Redescribing relationships in Christian spiritual direction using Winnicott's psychoanalytic object relations theory (Donald Wood Winnicott)

This dissertation in contemporary psychoanalytic psychology and religion fulfills substantive and methodological objectives. First, it offers a psychological interpretation of a religious practice by utilizing the object relations theory of Donald W. Winnicott to redescribe features of Christian spiritual direction. It reveals how recent interpretations of spiritual direction appropriately emphasize the relationship between the directee and God, but mistakenly undervalue the dynamics of the relationship between the directee and the spiritual director. Second, this dissertation outlines an alternative method. Research in psychology of religion customarily proceeds by explaining "without remainder" religious matters in psychological terms. In contrast, this psychoanalytic interpretation is carried out in three deliberate steps: observing resemblances between religious and psychological ideas and practices; critically examining these resemblances; and provisionally redescribing features of the religious practice psychologically.; Resemblances among descriptions of the relationships between directee, director, and God in the spiritual direction literature and of the relationships between patient and analyst, and infant and mother in Winnicott's psychoanalytic writings are identified. Each of these relationships seeks to facilitate development of increasingly mature forms of relating with others and increasingly rich and varied forms of experiencing.; Critically examining these apparent resemblances reveals significant differences. In the spiritual direction literature, the Other with whom the director seeks to enhance relating and experiencing is Divine; the person of and relationship with the director are important only to the degree to which they focus primary if not sole attention on the Other who is Divine. In the psychoanalytic literature, the others with whom the analyst seeks to enhance relating and experiencing are human; the person of and relationship with the analyst (and the mother) are significant in and of themselves.; Critically examining resemblances gives rise to a way of characterizing Christian spiritual direction as unfolding in what Winnicott called "transitional space" and "potential space." Directors are encouraged to be particularly attentive to each directee's unique, unfolding developmental needs, to facilitate ongoing transitions, and to nurture various forms of experiencing as they emerge in the process of direction.