Why I Love Science

Science is a wonderful thing! It took me a long time to realize that. I spent the first half of my life  in the Christian theological circle. I went to seminary and got a Masters of Divinity degree followed by a Doctor of Ministry degree. From the seminary I became an associate pastor and then a pastor.  While serving in Ministry I studied the progressive theologians, including the Process Theologians. Moving to the edge of the theological circle,  I became  a panentheist ( see Charles Hartshorne).   From there I  began to explore the philosophical circle-- especially Existentialist and Evolutionary Philosophy.  I also read the Process Philosopher ( mentioned above), Charles Hartshorne. Then, around the age of 40, I began to more fully embrace the  scientific circle, which  eventually led me to embrace pantheism (The God of Spinoza and Einstein, which equates God and nature).              

Once I moved into the science circle, I realized that my first exposure  to the sciences had actually begun in college-- these were the social sciences of sociology, psychology, political science, and cultural anthropology . But it was much later that I began to study the  natural sciences, ie psychoanalysis ( some disagree it is a natural science but I am of the camp that believes it is), neuroscience , biology, biological anthropology, paleoanthropology, earth science and astronomy. (Physics is my latest challenge, but so far I find it the most difficult to understand!)

Fully embracing science has taught me so much about human nature, including my own, and the nature of the universe And the good news is that what I have learned is based in evidence. That is what I like the most about science as a source of truth. It is not based in Revelation like religion. Nor  is it  based only in rational reason and logic as is philosophy.  Science is based in evidence, in facts proven by the scientific method.  A great example of scientific fact finding is the called " Theory"  of Evolution In Darwin's Day, Evolution was a theory. Now it has become a fact. As Richard Dawkins says, "Evolution is a fact, and the evidence for it is as strong as anything we have in science." And Stephen Gould wrote," Evolution is a fact. And the theory of natural selection is one of several mechanisms that explain the fact of evolution." Finally, Carl Sagan said," Evolution is a fact, not a theory.... and the fossil record and the molecular biology all confirm it."

What I also love about science is that  science is not a fixed set of beliefs that are accepted as immutable Truth. Science, even more than philosophy, which is based in reason and logic, is based in observation, hypothesis, experiment and confirmation. And as such its findings are trustworthy because they are based in evidence.

The other beauty of science is it is always open to change and alteration. If a better scientific theory comes along and can be shown to be superior to an established one, the new theory wins. Moving from the Flat Earth Theory to the Round Earth Fact was one example of just such a scientific shift. Christopher Columbus experimented with the theory that the earth was round rather than flat. And, by getting in a boat and sailing to what he thought was India (actually the Americas), he proved his theory correct! His theory, through scientific evidence, became a fact. No one today doubts the earth is round.

To me, this makes science the best source of knowledge we have for discovering truth. That is because in science " facts reign supreme" ( Brenner). And the scientific method is the best tool we have to establish what the facts truly are, because it is based in evidence and proof.

I could go on about why I truly love science, but I think my point has been made. I will simply conclude by saying, science has been a continuous source of trustworthy knowledge for me for the last 36 years. And I look forward to what truth, based on evidence, it will teach me in the future!

Survising Psychoanalytic and Neuropsychoanalytic Students

My first supervision of psychoanalytic therapy students shortly after I began practicing as a psychoanalytic psychotherapy.  I prepared to do supervision by obtaining five years of analytic therapy supervision myself, followed by a year of supervision of my supervision. Supervision of your supervision means an experienced supervisor coaches you in providing supervision to students. I also was approved by the State Board of Counseling to be a LPC Supervisor....... I remember a student who was doing a masters degree in counseling in order to become an LPC ( Licensed Professional Counselor.) As in most LPC training programs, the students are taught the dozen or so major theories of psychotherapy, and the common principles of psychotherapy technique. Psychoanalytic theory and practice is just one of those twelve orientations to psychotherapy. Luckily this student was quite interested in psychoanalytic work.

So we began. He started as a practicum student, remained on as an intern, and then decided to do his residency with us as well. All of this supervision took five years. Having little experience in supervising student therapists through these various competency levels, I was not confident in how to proceed. So at first I basically supervised him and others the way I was supervised. I did read a half dozen books on psychoanalytic supervision along the way. I will share those titles later. The structure I decided on was this: We would meet weekly for an hour. The first week would be didactic, and I would teach him psychoanalytic theory and psychotherapy technique. The second week would be more traditional supervision where he would bring in his therapy cases for us to discuss. We would precede with that format for the full five years. Of course to pass the LPC Exam in VA you have to know the other eleven therapy orientations as well. We agreed to explore those orientations enough to pass the Exam! My supervisee's patients were patients in our Center. He had his own office and got great experience in group private practice. 

I supervised the above trainee for 5 years. After him, I was fortunate over the years to be able to supervise 13 more interns and residents in analytic therapy. 

About 2017, I started studying neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy.  By 2025 I felt I knew enough to supervisee trainees in neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy. I used my unpublished book/training manual, which was a compilation  of my blog posts on the subject, as the basis for the training. I still today in 2026, and in semi retirement,  consult with other psychoanalytic  clinicians interested in learning neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy. If you are interested in this consultation, leave a comment here on my blog or email me at calanmeltonw@gmail.com.

Personal and Professional Journey V--- Pastoral Counseling Training Centered in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

Pastoral Counseling/Psychotherapy Training   was mainly a faith based psychoanalytic psychotherapy training experience. It was a dual track program that provided me with both a Certification in Pastoral Counseling and  the requirements to become a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). After my training I became a psychoanalytically oriented Certified Pastoral Counselor and a  LPC. 

The theological knowledge in pastoral psychotherapy training was  assumed to have been completed in seminary, so the concentration was on the science--biology, psychology, psychoanalytic therapy theory and practice, and other scientific approaches to treatment. I specifically focused on Freudian and mainstream psychoanalytic therapy.  

Spirituality in the pastoral psychotherapy world is very broadly defined from traditional Christian, to Liberal Theology, to World Religions,  to a Higher Power as one defines it etc. So my growing comfort with Unitarianism views fit right in. My theological position at that time was Panentheism as espoused somewhat by Paul Tillich, but even more pronounced in the  Process Philosopher Charles Hartshorne.  ( I continued, however, to hold the positive Christian ethics humanitarianism and social justice. ethics. I further discovered that many cultural Christians, humanists, agnostics, and atheists lived by these ethics as well). 

Because of my interests and experience in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, I was able to "major" so to speak in that type of practice. Like other traditional psychotherapy training programs this training was tripartite. It consisted of: 1. Didactic coursework 2. Supervision and 3. Personal Therapy. I had already done personal analytic therapy,  so I just dove into the coursework and supervision. My main supervisor  happened to be an Interpersonalist  psychoanaytically oriented pastoral psychotherapist. I was still a pastor at the time so my "clients" were my parishioners and people in the community who were interested in therapy.

My supervisor picked up with me where I was at that time, when I was beginning to read in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy practice field. That year, 1992, a book was published entitled, Psychotherapy: The Analytic Approach, by Morton Aronson and Melvin Scharfman--both classically trained Modern Freudian psychoanalysts. But the book was not about how to do psychoanalysis, but how to do psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The major difference between the two is that psychoanalysis takes place on a couch five times a week for an average of five years, and is only done by psychoanalysts (which to become one requires a different training than I was receiving). Psychoanalytic psychotherapy, on the other hand, takes place sitting in a chair across from the therapist, once or twice a week, for three years (on average.) In the broader world of all mental health professions this is often called psychodynamic therapy, exploratory therapy, or insight oriented therapy. It is based in psychoanalytic principles but the technique is different and the depth of insight is less--because it is not as intense as psychoanalysis, due to less time spent in treatment and fewer sessions per week, etc.

In reading this book and going over it in supervision and applying it to my work with my patients, I came to learn that within psychoanalytic psychotherapy there are two types: insight and supportive. Insight therapy is more similar to psychoanalysis and the goal is depth personality change. Supportive therapy is more about making some personality changes over time, but also learning to understand the nature of your personality problems and learn to better manage them in your life.

Which type of therapy I would do with a particular client would depend on many factors, but the main two would be how interested the client was in insight therapy, and how capable they were to do it. No psychotherapy experience is easy but insight therapy requires a great deal of time, effort and hard work that at times can be anxiety producing as well as anxiety relieving.

What I also learned was that supportive therapy was a description of everything I did as a and a teenager and college student in the Church. It encompassed ministering to others, offering care and support, acceptance and empathy-- and even encouragement and guidance. Supportive therapy also included everything I had learned and practiced in seminary in Rogerian therapy---empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard. And even some of what I had learned from Interpersonalist psychoanalysts in seminary training and pastoral psychotherapy training could all be included in supportive therapy.

At the same time insight therapy inspired me the most. So that was the new path I was on, and that is what I learned to do. This text I was studying started me down that path. There were chapters in the book by Sander Abend, Jacob Arlow, Harold Blum, Martin Blum, Barbara Deutsch, and Richard Kessler--all classically trained psychoanalysts teaching me how to do analytically oriented, insight oriented, or exploratory psychotherapy. 

Personal and Professional Journey IV---From Pastoral Counseling to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy

In the couple of pastoral care and counseling courses I took in seminary I mainly learned Client Centered Counseling (It was not called psychotherapy back in 1976.) Carl Rogers was the creator of this approach to counseling. He first called it client centered counseling and later person centered counseling. It was also known as humanistic therapy. (Remember that

I had been introduced to Rogers in the college course on Humanistic Psychology.) The Rogerian approach was pretty basic and easily taught to beginning counselors, which ministerial students were. It was all about empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard. This approach fit in quite well with what I had been doing most of my life with others. I was also introduced to the interpersonalist psychoanalysts. They were all about the relationship with the client and the counselor, and being a 'participant observer" which simply meant you cared about the client, showed them that you cared through empathy, and formed a deep abiding relationship with them. ( Later I learned this is called the Therapeutic Alliance.) The psychoanalysts who helped inform my seminary pastoral counseling courses were: Erik Erikson and Erich Fromm.

The one that stuck in my mind was Erich Fromm. My college girl friend ( who has been my wife for 46 years), had given me a book by Fromm entitled, The Art of Loving (1956.) It was a classic. I loved that book! (Ha!) And I still have it. ( You can figure out all the motives that might lie behind why I kept it all these years), but one reason I kept it was that I so agreed with it. In chapter 1 Fromm asks, Is Love an Art? Chapter 2 he titles, Love, the Answer to the Problem of Human Existence. He goes on in chapter 3 to speak of the Objects of Love and Love and its Disintegration in Contemporary Western Society. His last chapter spoke to me the most. It was: The Practice of Love. I remember that Fromm described for me that ministering to others, counseling, care and support, empathy, acceptance, etc., were all about the Practice of Love. So now my counseling was beginning to be explicitly infuenced by psychoanalysts, where it has been implicity influenced by them earlier--at least by Erich Fromm's Practice of Love.

But there was more psychoanalytic influence to come while in seminary(1976-79.) I was also introduced there to the more Mainstream of Psychotherapy, but was taught that psychoanalysis was something that pastors needed to know about but that it was beyond our ability to do. And of course that was true. We might have two to three courses in seminary in pastoral counseling. That was enough training to prepare us to do brief, supportive counseling with our parishoners. Anything beyond that we were taught to refer our parishoners to professional therapists.

So while a student in seminary, I had a good feel for what I was to do as a minister when it came to pastoral care and counseling. This would be one of four major tasks I was supposed to do. The other three were: Preach, Teach, and Administer the Education Program of the Church. So I did that. First, while still in seminary, I did an Internship in Campus Ministry at a private Catholic College. I followed that Internship with a job as the Interim Campus Minister at the state university. Upon graduating, I began my first full time ministry job as an associate pastor. But it seemed the longer I stayed in that first church job (total of four years), the more counseling I did. And it went beyond short term counseling. I saw one person weekly for maybe up to a year. This experience caused me to realize I needed more training. This person's problems were much more that I was prepared to handle. So as is my custom I began to read up a storm in the pastoral counseling field.  A psychoanalyst I knew also introduced me to the writings of the psychoanalysts Karen Horney and Sigmund Freud. 

Then what turned out to be a four year Residency in Ministry ended, and I moved into a position as a Pastor. ( Before taking the Pastor job I considered returning to campus ministry. I did not pursue that path and accepted my first pastor job.) Now I would still be doing the same four things I had done in my job as an associate, but as I stayed in the pastorate year after year, for a total of twelve years(1983-95), I became very close with many of the members and my pastoral counseling got deeper and deeper with them. I would set up formal appointment times for an hour each, and would do up to three months of counseling with certain ones. I was even covered, as a pastor, by my church liability insurance for doing pastoral counseling in my role as pastor. I was quite content doing this amount of pastoral counseling only, because I had so much else I had to do in preaching, teaching, and administering the church. 

Throughout that experience I continued reading in the counseling field, and thought I might want to practice psychoanalytic psychotherapy myself. The book that influenced me the most at that point was Howard Clinebell's, Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling (1963)-- another classic in the pastoral counseling field. His book was an introduction to all the types of counseling a minister might wish to do including: marriage counseling, supportive counseling, counseling on Religous and Existential Questions, and what he called Depth Counseling. When I got to that Depth Counseling chapter in the book, I knew I was on the right track ( I met Clinebell while in pastoral psychotherapy training). 

Here is what he wrote on page 266 as the definition of Depth Counseling: " Depth pastoral counseling is a long-term helping process aimed at effecting depth changes in the counselee's personality by uncovering and dealing with hidden feelings, intrapsychic conflicts, and repressed early life memories. The terms insight counseling, pastoral psychotherapy, and depth pastoral psychotherapy are roughly synonymous." This is what I knew that I wanted to do. But to do this type of counseling/psychotherapy (notice the new word of psychotherapy), Clinebell wrote that you needed to be a "competent psychotherapist." Oh my, I was not that--not yet. Cinebell went on to write in that book about Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Carl Jung--all psychoanlaysts. He further went back to the interpersonalist psychoanalysts I had learned about in seminary, and in my wife's book gift by Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving. In the last chapter of his book Clinebell wrote about how to train for this type of pastoral psychotherapy. He wrote that I needed to contact the American Association of Pastoral Counselors (AAPC), and enroll in one of their Training Programs for Pastoral Psychotherapy.

So after toying with the idea of becoming a Licensed Clincial Social Worker (LCSW), I decided to enter a Pastoral Psychotherapy Training Program. There I began to learn what Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy was. I learned that the goals of this type of psychotherapy were as follows: self awareness, insight, accepting care in a depth relationship, self acceptance, personal growth and maturity, etc. I learned that effective therapy, "reduces inner conflicts with their pain and wasted energy. It makes one more sensitive to the dynamics of one's relationships and to the pain of others. It helps one to find the courage to face the abyss of loneliness and existential anxiety." ( Clinebell pp. 272.) So everything I had learned about myself in my own analytic treatment, and now what I was learning in the pastoral psychotherapy training program, plus what I had learned and done from the time I was a child--these were all coming together, and I was on my way to soon becoming a full time therapist practicing pastoral psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In my next post I will share some of what I further learned about psychoanalytic psychotherapy while in training.

Personal and Professional Journey III-- From Teenage Counselor through Seminary

My memory is fuzzy when I think about the first person I ever provided care and counseling for, but I believe it was my childhood friend who suffered from some type of mental challenge. I knew he was different but I was not sure in the 6th grade what the difference was. I just knew he was more vulnerable and tender than I was and that he needed sensitivity and care. I just thought of it as a special kind of frienship back then.......... But in highschool it became more obvious to me that I was a counselor to others. In my highschool year book, where my classmates wrote notes and signed their names, many of the entries would say something like," Thanks so much for talking to me that night about my problems," or " Thanks for being there for me that day when I was struggling." And I remember being this kind of friend. I just thought it was what you were supposed to do. I had been raised in a Christian church and was taught that our main responsibility was to "care for others-to minister to others." My Father did it all the time. He helped people. He helped them with their problems, with their children, with their faith, with their finances, with their housing, with their self esteem and self worth. He was definitely a care provider--not just a counselor, but a social worker and financial advisor as well. Was this his profession? No. He was a self employed owner of a small business and also a Real Estate Salesperson and Stock Broker. But he was a committed Christian and in his mind and later on in mine, this is what you did. You "ministered to others" in whatever way they needed. So following his lead I did this at church Youth Group and at Young Life ( A Christian Highschool Organization.) Truth be told I just did it wherever I went. I never thought about it. It was just who I was.........Then came college. I kept doing it. The first Christian Group I joined was Campus Crusade for Christ. They called it "Discipling Others." This was a bit more than just caring for them, and loving them, and accepting them--it had a teaching component to it where you also taught others about the Faith and would gently try to lead them into the Faith. So I continued ministering to my friends in this way. The second Christian Organization I joined was the BSU (Baptist Student Union.) They too were about ministering to others and caring for others, but I still did not think of it as counseling. Then I took introductory psychology and learned about counseling and psychotherapy. I clearly remember a course in Humanistic Psychology where I learned about Humanistic Psychotherapy ( Carl Rogers, etc.), and I talked with my professor after class about it. But this way of caring for others again was just who I was and I did not think about it as "doing" anything other than being a caring friend. It just happened naturally. Through the BSU I had opportunities to travel and speak and meet with different highschool church youth groups around the state, and I continued caring for the teenagers I would meet at those times.......... I was also a Summer Youth Minister each summer of college and would spend the summer months in several different churches offering care and support to the youth I got to know. My job was to form meaningful relationships with these teens and to care for them, love them, and guide them. Again, it all came quite naturally. I would visit them in their homes or talk to them after a youth group meeting, and sometimes they would just drop by my office "to chat." But relationship building was what it was all about...........Now I was getting to be known in the BSU as the guy you went to if you had a problem. As I recall, several indeed did come to me for such care. One in particular was a friend struggling with a major problem. We talked together for several nights and he finally made a decision he needed to make. Our campus minister at the BSU heard about these late night meetings and said as far as he was concerned, "I could hang out a shingle!" That was the first time that I consciously thought, " I am a counselor and I have been counseling my friend." " So maybe I will become a marriage and family therapist," I thought. I thought this because other than ministers who counseled their parishoners, this was the only other counseling profession I knew about, and that was because I was a sociology major concentrating in marriage and family studies............But that didn't happen. Instead I worked as a youth minister in a church for a year after college graduation, got married, and decided I wanted to be a minister. In seminary I took a couple of pastoral care and counseling courses and applied those in my work with college students where I was a campus minister intern. I would meet with the students in groups and one and one, and they would talk with me about whatever was bothering them, whatever problems they were facing, and where they needed care and support. The old "ministering to others" became pastoral care and counseling. In my next post I will talk about how I continued to learn about and practice pastoral care and counseling in seminary and beyond.

Personal and Professional Journey II---Pastoral Counseling to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

When I began  pastoral counseling/psychotherapy and Licensed Professional Counselor training, I was still learning about psychoanalysis and analytic therapy as a discipline. It was during this  pastoral counseling/psychotherapy and LPC 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 during my training that I was introduced to Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin. I had started reading Freud before my training, but I had read little of Darwin and 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 the 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.

As a result 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 enjoyed  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 sciences of biology must underpin my psychoanalytic theory,  and my psychotherapy technique. 

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. 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.  And, I had moved from Panentheism ( Charles Hartshorne) to Pantheism,  which equates God with Nature ( see the Pantheist Philosopher Spinoza and Albert Einstein). I further felt more at home in Unitarianism. However,  I continued to embrace the commonly held positive values of  Christianity and most free democratic societies. I was now seeing how these same common values were also held by many cultural Christians, naturalists, humanists,   agnostics, and atheists  as well.

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 little 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:  David Olds, Alan Shore, Howard Shrevin, John Gedo, Peter Fonagy, Drew Westen, Glenn Gabbard and the analytically informed neuroscientist Erik Kandel.

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, who is the creator of neuropsychoanalysis. 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 all  of his books, dead his major papers, attended a number of his seminars, and listened to his online lectures. He further consulted with me for four years. So though I am 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 a first career in pastoral ministry, with further  specialization  in pastoral  psychotherapy, and finally becoming a psychoanalytically oriented LPC, I am integrating biology  into my psychoanalytic theory and technique.       

I must say it has been quite a learning and growing journey. I started out as a Baptist Christian who dabbled in counseling but ended up in the Ministry. The fields of study for that profession were mainly Bible, Church History, and Theology. From there it was the reintroduction to the fields of  Psychoanalysis, Philosophy,  Evolutionary Biology and  Neuroscience.  And in the last four years I have especially concentrated on learning further the interdisciplinary field of neuropsychoanalysis/psychotherapy. 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 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.

Personal and Professional Journey I-- From Childhood Counseling to Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

As I continue to reflect on my personal journey--not a bad thing to do in my senior adult years, I am thinking that I have always been interested in the big questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What will happen to me when I die?

I began wondering about these questions early on. In the Baptist church in which I was raised we were always asking, "Do you have a relationship to God?" "Are you ministering to others?" "Are you trying to lead a good life? Do you know what is going to happen to you when you die?" We asked these questions because that is what we believed life was all about--what the meaning of life was--the purpose of life.

During my childhood and teenage years I knew nothing about psychology. One highschool course in the Humanities did mention the Social Sciences, but I did not know what they were or what they taught. I knew only about sin, judgement and guilt--hopefully followed by grace, forgiveness and salvation. These were the experiences I brought to life and the categories I used to interpret life. I had certainly never heard of the unconscious, anxiety, dream interpretation, neurosis, or psychopathology. I did not know the difference in emotional problems and emotional health.

In college, however, something happened to me. I was opened up to a whole new world. After stumbling through pre-dental science courses my first two years, I finally ended up in sociology. My major sociological interest was marriage and the family. For electives I added music, religion, and psychology courses. A whole new way of interpreting life had come my way. Much of what I had experienced in church could now be explained sociologically, psychologically, and biologically. A few college religion courses also further liberalized my thinking.

Yet the pull toward a ministry profession persisted. Instead of pursuing the path of becoming a marriage and family therapist, I decided to get married, work in a church, and go to seminary. While in seminary ( 1976-79) my sociology/psychology/science side waned a bit and the theology/philosophy side flourished. In the Personal Journey introduction section of my book, Caring Beyond Words: The Power of Christian Symbols to Heal the Soul, I shared what happened to me during seminary and my subsequent experiences in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Those experiences while serving as a pastor, led me in 1995 to specialize in pastoral psychoanalytic psychotherapy, become a LPC,  and then a  psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Today, 30 years later, I do neuropsychoanalytic therapy (see my Neuropsychoanalysis  Blog Posts here), supervise others in this treatment, and write and teach about it whenever I have opportunity.

The point I am making is from early on in my life I have sought ways of trying to understand myself, others, and life itself. I continue today seeking to find ways to understand reality. At the level of Deep Metaphor (Browning, 1987) all these disciplines have provided me with languages to talk about what I think life is all about.

After seminary graduation, I found the view of William James quite helpful. He wrote that religious people understand life religiously, and that non-religious people understand life scientifically (or naturalistically, humanistically, etc.) And there are quite a number who seek to try to integrate science and religion. That was certainly the case for me when I first pursued pastoral counseling. The uniqueness of pastoral psychotherapy as a discipline is the integration of psychology (science) and spirituality (religion.)                                           

How this played out in my life at that time was to focus on the theological understanding of Christian Santification verses the scientific/psychological understanding of the Psychoanalytic Process.  I saw them as the same process. They both described a life journey toward healing, health, maturity, and wholeness. If you were a Christian you called the journey Christian Santification aided by psychoanalysis. If you were not a Christian or a religious person you simply called it the Psychoanalytic Process. The faith stance of the client had everything to do with how the psychotherapeutic experience was understood.                      

I was at the time, clearly in the camp of liberal theology. Though my seminary was primarily Neoorthodox, the major influences on my thinking at that time were  Paul Tillich, Hans Kung, and the Process philosopher Charles Hartshorne. Through these theologians and philosophers  I became interested in the field of science and religion (starting in the early 1990's). This resulted in my affirming Panentheism( Charles Hartshorne). Next  I read Ludwig Feurbach's, The Essence of Christianity, where he first espoused the projection theory that Freud further developed. This view stated that the  personal God  was a projection of the human parents onto the universe and believed in as a divine being.

I further read Sigmund Freud's view of religion in his text, The Future of an Illusion. Though Freud was an atheist he remained friends with his colleague Reverend Oscar Pfister . Pfister was a Lutheran pastor who knew Freud personally and studied and practiced psychoanalysis as well. But unlike his scientific worldview friend Freud, Pfister remained a parish pastor and incorporated what he learned from Freud and psychoanalysis into his pastoral counseling with his parishioners.                                           

In those early days of pastoral counseling/psychotherapy and Licensed Professional Counselor training ( 1991-93), I went back and forth--sometimes identifying with Pfister, other times Freud. Perhaps a better known disagreement about a religious verses a scientific understanding of life was Carl Jung and his mentor Sigmund Freud. Jung was the son of a minister and though he was a scientist and psychoanalyst he never fully accepted Freud's naturalistic, scientific and atheistic worldview. Due to Jung's quasi -spiritual views (possibly Pantheist), as well as his denial of the Freudian drives, Freud and Jung did not remain friends. They parted ways and Jung went on to establish his own school of psychoanalysis (Jungian Analysis.)

Early on in my career I identified more with Jung. As my studies progressed I identified more with Freud. Oscar Pfister, Carl Jung, and Sigmund Freud all believed in science and the science of psychoanalysis. Where they differed is that Pfister was a Christian pastor and psychoanalyst,  and Jung remained quasi-spititual, whereas Freud, who was raised a secular Jew, did not.                    

I am today more influenced by Freud and the scientific/psychoanalytic understanding of religion that he first espoused back in 1927. This change in beliefs eventually led me to embrace  Pantheism  ( see the Philosopher Spinoza who along with Einstein, equated God with Nature). This change made me feel quite at home with the Unitarians, etc. I further realized that many cultural Christians, humanists,  agnostics and atheists also held the same shared humanitarian, Enlightenment, and  social justice values. 

If you have read some of my blog posts you have witnessed some of this intellectual and personal journey from my first career as a pastor, and it's expansion into the ministry of pastoral psychoanalytic psychotherapy and Licensed Professional Counseling. I next transitioned into Freudian psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and finally neuropsychoanalytic psychotherapy ( today). If you continue to follow along you will find out further where my neuropsychoanalysis immersion has taken me. Thanks for joining with me! Please ask a question or make a comment. I want to know my readers!