FROM RESTORATION OF THE SELF TO THE RECOVERY OF HUMAN MYSTERY

Description

This work engages two models in an interdisciplinary dialogue. The first, Self Psychology, is a contemporary psychoanalytic model offering a useful theoretical and therapeutic framework for the understanding and treatment of narcissistic disturbances/disorders of the self. The restoration of the self with disorders is its therapeutic objective. The second, referred to in this study as the 'I.P.G. model', has a Christian anthropological focus and a pedagogical orientation. Its proposed pedagogical/therapeutic instrument, 'Vocational Growth Sessions' (VGS), has the objective of the recovery of the dimension of mystery, and attempts to authentically spiritualize the person's human and psychological struggle. The study examines the basic concepts, the anthropological vision, the therapeutic objective and the therapeutic approach of the former and compares them with those of the latter. Examining Self Psychology's claim that the patient's experience of the therapist as an 'empathically-understanding-mature-selfobject' leads to restoration of his fragile self, the study proposes that VGS could effectively adapt this therapeutic principle in order to help priests and religious presenting narcissistic disturbances. This work also includes a discussion on the potential benefits of applying self psychological principles to the context of formation of priests and religious who present narcissistic disturbances.