The Integral Message
An understanding of the self remains intimately connected to our relationship with Creator and Creation, God and neighbour. The most immediate relationship is that which we experience in our created environment.
In 1969 humans landed on the moon, crossing new boundaries of the outward horizon, at a time when the psychological movement was encouraging people to cross new interior boundaries of the mind. Perhaps these trends were reflective of a new attitude and impulse within the human to understand the expanding vista of the universe both externally and interiorly?
In the Carl Jung personality template, we can turn our attention to the ego-unconscious mind relational axis as a starting point. We can identify the connection between both the internal and the external experience of our life. By extending the axis beyond the ego, into the externally perceived world and in like manner, tracing the same axis internally, we can see that our relationship with the collective unconscious is interactively engaged with, and mirrors, the world around us. While a dualistic perception of life will see these two vistas as separate, the non-dual integral perception through Relational Spirituality presents the understanding that the movement in both directions needs to be understood as inter-dependent. Herein lies the crux of the call to love one’s neighbour as one’s self.
We react to our perception of the world around us, either positively or negatively, depending upon the state of our mind. If the astronomer was determined to peer far into outer space, the psychologist was equally inspired to peer deeply into the soul of humanity. For this reason, the self-awareness, self-acceptance movement across significant domains of Western society, so greatly enhanced by the insights of psychology, was a significant response to the call of new internal impulses requiring attention. From the more traditional study of the psyche, such as in the form of psychological studies, through to the great range of counselling therapies, the field of counselling grew significantly to trace pathways into the soul. Client-centred, reflective listening, gestalt, bioenergetics, primal, rational emotive, dream, art, neuro-lingual, reality, transactional, systems, were all typical approaches which have developed to deal with mental health, wellbeing, self-actualization, marriage and family, business or even sporting goals.
What is most significant from this new movement is the increased understanding of the interconnection people have with one another and the world beyond. On the one hand, we are products of our environment, so greatly influenced by the personal relationships we experience with those we are most directly connected with. We are molded by our social and cultural mores and shaped by the era of our history. On the other hand, we are also shaped by the archetypal unconscious mind upon which our human propensities are established. We are influenced by our interior memory of family patterns, we are shaped by our own past memories and ultimately, we are shaped by the story of humanity from its origin. As humans we are relational beings, the broad psychological field has greatly enlightened our understanding.
To speak of the developing picture of Social Responsibility we can see its close connection with psychology. One particular contribution of the psychological movement saw that a person’s interior quality of life was connected with its surrounding world. Therapies developed that examined the quality of relationships and the subsequent impact upon people involved in the family, group or community. These therapies often analysed the way people caused others to behave, for example, specialists might map a graph of the family system of interacting relationships. Concerning health or behaviour they might examine how the style of behaviour of one family member might negatively impact upon others in the family relational system. Through the work of family therapists ‘the problem child’ might turn out to be the victim of other family member’s less than admirable behaviour. Transactional Analysis was an example of a relational system that was developed through the work of advocates such as Eric Berne. Virginia Satyr was known for her work in this field of relationships through books such as People Making, the title of one of her well-known books.[1]
Murray Bowen was a leading exponent in the development of systems theory for marriage and family life, well known for its comprehensive view of human behaviour and problems within the family system. Peter Senge is important in this field through his significant contribution to developing systems theory beyond the family into broader organizations, in particular the business community. From a systems perspective, he makes some pertinent statements when he writes: ‘Business and other human endeavours are also systems. They are bound by invisible fabrics of interrelated actions, which are part of that lacework of ourselves …it’s doubly hard to see the whole pattern of change.’[2] He follows up, ‘You can only understand the system of the rainstorm by contemplating the whole, not any individual part of the pattern.’[3] Further still he amplifies, ‘Business is the only institution that has a chance, as far as I can see, to fundamentally improve the injustice that exists in the world.’[4]
The Good Samaritan (Lk. 10:30-37) is an illustration of the way one is called to approach the relationship of oneself and one’s neighbour. Rather than simply identify a neighbour by external description, by way of Jesus questioning, ‘Which of the three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ (Luke 10:36) - Jesus highlights the deeper interaction of the people involved - by turning attention to the sense of neighbourliness the lawyer must discover within himself. It is a profound insight of the inter-connectivity of two people from a significantly past time of history 2000 years ago and years before the development of modern psychology. The ability to perceive the world around us is dependent upon our internal state of mind. Jung identified this as contributing to our individuation. The transformation is accomplished through the interaction of the Spirit working within us, in conjunction with our interaction with the world in which we live. Augsburger highlights the individual-in-community as the proper unit of humanness.[5] Insights from the field of psychology have helped us understand the dynamics of our interaction with our neighbour and highlighted particularly transformative behaviours. While this is a natural process of life, the Christian faith has come to its understanding of how the deepest realms of the Spirit engage with our inner life for transformative purposes. St Paul puts it this way, ‘... be transformed by the renewal of your minds.’ (Rom. 12:2) Psychological insight has enlightened the human mind to clearer processes and pathways.
[1] V. Satir, Peoplemaking (Palo Alto, California: Science and Behavior Books, 1972).
[2] Senge. Peter M., Systems Theory the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990), 7.
[3] ibid.
[4] ibid., 5.
[5] Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship : A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor, 76.