Normative Thoughts, Normative Feelings, Normative Actions: A Protestant, Relational Psychoanalytic Reply to E. Christian Brugger and the Faculty of IPS

Abstract

The present article is a response to E. Christian Brugger's 2008 article, Anthropological Foundations of Clinical Psychology, published in the Journal of Psychology & Theology (Volume 36, Number 1). In the article, Brugger argued that all psychological theories contain implicit anthropologies complete with values and ethics. Brugger called on theoreticians to overtly explicate their philosophical and theological model. He then presented such a system from his own Catholic tradition and invited authors from other Christian traditions to constructively interact. The authors of this article dialogue with Brugger's model using Reformed and Wesleyan theology and Relational Psychoanalysis.