Transcendence and Immanence in Contemporary Psychotherapies: Trends, Tensions, and Treatment

Abstract

Psychotherapies, beginning with psychoanalysis, came of age in the waning years of the modern age. As our world has been turned by a new paradigm we call the postmodern critique, psychotherapy theory and practice along with all disciplines, changed and developed within this new paradigm. For millennia, cultures were guided by imbedded implicit presuppositions that held in dialectic tension the parallel realities of transcendence and immanence. The progressive rejection of transcendence over the last seventy years has collapsed the dialectic, and has radically and absolutely altered the course of human history. The loss of transcendence has denuded psychotherapy of nearly all vestiges of human understanding that claim to be lawful, universal, or absolute. This paper will explore the current presuppositions, theory, and practice of psychotherapy, and beckon psychotherapists who are Christians to renew their affirmation of and reliance upon a fully orbed treatment approach.