Why is God Always Mad at Me

1
Why is God Always Mad at Me?

• Dynamic Therapy, Depression, and the God Image
• Glendon L. Moriarty, Psy.D.
• Louis Hoffman, Ph.D.

2
God Concept vs. God Image

• Brief exercise to illustrate differences
• Draw a picture of You and God
• Draw a picture of how you FEEL you and God look
  after you have done something wrong.

3
Definitions

• God Concept the intellectual, theoretical,
  mental definition of the word God. It is
  shaped by religious education and exists more as
  an abstract concept than an immediate emotional
  reality (Rizzuto, 1979, Lawrence, 1997).
• God Image the subjective emotional experience
  of God. It is shaped by our experience of our
  parents and enables us to continue earlier
  learned relational patterns (Rizzuto, 1979,
  Lawrence, 1997).
• God Image is a type of transitional object
  (Winnicott, 1971). Beans is a good example of a TO

4
Overview of Research

• Correlational studies - positive relationship
  between parental representations and God Image
  (Birky Ball, 1988 Dickie, Eshelman, Merasco,
  Shepard, Wilt, Johnson, 1997), and God image
  and self-esteem (Benson Spilka, 1973 Buri
  Meueller, 1993).
• Tisdale et al.(1997) ran study on inpatient
  treatment program and found self-esteem increased
  and depression decreased as the God image was
  experienced as more supportive
• Cheston, Piedmont, Eanes Lavin (2003) measured
  impact of outpatient therapy on God image and
  found that treatment resulted in a more
  compassionate God image.

5
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Main Assumptions

• Consciousness, Preconscious, Unconscious
  Iceberg metaphor
• Attachment/interpersonal connection is one of the
  main needs.
• Interpersonal Problem requires an interpersonal
  solution
• Problems are learned in the past, repeated in the
  present and acted out with the therapist
• Clients need a corrective emotional experience to
  change - new experience and new understanding

6
Development of Depression

• Abuse, Neglect, Lack of Attunement or Emotional
  Distance in Childhood
• Anger at Parents Turned Toward Self
• Unconscious Switch Need to change self to win
  love from parents (McWilliams, 1994)
• Replaying of interpersonal patterns with others
  and God (Jones, 1991)

7
The Dynamic Therapy Process

• Countertransference
• Traditional View - Countertransference occurs
  when therapists project unresolved issues onto
  clients (e.g., old relationship, issue with
  parent)
• Levenson (1995) describes the HOOK, The
  therapist will inevitably be pushed and pulled by
  the patients dysfunctional style and will
  respond accordinglythe therapist inevitably
  becomes hooked into acting out the
  complimentary response to the patients
  inflexible, maladaptive, pattern (p. 38).

8
Case Example Bob Williams

• 37 y/o Caucasian clergy person
• Multiple depressive and dependent symptoms
• Feels like he cannot win Gods approval
• Father abused alcohol and was rejecting
• Wife is very domineering
• Works too many hours and tries desperately to
  please church members

9
Bob continued

• An interpersonal analysis reveals
• Main Problem - Bob is skilled at getting others
  to tell him what to do
• Hook - Id feel very good about myself and tell
  him what to do
• Unhook - Stop repeating the pattern and help him
  see how he pulls for me to respond in this manner

10
Bob continued

• Triangle of Persons (Menninger, 1958)
• Square of Persons (Strength, 1998)

Past
Present
Therapist
Present
Past
Therapist
God Image
11
Defenses

• 3 Questions to clarify (McCullough-Vaillant,
  1997)
• 1. How is Bob behaving maladaptively?(defense)
  People-Pleasing
• 2. What would be a more adaptive
  response?(feeling-guided response) Being
  Assertive
• 3. Why is Bob behaving maladaptively rather than
  adaptively? (conflict around adaptive response)
  Fear of Rejection

12
Defenses continued

• Triangle of Conflict (Malan, 1987) Related to
  Square of Persons

Past
Present
Defense
God Image
Anxiety
Threatening Feeling
Therapist
13
Defense Interventions

• Step 1 - Recognize - Validate
• Step 2 - Relinquish - Negative costs, Grief over
  loss caused by defense
• Affect Experiencing - integrating the threatening
  emotion with therapist and with God image

14
Questions or Comments?
15
(No Transcript)