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From Theology to Therapy: A Genealogical Account

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Toward a Phenomenology of Addiction: Embodiment, Technology, Transcendence

Part of the book series: Contributions To Phenomenology ((CTPH,volume 93))

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Abstract

This chapter traces the crisscrossing of various intellectual pathways that led to developing the first program to treat addiction (i.e., the so-called “Twelve Steps”), thereby outlining the historical-cultural backdrop or interpretive horizon within which its founder attempted to understand the problem. We will discover that the historical account of his development indirectly reveals a gap in the program for treating addiction, which is only partially closed by appealing to religious maxims: specifically, the paradox of how a physically based pathology can be overcome through the practice of a “spiritual discipline.”

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For an interesting discussion of the mythic import of necessity, and its hermeneutic implications for the development of self-understanding, see Risser 2012, pp. 8–9.

  2. 2.

    van Buren 1994, pp. 150, 152.

  3. 3.

    See B. (Dick) 1992, p. 124.

  4. 4.

    Jung 1974, “Psychotherapists or Clergy,” pp. 221–244.

  5. 5.

    See Frankl 1980, pp. 11–22.

  6. 6.

    Kovacs 1982, p. 37.

  7. 7.

    Jung 1974, pp. 237, 240–241.

  8. 8.

    See B. (Dick) 1992, p. 28. See Kurtz 1991; pp. 33, 182. Also see O’Connor 2016, pp. 157–158.

  9. 9.

    See Jung 1958, p. 8.

  10. 10.

    See Jung 1965, p. 161.

  11. 11.

    See B. (Dick) 1992, pp. 91, 100 (“Big Book”).

  12. 12.

    For an account of these historical connections, see B. (Dick), (1992), pp. 36–55.

  13. 13.

    Freud 1959, p. 55.

  14. 14.

    Jung 1974, “Freud and Jung—Contrasts,” pp. 115–124.

  15. 15.

    Kurtz 1991, p. 9.

  16. 16.

    See B. (Dick) 1979, p.124.

  17. 17.

    Jung 1974, “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man,” p. 220.

  18. 18.

    See Heidegger 2000a, p. 52.

  19. 19.

    For an excellent discussion of parallels (yet differences) between Heidegger’s and Jung’s views of the self, see Capobianco 1993, 50–59.

  20. 20.

    Heidegger 1985, p. 113.

  21. 21.

    See Zimmerman 1986, pp. 135–145.

  22. 22.

    B. (Dick) 1992, p. 77.

  23. 23.

    B. (Dick) 1996, p. 85.

  24. 24.

    B. (Dick) 1996, p. 85. Also see “Editor’s Note” (#6) in Jung 1958, p. 184.

  25. 25.

    B. (Dick) 1992 , p. 7.

  26. 26.

    Frank Buchman’s Oxford Group bears no resemblance to the Oxford Philosophy that became popular in Great Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. As practiced by two of its representative figures, G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell, the Oxford Philosophy clashed with Christianity and most expressions of faith. Indeed, the “Oxford Philosophy” dismissed any religious claims that could not be empirically verified. Russell in particular went so far as to argue that any symbolic and spiritual imagery, which could not be reduced to logical statements, was all but meaningless.

  27. 27.

    Thomas Huxley, the grandfather of Aldous Huxley, occupied the same intellectual circle with Henry Drummond, Buchman’s mentor.

  28. 28.

    Drummond 1885, pp. 69n–70n.

  29. 29.

    Drummond 1885 , p. 60.

  30. 30.

    Gnuse 1989, pp. 7–12.

  31. 31.

    Jung 1969, p. 341.

  32. 32.

    B. (Dick) 1992, p. 32.

  33. 33.

    B. (Dick) 1992, pp. 51–53.

  34. 34.

    Peck 1979, pp. 78, 81–84.

  35. 35.

    B. (Dick) 1992, p. 34

  36. 36.

    B. (Dick) 1996, pp. 312–313.

  37. 37.

    Kurtz 1979, pp. 25, 51.

  38. 38.

    W. (Bill) 1953, p. 34. As the Third Step illustrates, we surrender to “the care of God as we understand him.”

  39. 39.

    B. (Dick) 1992, pp. 22–23.

  40. 40.

    B. (Dick) 1992, p. 34.

  41. 41.

    See Hegel 1974, pp. 124–131. See Schelling 1994, pp. 225, 239.

  42. 42.

    See Hegel 1976, p. 493 [emphasis my own].

  43. 43.

    Jung 1965, pp. 101–104. Although reluctant to embrace any philosophical school, Jung recalls the importance of his students days when he grappled with the writings of Plato and Kant, and, in fact, questions Freud for never having studied Friedrich Nietzsche and yet developing a theory of human nature that challenges the latter’s insights. “Freud himself had told me that he had never read Nietzsche....” (p. 153).

  44. 44.

    Jung 1971, p. 406.

  45. 45.

    B. (Dick). 1992, p. 58.

  46. 46.

    Bultmann 1961, “New Testament and Mythology,” pp. 15–16. Of special interest is Bultmann’s reference to Hans Jonas’ work on gnosticism .

  47. 47.

    See Schalow 2001, pp. 25–26.

  48. 48.

    See van Buren 1994, p. 317.

  49. 49.

    See Bultmann 1959, pp. 5–17.

  50. 50.

    van Buren 1994, pp. 157–201. Also see van Buren 1992, pp. 159–162.

  51. 51.

    See McGrath 1985, pp. 55–64.

  52. 52.

    In its historical genesis, the “mind over matter” principle emerges from a religious group called “gnosticism.” The term “gnosticism ” comes from the Greek word, “to know,” or to have some special knowledge of or access to, a truth that is otherwise far removed, difficult to comprehend, and even mysterious. As Hans Jonas states: “In the gnostic context, however, ‘knowledge’ has an emphatically religious or supranatural meaning and refers to object which we nowadays should calls those of faith rather than that of reason.” Jonas 2001, p. 34.

  53. 53.

    Segaller and Berger 1989, p. 18.

  54. 54.

    Quoted in Segaller and Berger 1989, p. 181.

  55. 55.

    See Tillich 1957, pp. 1–5. Tillich defines faith as our “ultimate concern.”

  56. 56.

    As Kovacs emphasizes with reference to Frankl’s thought, several “therapeutic techniques are based on the human capacity for self-transcendence and self-detachment.” Kovacs 1990, p. 242. Also see Wilshire 2003, pp. 7–11.

  57. 57.

    Kovacs 1986, p. 200.

  58. 58.

    Here I am using the term in an “existential” sense referring to a development of “falling,” which contracts the space of openness into the ‘I” as the locus of the exclusivity of the self-concern—rather than in a psychoanalytic sense of “regressive identity”). As Heidegger points out, the more Dasein’ s speaks in terms of “I,” the less it is a self, 1977/1962, pp. In “A Philosophical Critique of Narcissism,” Eugene T. Gendlin reinforces this point in emphasizing that the body includes its own capacity for expression that interfaces with the world. Levin (ed.), 1987: 251–304 (esp. 302–303).

  59. 59.

    Heidegger 1985, pp. 124–125.

  60. 60.

    Schalow 2003, pp. 23–24.

  61. 61.

    Zimmerman 1986, p. 194.

  62. 62.

    Heidegger 1978/1984, pp. 172–173; tr. 137.

  63. 63.

    See Schalow 2006, pp. 20–27.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Frank Schalow

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Schalow, F. (2017). From Theology to Therapy: A Genealogical Account. In: Toward a Phenomenology of Addiction: Embodiment, Technology, Transcendence. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 93. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66942-7_6

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