Authors: Douglas Hansen & Robert Drovdahl

Journal of Psychology and Christianity, Vol 25(1), Spr 2006. pp. 54-63

Abstract:

Maddox (2004) suggests that conversations in a renewed Wesleyan engagement with psychology should begin with theories “sensitive to how our relationships with others impacts us in both positive and negative ways.” (p. 108) British child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott surely qualifies as an early conversation partner. Winnicott’s groundbreaking work on the mother-child relationship and its impact on child development has had far-reaching effects on the field of psychotherapy. He has even been described by his major biographer as the “Wesley of Psychoanalysis,” This article examines parallels between Winnicott and Wesley’s lives and thought. Through demonstrating resonance between the two, the article points toward integrative themes for healthy human development.

Author: Maddox, Randy L.

Journal of Psychology & Christianity, Vol. 23(2), Sum 2004, pp. 101-109

Abstract:

Psychology began to emerge as a distinct discipline at about the same time that John Wesley was developing his mature understanding of the dynamics of Christian life. This essay opens with an account of Wesley’s engagement with this emergent psychology and its impact on his understanding of Christian spirituality, including his distinctive conception of Christian perfection. Attention then turns to tracing the continuing engagement of Wesleyan theologians with psychology, noting both where they resisted developments in the discipline and where their appropriation of psychological models reshaped their own assumptions about spirituality The essay closes with some proposals For exploration in the recent renewal of explicit engagement between Wesleyan theology and psychology.

Author: Leffel, G. Michael

Journal of Psychology & Christianity, Vol. 23(2), Sum 2004, pp. 130-139

Abstract:

This article outlines four theological principles of John Wesley’s therapeutic and creational vision of Christian spirituality. It first sketches alternative theological models of the relationship between nature and grace, suggesting that models of the God-world relationship that emphasize Gods transcendence to the exclusion of immanence tend to perpetuate a bifurcation of psychological and spiritual processes of change, contributing to a continuing “disenchantment of nature.” Wesleys concept of Prevenient Grace is discussed as an alternative model of the God-world relationship. Some of Wesley’s lesser known passages concerning the therapeutic and cosmological features of Prevenient Grace are discussed, and implications for a more integrated view of psychotherapy and spiritual formation are considered

Authors: Wright, Ronald W.; Diamond, Greg; Budd, Philip.

Journal of Psychology & Christianity, Vol. 23 (2), Sum 2004, pp. 155-164

Abstract:

A psychodynamic psychohistory of John Wesley is offered that assumes a connection between his most crucial Formative experiences and his theological convictions. In particular, the role of new relational and affective experiences around the time of Wesley’s “Aldersgate experience” are viewed as initiating a shift in his unconscious organizing principles and, consequently, his theological emphasis on humanity’s need to experience God’s love. Wesley’s journal entries and letters through 1738 serve as the primary sources utilized to examine Wesley’s life and theology. An examination of Wesley’s life and unconscious organizing principles not only provides a helpful hermeneutic for understanding Wesleys theology, but also provides a case study for which to apply the concepts developed in the other ankles in this issue.