By Kalman J. Kaplan, Ph.D. .jpg)
Biblical psychology teaches people that life has purpose, and that people have reason to be grateful that they have been created.
Biblical psychology is optimistic and deep. It acknowledges that life often confronts a person with obstacles, but also stresses that the person has the tools to overcome these obstacles.
Our approach to Biblical psychology desituates Biblical narratives from theology and applies them as Ten Commandments to mental health.
1. Overview of God, Nature and Creation
Earth and Sky precede and create the gods in the Greek creation story, but God precedes and creates heaven and earth in the Biblical account. In our Biblical account, human beings are freed from enslavement by nature. They are given dominion over it, not to ravage it but not to worship it either.
2. Self and Other; Cycle versus Development
Greek thought seems to see self and other as fundamentally opposed, while Biblical thought sees them as working in harmony. The legend of Narcissus is prototypical. Narcissus is totally self-involved, and idealizes his own face in the brook, not realizing that it represents his own reflection. A psychotic juxtaposition rips Narcissus apart and he commits suicide.
In the Biblical story, God calls on Jonah to warn the people of Nineveh of their wickedness. However, Jonah does not want to go and runs away. Ultimately, Jonah learns the message of teshuvah, repentance or return and divine mercy and that he can reach out to another without losing himself.
3. Man and Woman
The difference between the Greek and Biblical accounts of the first woman can be seen through comparing the story of Prometheus and Pandora with that of Adam and Eve. In the Greek account, Pandora is described as a curse to man in retaliation for Prometheus stealing fire from Zeus for man, who has withheld this knowledge. Thus woman is seen as the antithesis of male autonomy,
In our Biblical account, God has willingly given knowledge of fire to man. Eve is described as a blessing to man and as a helpmate.
4. Obedience and Disobedience
The question of obedience versus disobedience then depends who one’s god is. If it is Zeus, one should and indeed must rebel (e.g., Prometheus); if it is the Biblical God in contrast, the best course of action is obedience (e.g., Noah)
5. Fathers and Sons
The biblical story of the Akedah - Abraham's binding of Isaac – provides an alternative to the Greek legend of Oedipus to understand the relationship between fathers and sons. The Akedah narrative suggests an unambivalent resolution of the father-son relationship that is based on a covenant of love and shared purpose between parent and child rather than a compromise between the parental wish to possess the possess the child completely or even to kill him and the desire not to do so.
6. Mothers and Daughters
The Biblical story of Ruth - provides an alternative to the Greek legend of Electra to understand the relationship between mothers and daughters. The Ruth narrative suggests an unambivalent resolution of the mother-daughter relationship that is based on a covenant of love and shared purpose between parent and child rather than a compromise based on threats of abandonment and enmeshment.
7. Sibling Rivalry and its Resolution
The Hebrew Bible offers a plan to resolve family conflict by employing the father's blessing. Originally the source of the sibling conflict, the blessing may work to achieve some level of reconciliation between his sons, as in Jacob’s blessings to all his sons. Greek literature offers no such balm; never developing the idea that a father should bless his children. The result is that conflict in the families grew more angry and nasty in each succeeding generation until the families self-destruct, as did the family of Oedipus.
8. Body and Soul
Plato sees the relationship between body (soma) and soul (psyche) as conflictual and unfortunate. The soul is compelled to view reality not directly, but only through the prison bars of the body. Biblical thought, in comparison, views the human body and soul are both sacred (both referred to as nefesh), both created by God. They can and must function in harmony to fulfill God’s purpose in the world.
9. Freedom, Life and Suicide
To the Greeks, freedom is a struggle against the control of others and suicide is an effort to establish some sense of control over one's own life. For the stoics of Greece and Rome, suicide represents a high form of creativity. Further, almost twenty suicides abound in the surviving 17 tragedies of the Greek playwrights, Sophocles and Euripides. Biblical thought, in contrast, sees freedom as a central feature of its foundation narratives. Freedom can be achieved only in the acceptance of life and the realities of man's relationship with God. There are comparatively few stories of suicide in the Hebrew Bible (six in all) and many stories of suicide-prevention.
10. A Tragic Versus Hopeful Outlook On Life
The Classical Greek view is deterministic and the essence of the tragic vision of man; the Biblical view is intrinsically open to the possibility of change and transformation and lies beneath the idea of genuine psychotherapy. A person is not trapped in an endless cycle, but can and people can develop and even change. The Greek view of tragedy may be contrasted with the Biblical views of hope essential to therapy in three critical contrasts: the ability to overcome a dysfunctional family, the efficacy of prayer, and resiliency with regard to misfortune (e.g., The Biblical Job versus the Zeno the Stoic).
Kalman J. Kaplan, Ph.D., is Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine.
Dr. Kaplan has published widely in the area of interpersonal and international relations, the emerging field of Biblical Psychology, schizophrenia and suicide/suicide prevention. Dr. Kaplan is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, was the co-recipient of the 1998 Alexander Gralnick Award for outstanding original research in suicide and schizophrenia, and was a 2006-2007 Fulbright Fellow at Tel Aviv University.
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