Psychoanalysis as a type of the Orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity

This dissertation researches the subject of psychoanalysis as an examplar of the Eastern Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity by examining and analyzing the writing of both psychoanalysis and trinitarian theologians. Heuristically it relies on experiences claimed by those who report them, as does all psychoanalysis and theology. This study does not approach the issues of the psychology of religion or the religious utility of psychoanalysis. It assumes the defining character of spiritual experience on all the arts and sciences of life. It is apparent early in this work that psychoanalytic theoreticians of both biologically based models and the more psychologically oriented schools of psychoanalysis describe human personality as an internal, complex dynamic. That system requires the participation of all parts to function with integrity, and those parts derive from the real relationship the person has experienced developmentally and the current relationships one experiences. Thus psychoanalysis does, in a remarkably consistent way, present a view of the human person that reflects the internal dynamic relationship of the trinitarian God. This view of the human person is equally consistent in writings on group and couple relationships that have a psychoanalytic connection. In these perspectives one sees the internal dynamics of the individual, the external dynamics among participants, and the essential interplay between the two levels. There is also demonstrated a powerful influence of psychoanalysis on the thinking of modern Orthodox theologians. In the paradigm of human persons who are defined as interactors in love—or, pathologically, some perversion thereof—Eastern Christian thinkers of both the Love Paradigm school and the Neo-Palamites have found a model for describing the experienced Trinity. In every psychoanalytic theory the dynamic human personality comes about to some extent through the infant person's adaptation to frustration and pain. By contrast, Orthodox Christians see no developmental process in the three persons of the Trinity and no pain in their relationship. However, if it is kept in mind that psychoanalysis looks at its existential state, always limited, contingent, and suffering, then the hypothesis that psychoanalytic views of the human personality are a type of the internal trinitarian dynamic is demonstrated by this study.