Transference and transcendence

About this book

Transference and Transcendence presents in systematic form Becker's understanding of human existence as a balance of competing paradoxical psychodynamic forces. According to Becker, connections exist between such therapeutic concepts as low self-esteem, alienation, denial, and the theological category of sin. Based on an expanded view of transference dynamics in which human beings seek to draw power for living from external objects, Becker's work posits that people have this kind of relationship to God as well. His ideas concur with the Psalmist's: the human heart longs for completion in a true and living God. Becker's social scientific point of view does not attempt to prove this God's actual existence. Rather, it demonstrates that the "God" of everyday life is a projection of the power of social institutions. The attachment to "Gods" as the only adequate transference object for mature spirituality and personal growth is socially functional. Tempering though Becker's work is, this study suggests that we may find certain "intimations of transcendence" in counseling. Whereas there is in the human heart that panic disguised as reason whose ultimate manifestation is in a "denial of death," Becker's work, as well as that of Yalom, Lifton, and Kubler-Ross, suggests that it might be possible to incorporate death awareness as an ally in living. Pastoral and psychological counseling pursued from a Beckerian perspective, supplemented especially by materials from grief therapy, enables therapists to bring the immediate awareness - and acceptance - of mortality into the clinical work.