Are O e Other er People Hel ell? Reconc nciling ng R Relations nshi hips w with h Keno notic Couns nselling ng Presentation: Genevieve Milnes 1
L'enfer, c'est les autres or ‘Hell is other people’ • No Exits ( Sartre) summarizes many issues that are presented to counsellors. • Sartre described three damned souls who find themselves trapped in the same room in hell. Garcin cheated and mistreated his wife; Inez seduced her cousin's wife while living with them; and Estelle cheated on her husband and drowned her illegitimate baby. All of them expected to be punished by some mediaeval torturing device for all eternity but they concluded that they have been placed together to make each other miserable for the rest of eternity. • Many humans find themselves in a hell with no exits here on earth - trapped in loveless marriages, burdened with dysfunctional families or yoked together with abusive colleagues. The “hell” is mostly due to our relationships with ‘the other’ and the pain drives many to seek psychotherapeutic help. 2
Martin Buber Ich-Du (I-Thou) and Ich-Es (I-It). • In Ich-Es interactions, humans treat things, animals, and people as objects to be used and classified according to the level the object serves their self-interests. In Ich-Es relationships, humans do not actually meet because they are merely a relationship with oneself - not a dialogue, but a monologue. They justify themselves, use and manipulate the others for personal pleasure, and argue their point of view as they descend into greater and greater intrapsychic and extrapsyschic alienation. • Ich-Du (“I-Thou”) relationships are encounters where people meet one another without any qualification and objectification of one another. Ich-Du relationships are characterized by encounter, meeting, dialogue, mutuality, and exchange. 3
Imago Dei & Imago Trinitatis • Buber stated that the Ich-Du encounter found its origin with the “Eternal Thou” • Created in Imago Dei (image of God), we also experience the Imago Trinitatis (human reflection of the Trinity) that produces the intrapsychic conflict of Ich-Es (I-It) when focused on ourselves and Ich-Du (I-Thou) when we experience a unity and diversity much like the Trinity. Jesus prayed “that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us . • Ich-Du seen in Perichoresis that contains both closeness and open space and unified by love. 4
Kenotic Counselling Kenotic Counselling is based on Kenosis - a Trinitarian dynamic of relational life that began at creation and is continued in the incarnation and reconciliation where there is an “emptying” of oneself in order to be receptive to the other. Kenosis is described in Philippians 2.4-8 (Message Bible): • Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status, no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death – the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion. 5
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Negati tive K Kenosis • Jurgen Moltmann (1981) observed that creation ex nihilo meant that God had to go outside of Godself in the creative act. Before the world was, God was the fullness of existence – and no there was no nihil (emptiness). God needed to make space within and, in doing so, emptied Godself to make room for the creative act. Kenotic Counselling begins with the making of a space within so that there is opening to others. We cannot be “full of ourselves” in the counselling room but need to consciously empty ourselves of our own concerns and issues so that we are fully present to each other. Kenosis replaces the empty buzz of self-absorbed verbal communication. Personal needs, interests, plans, fears and joys blot out the other as people only half listen conversation partners – often waiting for an their turn to speak. Kenotic Counselling requires an emptying of chatter, definition and the provision of silence to others so that it can be filled if and when others are ready for relationships. 7
Negative Kenosis & Kenotic Counselling • Kenotic Counselling requires us to put aside our own protections to identify with alienated clients who have lost control of their lives – slaves to corruption, circumstances and conceit. Richard Beck observed that the “psychology of disgust” has pervaded the Christian church who seek a “purity and holiness” but end up with social exclusion and a Gnostic flight from “the world” and proposes three elements of the psychology of disgust: • Boundary Monitoring: Disgust occurs when a boundary is crossed. For example, saliva. The Christian Church has erected many such boundaries – such as pre-marital sex, swearing, drinking, smoking, and dancing. • Contamination Appraisals: a lot of effort in making sure the possibility of contamination is reduced. Belief in their contamination, we pay attention to “proximity” - so that segregation occurs. In church circles, contamination appraisals result in “avoidance of the worldly”. • Negativity dominance: In any contact, the negative - people (e.g. homeless), ideas (e.g. communism) and behaviours (e.g. going to a nightclub) will “pollute” the “pure” Christian. 8
Christ’s example of negative Kenosis Jesus put aside the psychology of disgust of social contexts. While boundary- monitoring religious Jews treated the Samaritans as disgusting and worthless, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus ignored the contamination appraisals made by Pharisees when he ate in the houses of sinners and tax collectors. While the religious psychology of disgust demanded avoidance because mere proximity made you unclean, Jesus touched lepers and bleeding women. His kenotic mission outweighed any disgust. He emptied himself of his “protective purity” and came to be among us to make a space for us. Kenosis requires honesty to admit that mixing with the disgusting does not come easily to us. Quality time with the down and out, people who smell, people who are different make us uncomfortable. Kenosis requires emptying ourselves and making a space for them. 9
Positi tive K Kenosis . • Having lowered himself to the lowest of the low on earth, Jesus goes even further – he suffers the worst kind of death – a crucifixion. But even that was not the end – the creeds describe Christ’s descent even lower – into hell! Christ emptied himself of all protection from evil and experiences the absolute worst. This is the precursor to the “positive kenosis ” when Christ rid himself of the power of death, the devil and became the author of life. Christ threw off the shackles of death in the resurrection and brings life to the world again. • Positive kenosis requires throwing off (“vomiting up”) the disgusting sin, degradation and spiritual deadness. Eg. A client filled with such toxic experiences that this required “vomiting out all the darkness within her”. In negative kenosis the self is emptied to descend . In positive kenosis the self is emptied to rise . In positive kenosis the self is emptied to offset the negative of the toxic self-images and darkness. Kenotic c ounselling provides our clients with the space and opportunity to vomit up their failure, disgust, misery and hopelessness. 10
Continui uing Kenosis i in C Counselling • Philippians 4:8 states that Christ “ having become human, stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process.” • “Continuing kenosis” is the on-going and humbling work of reconciliation that all of us have been called to do. After dealing with our own disgust of ourselves in personal kenosis – the old has gone, the new has come - by encountering the Eternal Thou, we are able to pour out our pride and arrogance to make space for our clients (negative kenosis ) and vomit out our shame and guilt on the other (positive kenosis ) and take up the work of reconciliation (continuing kenosis ). • Case Study: Pastor Ron Williams. 11
Kenotic Counselling • Kenosis is a theological model based on our imago trinitatis demonstrated by God in creation, incarnation and the cross. • Kenosis challenges us to empty ourselves and create a sufficiently wide space to provide God-love to our clients. • Negative kenosis encourages us to become “nobody and sit where people sit, walk a mile in their shoes, and experience the counter- transference of their guilt and shame. • In our descent into the hell of other people, we lay the foundation for positive kenosis to expel the filth • Continuing kenosis is the relational work of reconciliation. 12
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