the University of Chicago, both of whom have written critically about Freud from a Christian perspective. Below is a passage I have written about Mowrer's work:

Mowrer's work on integrity therapy, which emerged out of deep personal pain, is highly relevant for the psychology of religion. Mowrer reported having at least eight "more or less incapacitating depressions, two of sufficient severity to require hospitalization" (J. M. Hunt, 1984, p. 912). In an effort to cure his neurosis, Mowrer engaged in four courses of psychoanalysis, including extensive work with Hanns Sachs. Ultimately disillusioned, Mowrer decided around 1944 that he was "through with psychoanalysis" (Mowrer, 1966, p. 16). During his years of war-time work affiliation with the Office of Strategic Services, Mowrer was influenced by representatives of the Washington School of Psychiatry and Chestnut Lodge. In 1945 he enrolled in two courses at the Washington School of Psychiatry, one of which was a life-changing course with Harry Stack Sullivan. Mowrer reported that: Beginning with the Sullivan seminar in the spring of 1945. I ceased blaming morality (as embodied in my conscience and embedded in society) for my difficulties, and began to look at my own interpersonal failures and fraudulence as the root of the problem. ... following my "season in Hell" in 1953, I began to think much more seriously about religion. ... I felt that psychology had not "saved" me; and since I was still in a state of confusion and dismay I hoped that Christianity might. (pp. 33-34) Mowrer began to publish the ideas that crystallized into integrity therapy. In his early book on personality, Mowrer (1950) argued that there is a form of anxiety induced by guilt: "The view here proposed is that anxiety comes, not from acts which the individual would commit but dares not, but from acts which he has committed and wishes that he had not. It is, in other words, a 'guilt theory' of anxiety rather than an 'impulse theory'" (p. 537). Despite his efforts to live a more honest life, Mowrer was hospitalized for a suicidal depression in August 1953, on the eve of his ascendence to the presidency of the American Psychological Association. In 1956 Mowrer was invited to respond to a paper presented by Anton Boisen (1876-1965) at an APA symposium on Religion and Mental Health. After reading Boisen (1958), Mowrer (1966) believed that his own illness on the eve of his APA presidency served the functions of confession and penance: by not showing up in Cleveland I had “unconsciously” accomplished two things: (1) I had greatly extended my confession– now several thousand of my fellow psychologists knew there was something “wrong” with me, although they did not know precisely what; and (b) I had “done penance” in that I had declined the honors and undergone the humiliation of hospitalization and the pain of a severe agitated depression. (p. 24) Mowrer became increasingly convinced that in the neurotic individual "an identity crisis arises because of foolish, short- sighted decisions which the individual himself has made (to do deviant things and to hide them), for which no one but himself can be properly blamed. Such a person has had some freedom of choice and has exercised it badly" (p. 29). Mowrer's early papers on these topics were collected in The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion (1961), where his central argument is that disingenuous amorality may be a cause of personality disorders. A second collection of papers was published as The New Group Therapy. Here, Mowrer (1964) described the integrity therapy groups which were based on his understanding of the early church. Mowrer (1966) contended that "early Christianity was basically a small-groups movement in which alienated, sinful, 'neurotic' persons confessed before and did penance under the guidance of the particular 'congregation' (or 'house church') to which they belonged or wished to belong" (p. 35). He believed that Christianity, rather than being too "Puritanical, legalistic, rigid" suffered a different sin: "Is it not, rather, the church's claim that it has, in one form or another, special power--through the sacraments, preaching, or prayer- -to 'forgive' sins, in the sense of pardoning them, getting the evil- doer off easy, 'cheap grace' (Bonhoeffer, [1937/]1948)?" (Mowrer, 1966, p. 36). Mowrer felt that we should "revitalize the ancient practice of living openly, in community and fully under the judgment of one's family, friends, and close associates" (p. 37). His integrity groups emphasized the value of confession, restitution, and involvement (Mowrer, 1976). Mowrer echoed the thoughts of Runestam (1930/1958), who asserted in his critique of psychoanalysis that the root of neurotic illness lay in the fact that the moral force has been too weak, and the psychiatrist must deal with issues that are moral or religio-moral in nature. Mowrer wrote the foreword to Glasser's (1965) Reality Therapy, where Glasser argued that "human beings find themselves in emotional difficulty, not because their standards are too high, but because their performance is too low. Responsible living is the key to meeting our basic human need for relatedness and respect, and follows upon a realistic assessment of our situation" (Vande Kemp, 1984, p. 236). Thus, Mowrer and his colleagues emphasized that failures in interpersonal responsibility constitute instances of true guilt, a view that would have gratified Sullivan (1956/1973).

Bonhoeffer, D. (1948). The cost of discipleship (R. H. Fuller, Trans.). London: SCM Press. (Original work published 1937) Bonhoeffer, D. (1959). The cost of discipleship (Rev. ed.; R. H. Fuller, Trans.). New York: Macmillan. (Original work published 1937) Mowrer, O. H. (1950). Learning theory and personality dynamics. New York: Ronald Press. Mowrer, O. H. (1961). The crisis in psychiatry and religion. Princeton: Van Nostrand Insight Books. Mowrer, O. H. (1964). The new group therapy. Princeton: Van Nostrand. Mowrer, O. H. (1966). Abnormal reactions or actions? (An autobiographical account). Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown. Mowrer, O. H. (1976). Changing conceptions of neurosis and the small-groups movement. Education, 97, 24-62. Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry (H. S. Perry & M. R. Gawel, Eds.). New York: W. W. Norton. Sullivan, H. S. (1973). Clinical studies in psychiatry (H. S. Perry, M. L. Gawel, & M. Gibbon, Eds.). New York: Norton. (Original work published 1956)

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), January 08, 2004.


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