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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2013
This paper elaborates a theory of catechesis that is concerned with the psychological transformation of adult Christians. It offers a definition of this new type of catechesis as well as a comparison with experiential catechesis. It then presents a process for transformative catechesis based on the analytical method of Jungian depth psychology. This process includes anamnesis, interpretation, discernment, and ritual commitment, with the ultimate aim of helping adults identify and experience the paschal mystery in their own lives. It begins by examining the suitability of Jungian psychology for a catechetical process, presents the actual process, and then explores the theological implications of Jungian-based catechesis for those working in ministry.
1 Paul, John II, Apostolic Exhortation, Catechesi Tradendae (16 October 1979)Google Scholar: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 71 (1979): 1277–1340, no. 20.
2 For an introduction to transformative catechesis, see Robert Brancatelli, “Discipleship and the Logic of Transformative Catechesis,” in The Spirit in the Church and the World, ed. Hinze, Bradford E., The Annual Publication of the College Theology Society 2003, vol. 49 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004), 219–44.Google Scholar
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4 For the “new evangelization,” see Paul, John II, Encyclical Letter, Redemptons Misso (7 December 1990)Google Scholar: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 83 (1991): 249–340, no. 33. See also Catechesi Tradendae, no. 20.
5 Redemptons Missio, no. 33.
6 CW, vol. 7, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, 173–76. See also CW, vol. 9, bk. 1, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 275–354. Jung explains individuation from 275–89 and then demonstrates it in the case study of “Miss X” from 290–354.
7 Stein, Murray, Transformation: Emergence of the Self (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1998), 50.Google Scholar
8 See Sanford, John, Mystical Christianity: A Psychological Commentary on the Gospel of John (New York: Crossroad, 1993), 136–42.Google Scholar
9 “The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly—and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being—must come to Christ with his unrest and uncertainty, and even his weakness and sinfulness, his life and death. He must, so to speak, enter into Christ with all his own self, he must ‘appropriate’ Christ and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself” (Catechesi Tradendae, no. 61). See also Paul, John II, Encyclical Letter, Redemptoris Hominis, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 71 (1979): 257–324, no. 10.Google Scholar
10 Frey-Rohn, Liliane, From Freud to Jung: A Comparative Study of the Psychology of the Unconscious, trans. Engreen, Fred, Engreen, Evelyn (New York: Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, 1974), 15.Google Scholar For complexes, see ibid., 29–40. Jung viewed complexes as independent entities that are separated from the ego as a result of trauma or incompatibility with the conscious. For a fuller description, see CW, 8, 92–104, 120–25.
11 CW, 7, 66.
12 CW, vol. 4, Freud and Psychoanalysis, 239.
13 CW, 9/1, 286. “The collective unconscious is a part of the psyche which can be negatively distinguished from a personal unconscious by the fact that it does not, like the latter, owe its existence to personal experience and consequently is not a personal acquisition. While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious but which have been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity” (ibid., 42).
14 Ibid., 286–87. “There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life. Endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution, not in the form of images filled with content, but at first as forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action. When a situation occurs which corresponds to a given archetype, that archetype becomes activated and a compulsiveness appears, which, like an instinctual drive, gains its way against all reason and will, or else produces a conflict of pathological dimensions, that is to say, a neurosis” (ibid. 48; italics in original).
15 CW, 8, 133.
16 CW, vol. 11, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 149.
17 For more on the mother archetype, see CW, 9/1, 75–110.
18 See Tannen, Ricki Stefanie, The Female Trickster: the Mask that Reveals: Post-Jungian and Postmodern Psychological Perspectives on Women in Contemporary Culture (Oxford: Routledge, 2007)Google Scholar; Jung's Challenge to Contemporary Religion, ed. Stein, Murray and Moore, Robert L. (Wilmette, IL: Chiron, 1987)Google Scholar; Feminist Archetypal Theory: Interdisciplinary Re-Visions of Jungian Thought, ed. Lauter, Estella and Rupprecht, Carol Schreier (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Rannells, Jean Saul, “The Individuation of Women Through the Study of Deity Images: Learning from a Jungian Perspective” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1986), 20–21, 36, 139.Google Scholar
19 Homans, Peter, “C. G. Jung: Christian or Post-Christian Psychologist?”, in Jung and Christianity in Dialogue: Faith, Feminism, and Hermeneutics, ed. Moore, Robert L. and Meckel, Daniel J. (New York: Paulist, 1990), 25.Google Scholar
20 Sanford, , Mystical Christianity, 138.Google Scholar
21 Edinger, Edward F., The Christian Archetype: A Jungian Commentary on the Life of Christ, Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts, ed. Sharp, Daryl (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1987), 15–17.Google Scholar
23 Ibid., 17–18.
24 CW, vol. 9, bk. 2, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 41.
25 Stein, , Transformation, 48.Google Scholar
26 Ibid.
27 Jung, C. G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1965), 192.Google Scholar
28 For the transference (die Übertragung), see CW, 16: 164–87. Jung has described it as a “neurotic maladjustment of the patient” that is “transferred” to the analyst (ibid., 170–71; italics in original).
29 Stein, Murray, Jung's Treatment of Christianity: The Psychotherapy of a Religious Tradition (Wilmette, IL: Chiron, 1985), 57.Google Scholar Hereafter, JTC.
30 Samuels, Andrew, Jung and the Post-Jungians (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 177.Google Scholar
31 CW, vol. 16, The Practice of Psychotherapy: Essays on the Psychology of the Transference and Other Subjects, 58. “The goal of the cathartic method is full confession—not merely the intellectual recognition of the facts with the head, but their confirmation by the heart and the actual release of suppressed emotion” (ibid., 59). Regarding “personal dilemmas,” Robert Boyd has defined them as unresolved “critical choices bearing on an individual's life course. There are three components common to all personal dilemmas, specifically: (1) archetypal elements; (2) personal history; (3) current existential conditions” (see Boyd, Robert D., “Facilitating Personal Transformations in Small Groups,” in Personal Transformations in Small Groups: A Jungian Perspective, ed. Boyd, Robert, The International Library of Group Psychotherapy and Group Process, ed. Pines, Malcolm (New York: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, 1991), 216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
32 Stein, , JTC, 44.Google Scholar See also CW, 7: 80–113 and CW, 6: 473–81.
33 Stein, , JTC, 33.Google Scholar
34 CW, vol. 4, 284–85.
35 CW, vol. 16, 67.
36 Stein, JTC, 57.
37 Ibid., 55 and CW, 4, 286, where Jung has observed that “the patient becomes conscious of the inadequacy of his own attitude through recognition of the analyst's attitude, which is accepted as being adapted to life's demands and as normal.”
38 Stein, , JTC, 55.Google Scholar
39 Ibid., 57. See also CW, 11, 7.
40 Encountering Jung: On Active Imagination, ed. Chodorow, Joan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 66.Google Scholar
41 Ibid. Jung has described this transformation as the “transcendent function.”
42 Conn, Walter, Christian Conversion: A Developmental Interpretation of Autonomy and Surrender (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1986), 212.Google Scholar See ibid., 208, where Conn has described this change as resulting in “not just a new story. But a new kind of story, a story with its own intrinsic requirements for cognitive, affective, and moral transformation. Authentic Christian conversion demands that one see, feel, and act in a new way.”
43 CW, 16, 137. In this relationship, “the patient confronts the doctor upon equal terms, and with the same ruthless criticism that he must inevitably learn from the doctor in the course of his treatment.”
44 Stein, , JTC, 67.Google Scholar For the “counter-transference,” see ibid., 58–63 and Samuels, , Jung and the Post-Jungians, 187–93.Google Scholar
45 CW, 16, 137.
46 Ibid., 73 and Stein, , JTC, 67.Google Scholar
47 National Directory for Catechesis (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2005), 59–63.
48 Ibid., 189. Compare with Sacred Congregation for the Clergy, General Directory for Catechesis (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1997), no. 175Google Scholar: “to educate toward a correct evaluation of the socio-cultural changes of our societies in the light of faith: thus the Christian community is assisted in discerning true values in our civilization, as well as its dangers, and in adopting appropriate attitudes….”
49 For transformative learning theory, see Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress, ed. Mezirow, Jack (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000)Google Scholar; Cranton, Patricia, Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning: A Guide for Educators of Adults (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994)Google Scholar; and Mezirow, Jack, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991).Google Scholar
50 CW, 4, 330. Also, CW, 11, 198.
51 Boyd, Robert D. and Myers, J. Gordon, “Transformative Education,” in International Journal of Lifelong Education 7 (1988): 274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
52 Ibid., 275.
53 See International Commission on English in the Liturgy, The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, rev. ed., (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1988), nos. 187–92Google Scholar and Harmless, William, Augustine and the Catechumenate (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), 42Google Scholar (n.14), 5.
54 For blessing, commissioning, and institution rites, see The Rites of the Catholic Church, vol. 2 (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1991).
55 A group member who exercises such influence has been referred to as the “focal person” (see Dirkx, John M., “Understanding Group Transformation Through the Focal Person Concept,” in Personal Transformations in Small Groups, 65–96Google Scholar).
56 CW, 7, 174.
57 Ibid., 156–58.
58 Ibid.
59 See Bockus, Frank M., “The Archetypal Self: Theological Values in Jung's Psychology,” in Jung and Christianity in Dialogue, 52Google Scholar: “The introduction of the archetype of the God-human here is not an inconsistency, but the elaboration of a new aspect of selfhood, its transpersonal extension. The archetype of self presupposes an indefinite extension beyond the single personality.”
60 Ibid., 53.
61 See Stein, , Transformation, 56Google Scholar: “Cultures and religions are repositories of transformative images from the past … From time immemorial, the cultures of humankind have housed and treasured the primordial images of the collective unconscious and made them available to people in their religious mysteries, sacred rites, and rituals. When a person experiences one of these images deeply, it has a profound effect upon consciousness.”
62 Ibid., 50.
63 National Directory for Catechesis, 55 (italics added).
64 Brancatelli, Robert, Catechist Guide for Transformative Catechesis: Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries (Santa Clara, CA: Santa Clara University, 2006), 8.Google Scholar
65 Ibid. See also Jones, Melissa, “The Perceptions of Jungian Analysts on the Individuation Process in Group Psychotherapy: A Descriptive Case Study” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1983), 147.Google Scholar The three questions come from her interview of a Jungian analyst.
66 Jones, , “The Perceptions of Jungian Analysts,” 147–61.Google Scholar Jones specifically relates the stages of individuation to group process.
67 For an introduction to active imagination, see Encountering Jung: On Active Imagination and Johnson, Robert, Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth (New York: HarperCollins, 1986).Google Scholar
68 CW, 11: 341: “The modern man does not want to know in what way he can imitate Christ, but in what way he can live his own individual life, however meager and uninteresting it may be. It is because every form of imitation seems to him deadening and sterile that he rebels against the force of tradition that would hold him to well-trodden ways. All such roads, for him, lead in the wrong direction. He may not know it, but he behaves as if his own individual life were God's special will which must be fulfilled at all costs. This is the source of his egoism, which is one of the most tangible evils of the neurotic state. But the person who tells him he is too egoistic has already lost his confidence, and rightly so, for that person has driven him still further into his neurosis … If I wish to effect a cure for my patients I am forced to acknowledge the deep significance of their egoism. I should be blind, indeed, if I did not recognize it as a true will of God.”
69 DeSiano, Frank, “It Is Mercy I Want,” in A Time to Listen—A Time to Heal: A Resource Directory for Reaching Out to Inactive Catholics (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1999), 4.Google Scholar