Influences on Trainee Non-disclosure in Supervision

by Lorraine dowdall

Introduction

Religious faith, the essence of which is the quality of one’s relationship with God, is seen by many experienced practitioners as legitimate content in the counselling space (Kelliher, 2011). Indeed, as counselling is in the service of clients’ development to wholeness, a valid question to ask is, is adult religious faith also committed to the same task? This article reflects on what adulthood looks like, what an adult faith looks like, and hopefully in the process discovers what, if any, connection they may have.

The Adult Self

The attaining of an adult self is a “personal triumph” (Shea, 1995b, p.413). As it happens gradually and is not a once and for all event, it is difficult to pinpoint its arrival with accuracy. As many cultures, both secular and religious, encourage “a denial of adulthood” (p. 413), the passage to maturity is claimed only after a long and painful struggle. Many do not reach this developmental milestone but remain adolescing selves despite their chronological age. In other words, fettered/incomplete imaging, an over-reliance on objective knowing, an incongruent, incomplete self with an over-dependence on oth- ers, all natural for an adolescent, continue to be the modus operandi of such adults, to varying degrees.

By contrast, in psychological adulthood, the self is a whole system, abounding in energy, (Jung, 1981), with its being grounded in self-responsibility and inner freedom. This adult self is a self-in-relatedness. Herein lies the paradox of adulthood. While the adult self is no longer a dependent self, unformed, it needs real dialogue to exist fully, and relationships of love, solicitude, and mutual understanding to blossom in its wholeness. Selfhood is unthinkable apart from mutually respectful relationships in which the integrity of the other is recognised and nurtured (Shea, 2021). On this journey the introject- ed values and moral imperatives of the superego in the adolescing self are worked through, trans- formed and integrated, where appropriate. Transferences, with their “attendant distortions of reality” (Shea, p.414), normal for an adolescing self, are worked through on the journey to adulthood. As the adult self is a well-functioning, though not perfect, whole, the mind-body dichotomy of the adolescing self “is now healed and transcended – at least in principle” (Shea, p.414). This facilitates the transcend- ing of other dichotomies: sacred and secular; faith and reason; and good and evil, as dichotomies and the adult self, do not go together (Fowler, 1981).

The following are among the substantive qualities understood to be integral to the developing adult self (Shea, 2021).

1) The adult self is a body self: a primary characteristic of the adult self is that it is a fully embodied self. It finds its anchor in its own body. Self and body are a unit. Full participation in the world requires this body-self unity. This new quality of being allows for mature affective relationships and commitments and facilitates full engagement with reality (Polster & Polster, 1973).

2) The adult self is rooted and disclosed in feeling: Hardiman (2000) argued that if an individual lost the capacity to feel, “then the person as a unique identity is lost” (p.37). In psychological adulthood, feeling and living in the body, are inseparable. This feeling process is both affective and cognitive, and can be made verbally explicit (Gendlin, 1970). Such verbalisation both discloses and is characteristic of the adult self.

3) The adult self is a felt sense of depth: the importance of inner personal depth for adult living is well recognised (Elhard, 1968). These depths are partly unexplored and dark interiors (Taylor, 1989). They are the place where we hold “deep, preconscious, feelings of rootedness and well-being, self-esteem, and purposefulness” (Blasi, 1988, p. 227). Paradoxically, the depth is “where I experience the other in myself and the other–than-myself experiences me” (Jung, 1968, p.22). One’s depth is a paradox in mutuality, where the individual is radically alone and yet intimately aware of, and bonded with, others in “deeper unverbalized feelings and communication” (Selman, 1980, p. 13). Many appreciate that this depth is only partially known and that something unconsciously more is also part of who each human is. If listened to, this depth, over time, begins to reveal a sense of direction and coherence. It supports unconscious processes to become conscious by ceaselessly engaging “in grouping and regrouping its contents” (Jung, 1966, p.128) as it strives for greater wholeness. Depth, feeling and the body go together for Shea (2005).

4) The adult self has its own clear boundaries: the adult self has its own clear boundaries, dimension, and place, in relation to itself, others and the world (Shea, 2002). It knows who it is and who it is not. Just as clear boundaries separate us, they also make all coming together possible (O’Leary, 1992). There is an owning and acceptance of the whole body-self with its limits and possibilities, needs and nature, joys and conflicts, its loved and unloved pieces (Shea, 2018). Such “firm self-delineation” is a healthy foundation for intimacy.

5) The adult self lives, unfolds and has its being in intimacy: the boundaries of the adult self are defi- nite and firm, yet penetrable and flexible. The very penetration of these boundaries demonstrates the adult’s openness, availability, compassion, and love that allow intimacy to occur. Intimacy demands “ethical strength” (Erikson, 1963, p. 263), the capacity to fully give oneself to “concrete affiliations and partnerships” (p. 263). Such empathy and love are the “natural heirs” to adolescent fantasy and trans- ference that have been worked through (Shea, 1995b).

6) The adult self is its own responsible process of experiencing: in adulthood, experience is owned, boundaried and coherent. The adult self owns its inner reality and identity and thus is unwilling to shirk personal and social responsibilities. This self is capable of a “time Gestalt” (Angyal, 1973, p.63), an organised time process, in continuity with one’s past, giving meaning to the present, and direction to the future.

The adult self’s responsibility for, and owning of, its own processes and experiences significantly impacts the adult self’s religious experience, its God relationship. This relationship, like all its relationships, is founded on mutuality.

Unfettered Imaging of the Adult Self

Unfettered imaging is a process of imaging that is no longer tied, as it was in adolescence, by the images of reality put forth by others. It flows from the six characteristics of the adult self. The self is no longer embedded in elements of fantasy and no longer distorted by transference or the subject- object dichotomy of reality. It is a liberated process of imaging coming directly from the adult self. It is unique, fully owned and authored by the adult self “as an identity in a mutuality of relating” (Shea, p. 10). It seems to flow from self-reflection and self-actualisation. It establishes coherency, unity and understanding to one’s experiences (Johnson, 1987). It has its source in the feeling and depth of the adult body-self, from where it flows freely and fully. The ability of the adult self to relate by means of unfettered imaging impacts on how the adult self holds all experiences, including religious experiences.

Religious Experience of the Adult Self

The God who is experienced by the adult self, with unfettered imaging, is experienced as an identity in a mutuality of relating. This experiential relationship with God honours the six characteristics of mature adulthood, Shea (2002) held.

Religious experience for the adult-self is in and of the body-self. It is deeper than rational assent to a set of beliefs or formal adherence to a given religious tradition. One believes, with all one’s heart, all one’s body. Concepts and creeds have personal meaning because they resonate with one’s body- felt experience. One’s “relationship with God - often celebrated in community and ritual – is always an incarnation; it is something that is in and of the body self” (Shea, p. 10). “Body as well as soul must participate” (Bryant, 1984, p. 52) in this heartfelt knowing of God, in which instinct and emotion, intuition and the non-rational, combine.

Religious experience for the adult-self is rooted and disclosed in feeling (Shea, 2002). For James (1985), feeling is the deeper source of religion, to which theological and philosophical formulas are secondary products. Feeling carries the wholeness of the human response to God. It is the place to find, and be with, God, where the cognitive and affective live as one. Here, the experience of God is sensed but not grasped (Bryant, 1987).

In adult religious experience boundaries are maintained (Shea, 1995b). Paradoxically, “boundaries of the self and boundaries of God are both held and shared” (p. 420). To maintain clear boundaries, one must be in one’s body. The holding of clear boundaries is a crucial, central issue in religious development. Holding clear boundaries allows the adult self “to understand the boundaries of God; the meaningful ‘whole’ of an adult is what allows us to find the meaningful ‘whole’ of God” (Shea, 2002, p. 16). An enlightened, harmonious adult self respects its own integrity and so can offer the same respect to the integrity of God, in a spirit of humility, honesty and with no great need for control.

Adult religious experience exists in intimacy. In this intimate experience of the Living God there is movement and change at the depth of the self. As previously noted, this depth holds the psychological ground of one’s personality. It is the inner sanctuary where self-awareness goes beyond analytical reflection and opens out into metaphysical and theological confrontation with the abyss of the unknown yet present – to one who is “more intimate to us than we are to ourselves” (Merton, 1969, p. 38).

Paradoxically, this inner becomes fleshed/incarnated in the outer. This intimacy with God is experienced in intimacy with others and is always nurtured in some form of genuine community. It surrounds us, is in us, colouring all our relating (Myers, 1997).

For the adult-self, religious experience is its own responsible process. It is based on mutual integrity, in which the person is her/his wholeness of self before the wholeness of God. In this mutual relating, the meaning of the self and the meaning of God unfold together. There is a give and take. For example, to God’s ‘I am’ there is an answering ‘I am, too’. There is a new depth to one’s experiencing of God, and, most importantly, a new recognition of who the self is, and who the self is to God – a most dearly beloved.

For the adult self, personal religious experiences are inherently meant to be mystical experiences, which are experiences marked by immediacy and a first-hand felt awareness of the self in empathy and love with God and of God in love with the self in like manner. There is a deep felt knowing that one is the beloved of God to one’s core, giving rise to “mystical states of consciousness” (James, 1985, p. 301).

The adult self, unfettered imaging and religious experiencing of the Living God are a whole, a gestalt. However, for many psychologists it is over the issue of adulthood that psychology and religion part company. In Shea’s view, “The wonderful and amazing irony is that it is only in adulthood that psychology and religion can really come together” (1995b, p. 421), can be friends. Shea viewed adulthood as the missing link in this vexed area. Adulthood is a necessary first step if one is to meet the Living God in the manner outlined above. The characteristics of this God as, appreciated by Shea and others, follow.

Characteristics of the Living God

The adult self with its unfettered imaging is capable of personally experiencing a Living God. The God one experiences can be imagined in almost any configuration. However, there are some definite core characteristics that fairly describe who this God is for the individual (Shea, 1999a).

1) The Living God is a god as Thou: the adult-self encounters God freely, intimately, and uniquely, in a “real meeting and betweenness” (Shea, 1999a, p.10). The quality of this relationship is existential, experiential, beyond knowledge, where God and the beloved coexist in unanalysable integrity and wholeness (Homans). The adult self rejoices in who it is before God as ‘Thou’. God experienced as Thou is a transformation of the object-person God of the adolescing self. The contradiction of a distant and over-against God has somehow changed into the “paradox of the God of Presence or perhaps a God of Absence” (Shea, 1995b, p. 423). In this transformation, the “external” God has not now become “in- ternal”. Rather, the subject-object dichotomy is itself transformed. Now, God and the self are distinct and inseparable together.

2) The Living God is a God of Love: the Living God is a God of unconditional love. Paradoxically, this God of Love is in the law and beyond the law, simultaneously. The laws and commandments are trans- formed, especially by one’s relationship with this aspect of the Living God, into the arena of conscience and personal responsibility. For the adult self, religion is always a context for morality. However, this God has an “acceptance of the unacceptable” (Tillich, as cited in Shea). Shea pushed the paradox and acceptance of the God of love to the limit when, like James (1985), he insisted that this God encom- passes evil. For Shea, while there are sundry evils in the world and in people, including the adult-self, evil does not have the final say. “The God of Love is now beyond right and wrong, good and evil” (p. 424) he argued. Evil is somehow “swallowed up in supernatural good” (James, p. 131) and the final word is one of loving transformation.

The experience of God’s love, acceptance, and healing, encompassing and transforming even evil, is for the adult self an unconditional experience of salvation at the deepest depths of the body-self. The stance of the adult self towards the Living God is that of trust and love. This certainly suggests that adulthood and are friends rather than foes.

3) The Living God is a God of Mystery: the intimate, body felt experience of the Living God is often spoken of by the adult self as an experience of mystery, of inherent paradoxes. Now:

The God who must be known cannot be known at all, and the God who cannot be known is somehow known anyway. To understand that there is no adequate understanding of God is somehow a more adequate understanding of God. (Shea, 1995b, pp. 424-425)

When one experiences God as mystery it impacts on how one holds what one believes. The God of mystery is a transformation of the God of beliefs. What was there – beliefs and an object person God – are now transformed and inner objective knowing has become personal knowing, and conceptual thinking has been transformed into dialectical and unitive thinking. Such dialectical thinking is imperative if one is to mature in faith (Fowler, 981). At this stage, one’s religious beliefs are still important “and yet they are not important at all” (Shea, p. 425).

4) The Living God is a God of Freedom: the experience of freedom is quite disarming for the adult self who wants to respond in some kind of self-surrender to the Living God. Paradoxically, in the very act of surrendering, freedom is further realised. It is as if they are now somehow together. This God of freedom is a transformation of the God of dependency and control. In this relationship, the adult self has no sense of being controlled or wanting to control. The adult’s over-riding sense is of gratitude, peace, self-acceptance, and wholeness.

5) The Living God is a God of Community: frequently, the adult self’s experience of the Living God is an experience of community, and there is an urge to share these experiences with others. For Shea (1995b), the God of community is a transformation of the God of the group. The latter’s control is transformed into a call to community, “to merge into some greater unity” (Shea, p. 427), to extend oneself. Such an out-reaching is a hallmark of maturity (Allport, 1971), and of one’s maturing relationship with God (Fowler, 1981).

The Functioning of the Living God

According to Shea (1995b) the relationship of the adult self, with unfettered imaging, to the Living God affects how the total Living God structure – a single and interrelated “self and God phenomenon” – functions (Shea, p. 427). This functioning is most clearly seen in how the person tends to hear, speak to, and speak about God. These modes of speaking and hearing are objective means by which counsellors can monitor how clients who wish to look at faith issues are involved in their God relationship. They can ascertain whether the dialogue suggests an adolescing, immature faith, or an adult faith.

Hearing God

When the adult self hears God, s/he hears a voice that is respectful, unconditionally loving and inviting. It is the voice of God as ‘Thou’, resonating from within. It is the voice of freedom, affirming the self in its own experience and inviting the self to dwell in community. It is a challenge to understand deeper truths and invites the self to dwell in the God of mystery. Even when insistent, the boundaries of the adult self are respected. It “serves not to diminish or disparage or punish the self” (Shea, 1995, p. 427), but accepts the self unconditionally and allows individuals to respond and move forward in their own time, at their own pace. It is the voice of concern for the self, others, and the world in which we live. It is “gentle, personal, and caring … slow to speak because it comes gradually from the depth that is felt in the body” (Shea, p. 428). Without self-reflection it may be easily missed. It is the voice of paradox. It is God’s voice and ‘my voice’ at the same time (Shea). It seems to be in harmony with the “law of one’s own being” (Jung, 1981, par. 174). It is the voice of dialogue, of vocation and of conscience.

Speaking to God

The adult self speaks about the Living God in personal, relational, figurative, and symbolic ways, in metaphors. Only metaphors can convey a God so personally experienced. This God is the God of paradoxes, of mystical experience, beyond the subject-object dichotomy of reality, and as such abides only where metaphor can go (Ulanov, 1975). Metaphor is the language of unfettered imaging. It is employed by the adult self in speaking to God. It is the language of prayer.

Development Summary

As noted throughout, the notion of development is paramount. Adulthood comes only to those who negotiate development well, and only these adults can have an adult faith, a belief in the Living God. Not all adult selves grow to this belief. Those individuals, who remain adolescing selves, no matter what their age, can relate to a super-ego God only (Shea, 2005). This means that human development is a prerequisite for faith development, and that faith (or religion) is not “in another realm” (Shea, p.1), but a phenomenon that is essentially human and capable of being understood as such. It is past time for theologians and health professionals to take each other more seriously. Such mutuality might allow for a clearer understanding of how religion functions in a client’s life, and for it to be legitimately addressed as a normal dimension of the individual’s life “without being idealized or pathologized” (Shea, p. 2).

Conclusion

Based on the above examination of adulthood and the holding of an adult religion, it seems to me that adulthood and adult faith/religion can be friends at their core. One can even support and challenge the development of the other. Just as the God of healthy adulthood is a Living God, the question posed at the outset is a living question. It is a constant challenge to a believer as life unfolds, and hopefully faith develops. This does not mean perfection; rather the process of becoming continues through equitable relating to other selves and to whatever is other, including God.

Anne Kelliher Ph.D. is a retired psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer. Her Ph.D. was conferred by N.U.I. Cork, where Anne (and her guide dog, Rory) also graduated with a law degree in 2016. Anne cycles as a stoker with Cycling for all Cork, a group of tandem cyclists for physically and mentally challenged people. Anne, also plays V.I. Tennis, for the visually impaired. She can be contacted at annekelliher1@hotmail.com

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