Abstract
In exploring the theology of John D. Zizioulas in conversation with the psychoanalytic theory of Donald Winnicott, this paper highlights how the theological concerns of personhood, sin, faith, and redemption may correlate, without conflation, to healing in the psychoanalytic context. Using a particular chapter of Zizioulas’s book, Communion and Otherness; Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, this paper looks at Zizioulas’s notion of what constitutes personhood and discusses this in light of Winnicott’s understanding of development of the True Self and False Self. I underscore the emphasis placed by both theology and psychoanalysis on the need to experience both dependence and otherness in order to become a self, that we might heal from being a False Self (Winnicott) or ‘thing’ (Zizioulas) capable only of living in opposition and fragmentation and grow towards living in communion and authentic relationship. I conclude by contending that both disciplines, in this case, flow towards an elucidation of pathological narcissism and the need for the healing of this condition as addressed both from a theological as well as psychological perspective.
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Notes
This should not be confused with psychoanalytic uses of the word ‘introversion,’ though one might find interesting comparisons between this aspect of Zizioulas and the theories of Ronald Fairbairn on introversion.
For those interested in psychoanalytic theory, this work of Zizioulas may also be a fruitful dialogue partner in looking at schizoid splitting, such as in the theories of Ronald Fairbairn and Harry Guntrip.
This sense of convergence between religion and psychoanalysis on the topic of narcissism is shared by psychoanalytic theorist Neville Symington (see Symington 1993, 1998). His theory of narcissism shares much with Winnicott’s theory of the development of the false self but diverges around areas of infant intentionality (see Symington 1993).
Although Winnicott does not address narcissism as much as its derivates (Symington 1993), he is clear that ‘false self’ living involves the absence of constructive use of symbols and an impoverished cultural life. This has to do with the false self’s tendency towards compliance and imitation rather than object cathection, having in turn to do with the failure to negotiate early on the transition from the illusion of omnipotence to the establishment of external objects through the mediating function and ‘transitional space’ supplied by the mother’s (or mothering one’s) ‘good-enough’ responsiveness to the infant’s spontaneous gestures (Winnicott 2007).
Here Symington also serves as a guide in his in-depth discussion of parallels between the religious/spiritual path and that of the analysis of narcissism. Both, he writes, have to do with contending with the immensely destructive forces of omnipotence and envy, the analysis of which is heavily emphasized by the British School (Symington 1998).
For further discussion on the role of destructiveness and the establishment of object-relations, see Winnicott’s paper “The Use of an Object and Relating through Identifications,” where he discusses the need for the mother, or later the analyst, to survive attempts at destruction in order to become established in the mind of the infant (or later the patient) as fully ‘other’ (Winnicott 1989a, b).
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Chaudhari, P. Freedom for Relationship: An Initial Exploration of the Theology of Zizioulas and the Psychoanalytic Insights of Winnicott in Dialogue. Pastoral Psychol 62, 451–460 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-012-0468-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-012-0468-6