Meeting of Minds: The Fathers & Psychotherapy

In this blog post Fr. Alexis Trader, an Athonite monk, describes the genesis of his new book on the Ancient Christian Wisdom & Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy. The introduction is written by H. Tristram Englehardt, who is one our speakers at our upcoming Houston conference on medical ethics. There are three additional posts about the contents of the book listed at the end of the original. The second one includes this:

At its core, the book is really about being a Christian in this post-Christian world and the choices that this reality presents. In some ways, our situation is similar to that of believers during the first centuries of the Church. The two easiest options are to reject the culture entirely and try to survive in a self-enclosed cultural ghetto or to embrace the culture and merge with it. Both of those choices, however, have severe problems in terms of Christian outreach on the one hand and apostasy on the other. These are subjects I discuss at length in Chapter One, entitled “Egyptian Gold in a Christian Hand: Models for Relating Cognitive Therapy and Orthodox Pastoral Theology.” Looking at important figures in Church history, I note that there is yet another option, which I refer to as discerning openness. It can be seen in the works of Clement of Alexandria, Saint Basil the Great, and Saint Maximus the Confessor, as well as in other Fathers of the Church. So, Ancient Christian Wisdom and Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy is about applying an approach of discerning openness to what may be the most important form of treatment for various psychological problems of our day.

Comments

[Martha Taylor Murphy]

As a longtime friend of Father Alexis and having read the work in the dissertation manuscript form, I would like to see his book get the attention it so richly deserves. Especially at this time of upheaval and turmoil, I think the world needs this kind of wisdom.

Father Alexios brings an incredible and vast knowledge of the early church fathers, pastoral counseling and modern psychotherapy. He makes accessible wisdom that many of us have had to dig out from individual volumes, sometimes having to be specially ordered and sometimes out of print.

Now a Roman Catholic, having been a lifelong Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian, I believe the offerings in this book transcend the differences in our various traditions. We share the historical early Church fathers, even though those treasures are seemingly not readily available to most church-going Western Christians without a strong academic grounding in the Faith. This book is a bridge to bring those riches into the West, into our midst, as well as being a powerful study of the approaches of both Eastern Orthodox spiritual counseling and Western style psychotherapy. But one does not need to be an academic or a psychology specialist to benefit from reading this book.

Any priest who hears confessions should appreciate the insights and experience Father Alexios brings to his discussion of confession. Pastoral counselors and Christian psychotherapists will value his knitting together of Christian wisdom with modern therapeutic approaches. For those of us who are not professionally involved, it is simply enlightening and enriching reading!

Martha Taylor Murphy

["Cyril" (David W.) Quatrone]

Up until the present time, the only book on psychology that I have read and believed to capture the human condition, was a book by Victor Frankl. Most books on psychology, including those from a Christian perspective, have left me grossly underwhelmed. Fr. Alexis' book, however, is riviting. It is not always an easy read, but is accessible to a layman such as myself, and well worth the effort. Father examines the benefits of a scientifically based cognitive approach to understanding and healing the human psyche. However, because of his both intellectual and spiritual immersion in the Fathers, he is able to also delineate the limitations of, and dangers of a purely scientific approach. The book should be of benefit to anyone interested in psychology & counseling and spirituality & the teachings of the Church Fathers.
It may only be a slight exaggeration to say that Father does for psychology what St. Justin Martyr and St. John Damascene did for philosophy. A must read, especially, I would think, for confessors and Christian counselors.

[Monk]

There is a new review of Ancient Christian Wisdom and Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy by Archbishop Chrysostomos appearing in Orthodox Tradition and available on line at:

http://orthodoxinfo.com/phronema/review-of-ancient-christian-wisdom-and-aaron-becks-cognitive-therapy.aspx