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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
or another within the Christian Church and to some extent
outside it, because of its psychological basis in this common
human need.
Jung’s words are a reminder also that, even from a purely
psychological point of view, a confession is liberating only under
certain conditions. Not any kind of confession will do. It must
be ‘an unreserved confession’. This alone will open the arms of
| humanity for me and break through the prison walls of loneli-
` ness and isolation. The qualification raises the question of the
\
nature of confession.
Confession and Self-disclosure
Sometimes confession is confused with the act of
self-disclosure by which, as we say, ‘we talk out our troubles’ or ‘get a
load off our minds’. There is an example of this in Leslie
Weatherhead’s book, Psychology in the Service of the Soul. In his
chapter on “The Value of Confession’ this experienced spiritual
adviser says that he would like to extend the concept of
‘confession’ to mean not only that one speaks to another about one’s
sins but also about anything that may be a weight on one’s
mind—fear, sorrow, disappointment, etc. Weatherhead
considers that if all these elements of experience are not taken into
account, and confession is limited to sin alone, it is insufficient.
Surely this is a mistaken point of view? Weatherhead here
equates confession with the care of souls, whereas in fact the
former is but a part or aspect of the latter. Nothing is gained by
regarding every confidence as a confession, though of course it
is important from both the psychological and the legal points of
view that every admission made to a spiritual adviser be held
under a seal of silence.
The need for confession has a psychological basis, but
Christian confession should be considered as a purely religious
act. For pastoral psychology and spiritual treatment, the
question of spiritual and mental health, of liberation from
inward conflict and unrest, with all that this implies concerning
sin and its symptoms, is paramount. But the Christian
confession is concerned exclusively with sin and the sinner’s relation
to God. This is at once its limitation and its strength.
If this point of view is accepted by the spiritual adviser,
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