When Fast-Held God Images Fail to Meet Our Needs: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Job Chapters 6 and 7
This article will analyze the biblical book of Job as a model by which clinicians, professors, and ministers today may tease out the idealized projection of perfection that pervades our practices, classrooms, and churches. The book of Job provides a model for how one begins to work toward integratio...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer Science Business Media B. V.
2015
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| In: |
Pastoral psychology
Year: 2015, Volume: 64, Issue: 2, Pages: 195-203 |
| IxTheo Classification: | HB Old Testament NBC Doctrine of God RG Pastoral care ZD Psychology |
| Further subjects: | B
Deuteronomistic history (Biblical criticism)
B Occupation B deuteronomistic theology B Psychoanalysis B W. R. D. Fairbairn B Pastoral Psychology B Israel B Object Relations Theory B Perfection B God B D. W. Winnicott |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article will analyze the biblical book of Job as a model by which clinicians, professors, and ministers today may tease out the idealized projection of perfection that pervades our practices, classrooms, and churches. The book of Job provides a model for how one begins to work toward integration and wholeness by living through the reality of trauma with one another. By excavating the fast-held god image formulated within the Deuteronomistic theology underlying the book of Job, and Job's not-so-subtle aggression in response, I will show how his story re-evaluates and re-imagines entrenched god images that oppress and divide in times of crisis. Such re-imagining enables Job's ego maturation as he challenges the communal dogma constructed during postexilic Israel that perpetuated isolation and inward regression. Using W. R. D Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott, two post-Freudian object relations psychoanalysts, I will analyze what lies behind the schizoid psyche in relation to the story of Job. I will show how Job's aggression and anger, questioning the deeply held beliefs of self, God, and other held in postexilic Israel, provide academics and faith communities alike a new way to imagine healing. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-6679 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Pastoral psychology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11089-013-0554-4 |