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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
Religiously Disguised Problems «
It is not easy to say why problems, essentially derived from
anxiety or emotional conflict, acquire a religious disguise, yet
experience shows that they very often do.
A morbid will-to-power can use religion for its own purposes
in many ways. A person engaged in an egotistical struggle for
dominance over the lives of others will justify himself by
claiming that all his authoritarian behaviour arises from anxiety for
their spiritual welfare, and will try to make the spiritual
adviser an ally in his attempts to tyrannise over them. People
with repressions and strong feelings of guilt often preoccupy
themselves with theological dilemmas. Anxiety states of
psycho-physical origin often carry with them a symptomatic
interest in religious questions.
The Diseased Person’s Problems
The spiritual adviser will have much to do with those
who are physically or mentally ill. As a rule, they have external
difficulties, probably of a social kind, to contend with. A long
period in hospital is often the occasion of economic and
household worries, and perhaps the threat of unemployment.
Illness brings with it religious problems of a special kind, too.
On the one hand, illness sometimes awakens religious interest in
those who have hitherto been apathetic; on the other hand,
religious people often become seriously worried by moods of
spiritual apathy and a disposition to neglect their devotions
which often accompany illness or convalescence because the
vitality is depleted. Again, during illness, many people brood
over the meaning of life and the problem of suffering. Naturally
the problems of the acutely ill are different from those of the
chronic invalid.
Some people turn to a spiritual adviser on their own
initiative when illness overtakes them. Others do so on the
advice of their physician or at the suggestion of a relative or
friend. When a physician has recommended a patient to a
spiritual adviser, the adviser should obtain from the physician a
description of the case and may obtain his views about the
relation of the spiritual problem to the illness. The spiritual
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