Personal Journey (Part III)

Although I had personally experienced psychoanalytic therapy (1983; 1987-91) before pastoral psychotherapy training, I was still learning about psychoanalysis and analytic therapy as a discipline. It was during pastoral psychotherapy training that I was further introduced to psychiatry, marriage and family counseling, and the major theories and techniques of psychotherapy in general. It was also at this time that I was reintroduced to evolution--especially evolutionary biology. My major supervisor was very interested in evolution and the evolution of the brain. This was the "Decade of the Brain" which was 1990-2000. So I began to revisit the Darwinian evolutionary biology that I had first taken in college. And what a revisit it was! I discovered Richard Dawkins the zoologist and writer of popularized science books on Evolution. I think I began with The Selfish Gene. From there I went to The Blind Watch Maker, River Out of Eden, Unweaving the Rainbow, A Devil's Chaplain, The God Delusion, and The Ancestor's Tale. I further continued my readings in science and religion that included: The Varieties of Scientific Experiences by Carl Sagan, God and the New Physics by Paul Davies, and Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience by W.W. Meissner. I also reread Freud's understanding of religion, specifically his The Future of an Illusion. All of these books from the scientific fields of biology, physics, and psychoanalysis were about a scientific understanding of religion. They all caused me, in one way or another, to learn more about what the various sciences had to say about human nature, including my own. And I fully embraced them. As I continued as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, the scientific understanding of human nature continued to ring true to me...........I joined the American Psychoanalytic Association as a psychotherapist associate, and also became a psychotherapist associate of the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society (1998.) Not only did I immerse myself in learning psychoanalysis and it's application to my therapy practice, I also began reading about how evolution and the evolution of the brain had impacted the entire field of psychotherapy. I further read Psychoanalytically informed Evolutionary Psychology texts such as: PsychoDarwinism by Christopher Badcock, Evolutionary Psychology by Badcock, The Evolution of the Emotion-Processing Mind by Robert Langs, and The Adaptive Design of the Human Psyche by Slavin and Kriegman. I found myself now seeing how the science of biology, and especially evolutionary biology undergirded psychoanalysis........... During this time I was also trying to wrap my head around the four major theories of psychoanalysis which are: ego psychology, object relations, self psychology, and relational psychoanalysis. All the while I continued to work with many religious patients, even as I was now an agnostic ( 2010). One book that really helped me in my work with patients was, Working With Religious Issues in Therapy by Lovinger. This text espoused a scientific psychoanalytic understanding of religion. These and other texts plus continuing education conferences helped me in working with my clients. Since I had been raised Christian and served as a pastor in my first career, I had a good feel for how my religious patients thought and felt about the world and themselves. Even though I now espoused agnosticism ( 2010), I continued to embrace the common humanistic/social justice values held by the major world religions and most free democratic societies. I was now seeing how these same democratic values were held not only by Christian humanists and agnostics, but were also the values of many naturalists and existentialists. I found myself identifying with these groups and the common values and social justice ethics we all held. Later on I discovered a second scientific field that was becoming integrated into psychoanalysis. That field was Neuroscience. Neuroscience is the name of a group of disciplines that try to understand the mind by studying the brain. These sciences took a great leap forward during the previously mentioned "Decade of the Brain." The problem was I had no background in this area. Evolution I had studied in college, and evolution was included in theology and philosophy courses while in seminary. But "Brain Science" I had never studied! But since it was all the craze during this time, I decided to give it a try. It was not a very successful venture. I could not seem to grasp what these neurologists, neuropsychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists were talking about. Thankfully however, I discovered a group of psychoanalysts who did understand neuroscience, and these analysts I could understand. These included: Neuroscientist Eric Kandel, David Olds, Alan Shore, Howard Shrevin, John Gedo, Peter Fonagy, Drew Westen, Glenn Gabbard snd others.) ....................... In recent years (starting in 1998 to the present), these psychoanalysts who are also neuroscientists have formed a new interdisciplinary field call neuropsychoanalysis, where they combine the two fields of neuroscience and psychoanalysis. The neuropsychoanalyst that I understood the most was Mark Solms, PhD. He is a South African neuropsychologist who is also a practicing psychoanalyst. The first book of his I read was, The Brain and the Inner World. Since then I have read several more of his books, attended a number of his seminars, and listened to his online lectures. So though I still somewhat new at the integration of neuroscience into my psychoanalytic theory and practice (2020-present), I am now getting it!! And it is quite exciting............ So today, after sixteen years in pastoral ministry, and twenty three years moving from pastoral psychotherapy to psychoanalytic therapy and finally to neuropsychoanalytic therapy, I have been on quite a learning and growing journey. I started out as a Baptist Christian who dabbled in counseling but ended up in the Ministry (1979-1995.)The fields of study for that profession were mainly Bible, Church History, ( which I have talked about in my previous three personal journey posts.) From there it was the reintroduction to fields of Philosophy and Science-- evolutionary biology, the science and psychoanalysis of religion, natural history, paleoanthropology, neuroscience and psychoanalytically oriented therapy (1991 to 2020).............. And in the last four years I have especially concentrated on learning further the interdisciplinary field of neuropsychoanalysis. Though there have been major changes along the way, I can still say that all of these fields, at various stages in my life, assisted in my search to where I am today--understanding human nature and my own human nature scientifically and naturalistically rather than supernaturalistically, and especially neuropsychoanalytically. I am further applying my scientific worldview in working now with patients in neuropsychoanalytic psychotherapy. What a journey it has been and continues to be. Thanks again for reading along...Ask a question!! Make a comment...Tell me who you are !