BEING AND BECOMING HUMAN: AN EXISTENTIAL CONTEXT FOR PASTORAL COUNSELING (FROMM, MACQUARRIE)

This dissertation studied the psychological anthropology of Erich Fromm and the theological anthropology of John Macquarrie for the purpose of constructing an "existential context" for pastoral counseling. "Existential context," here, refers to those basic and universal questions and needs with which humanity must grapple by virtue of its very existence. These are the questions and needs that accompany humanity everywhere it goes, including the pastoral counseling office. In sum, they comprise the facticity (being human) and the potentiality (becoming human) of existence. Chapter 1 outlined the purpose, scope, and method of the dissertation.;Chapter 3 explored the "being" and "becoming" dimensions of John Macquarrie's theological anthropology in regard to both method and content. His existential analysis was found to parallel Fromm's at many points. The noteworthy exception is Macquarrie's openness to the theological context of existence. Via an "existential-ontological theism," Macquarrie developed natural and inevitable links between the question of humanity (existence) and the question of God (ontology). The result is an existential context for pastoral counseling that naturally dialogues with the full range of human existence, including the God-in-relation-to-persons dimension.;Chapter 4 constructed, from the raw materials of Fromm's psychological anthropology and Macquarrie's theological anthropology, an existential context or frame of orientation for pastoral counseling. The "cornerstones" were fashioned out of Fromm's and Macquarrie's combined emphases on faith, hope, and love as the basic building blocks of a fully human existence. The construction process followed Macquarrie's methodological lead in moving from the existential to the ontological dimensions of each of these character virtues.;Finally, Chapter 5 drew implications from the research for the identity, theory, and practice of pastoral counseling. It advocated, as a useful frame of orientation for pastoral counseling, an existential-ontological therapy process centered on faith, hope, and love.;Chapter 2 examined the "being" and "becoming" dimensions of Erich Fromm's psychological anthropology. In the process, it set forth both the method and the content of Fromm's "science of man" and "art of living." The result was an ideal typology of the characteristics of authentic and inauthentic existence from the vantage pont of Fromm's humanistic psychoanalysis.