The Search

Kevin Vail

1 The Search

P634 – Dr. Brian Grant

The Search Kevin Vail P 634 – Theological Perspectives on Pastoral Care & Counseling Dr. Brian Grant – Instructor

Kevin Vail

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P634 – Dr. Brian Grant

In perhaps the most famous statement in Christian literature, outside of the Bible, St. Augustine of Hippo writes “Our hearts were made for you, O’ Lord, and they are restless till they rest in Thee”. His Confessions is the poetic and doxological narration of his own lifelong search for that ultimate object of faith, God, and is arguably the founding document of Christian psychology. Contemporary object relations theory confirms what St. Augustine knew, human beings are object seeking and object using creatures. Common objects of our world are imbued with a meaning and value for us and we need them to feel real and alive. Faith is part of every human life and it requires such objects, vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit (called or not called, God is present), or as Ryan Lamothe puts it, “[t]he infant is born with faith” (2001, p. 51). However, this object seeking can and does go awry, as is implied by St. Augustine’s statement. Human beings can and do imbue the wrong objects with meanings that they cannot contain. The object, so imbued with all the hopes and faith of the individual, cannot but fail to satisfy the heart. The result of such failure is a loss of vitality and personality disintegration. The individual can become trapped in a cycle of obsessive and compulsive behaviors, as he/she again and again places all his/her hopes and faith in the object. Today, we often call this cycle addiction; the ancients knew it as idolatry. Lamothe writes, “In the midst of the vicissitudes and struggles of life, human beings possess and make use of objects that reveal the reality and necessity of their faith” (2001, p. 77). He illustrates the above truth in his book Revitalizing Faith Through Pastoral Counseling with the case of a man he calls “Len”. Working as a substance abuse counselor for most of my adult life, I have seen many “Len’s”; persons who, as a result of failures in early development, became fixated on a panacea that provided them with “a sense of continuity and psychological cohesion” that was “mostly presymbolic and unreflective” (Lamothe, 2001, p. 88). This paper is a brief

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discussion of one such case. The client, who I will call “Steve”, is a 32-year-old white male from a working class background. At the time of treatment he was incarcerated by the Indiana Department of Corrections as a result of forging his own prescriptions for narcotic medications. He met D.S.M.IV criteria for Opiate Dependence and reported using 2 to 4 80 mg OxyContin tablets, intravenously, per day. He reported he had been using OxyContin for 3 years prior to his incarceration. Steve disclosed that his home life growing up was chaotic, his father had abandoned the family when he was an infant and his mother was alcoholic. He had 2 siblings who were older than him and who took responsibility for the affairs of the home. He reported his mother would frequently be absent from the home for days at a time and the children would be on their own regarding meals and daily activities. He reported that when his mother was around she was typically intoxicated and sometimes became physically abusive. There was no stable male figure in his life, other than his brothers, though Mom did have occasional boyfriends. These relationships did not last long enough for him to form any sort of lasting attachment to any of these men. He attended primary school and completed up to the 9th grade before he quit. His older brothers introduced him to alcohol and marijuana when he was 9 years old and he used them regularly until he was introduced to opiates in his mid-20’s. Childrens’ Services was never involved with the family and, to Steve it seemed as though “no one cared about us”. Steve began shoplifting when he was 11 years old and graduated to home burglaries by age 16. He reported no gang involvement or juvenile arrests. He had no documented history of violence. He was successful at forging prescriptions for narcotics for 2 years prior to being arrested and prosecuted for the current violation. He was employed while at in the work release

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P634 – Dr. Brian Grant

program and had no disciplinary history within the I.D.O.C. Steve was a leader in the group process, taking the “task master” role within the group. He appeared to form a positive transference with me and often sought to speak with me outside of the group context. He completed all his group assignments in psycho-education, primary treatment and relapse prevention and was generally compliant with the treatment process. He adopted the role of the “model client” for the substance abuse program in addition to being a “model offender” at the facility. His behavior upon release from the I.D.O.C. is unknown to me since there was no follow-up for released offenders. I do know he was not re-incarcerated prior to my leaving the I.D.O.C. in the summer of 2007. “Steve’s” case was very typical in my tenure within the I.D.O.C.; a child abandoned by his parents and forced to grow up on his own, in this case with the help of his older siblings. He had no positive role models and no nurturing. His life was about survival and escape. He learned how to steal from, manipulate and avoid others. Object relations theory has many insights to offer us in such a case and combined with the Christian theological perspective, we can draw some theoretical and practical conclusions from his case. Ryan Lamothe presents us with such a combined perspective in his book Revitalizing Faith Through Pastoral Counseling. Lamothe writes, “faith is an intermediate area between theology and psychology, vitality serves as a bridge that joins the two, sometimes distant, shores” (2001, p. 27). Lamothe defines faith as a “vital concern”, by which he means “a person’s passions for and experiences of being alive and real” (p. 28). A person’s capacity for faith is forged in early interactions between the infant and the primary caregiver (typically the mother). These “interaction structures… organize the infant’s experiences and continue to be present throughout human development” (p. 30). These interactions are the infant’s first experiences of social relationships and comprise the basis

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for a discussion of the “social realm of faith”. This “social realm of faith” includes our subjectivity, i.e. “ the person’s unreflective, pre-reflective and reflective engagement with the world” (p. 31). Lamothe analyzes this subjectivity in four aspects: 1) The pre-given social reality that he/she actively organizes into relatively stable self-and-other and self-with-other frameworks 2) The elemental reality of agency and continuity through which the person experiences the world and organizes these experiences into a sense of self and identity. 3) The subjective organizations in relation to objects and persons. 4) The experiences of the individual as he/she emerges, changes and is transformed through the complex interplay of biological structural factors (nature) and the recognitions and response of other persons (nurture) (pp. 3133). Also included in the “social realm of faith” is the intersubjective. In adulthood, the intersubjective is a realm of language and symbols; however, object relations theory holds that it appears prior to the acquisition of language or the recognition of symbols. It is our ability share experiences of being “alive and real” with others (p. 34). Infants later learn the rituals and narratives of their cultural milieu that “disclose the group’s understandings and expectations regarding belief-disbelief, trust-distrust, loyalty-disloyalty, and hope-hopelessness”. In other words, we learn “What am I to believe? Who (or what) am I to trust? To whom should I be loyal? In whom or what am I to place my hope?” (p. 39). For someone like Steve, the answer to most of these questions winds up being the same - the drug. All other objects are sacrificed for its pursuit and attainment, as the authors of the Narcotics Anonymous text wrote “[o]ur whole life and thinking was centered in drugs in one form or another - the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more” (1988, p. 3). How does this situation come to pass? What happens to a young man or woman that leads him/her down the path to addiction? Research has consistently demonstrated a biogenic factor. Addiction runs in families, even among those separated at early ages and raised by non-addicted

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parents. However the correlation is not 1:1. Not all who are born with a genetic predisposition for addictive behavior manifest it in adolescence or adulthood and many, who have no apparent predispositions, do. Moreover, even among those who are born with the predisposition and who grow up in the addicted family, some never exhibit addictive behavior (though the potential for other neurotic and psychopathological behavior is high). Lamothe theorizes that the “caregiver’s recognition and response to the infant’s physical assertions, needs, and desires provide the matrix for bodily conviction and trust” and furthermore this “trust is contingent upon the experience of loyalty, which serves as the ground of hope” (2001, p. 61). This loyalty, trust and hope remains undifferentiated and in the background of all future object relationships. These global convictions “provide the infant with the necessary background for embodied and unified experiences of being alive and real” (p.63). When the infant’s life is characterized not by loyalty, trust and hope but by betrayal, distrust and hopelessness, all later object relationships are compromised. Everyone and everything becomes a threat to be managed or avoided. Infant experiences of bodily cohesion, self-agency and selfownership are corrupted. The infant is objectified and depersonalized. He or she is forced to “survive by means of the mind” (p.66). The “collapse of the mind-body unity” is internalized and the child views their own bodies as objects to be manipulated rather than part of themselves. As Lamothe writes, ”the body as boundary for the self becomes untenable. Some sense of cohesion must be maintained and that sense of cohesion is attained in and through the mind as object” (p.68). The person becomes an observer of life rather than a participant. A person, like Steve, who could not count on the loyalty of his primary caregiver, enters “adulthood wary of others. His palpable anxiety carrie[s] a permanent expectation of disaster, distrust and betrayal”. (p. 78). It is my opinion that when such a person enters the world with this

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background of anxiety, he begins “the search”. This search consists of experimenting with and evaluating a variety of behaviors and objects for the purpose of assuaging his ever-present anxiety. His body is his laboratory. He “dream[s] of finding a magic formula that [will] solve [his] ultimate problem - [himself]” (Narcotics Anonymous, 1988, p. 4). He seeks out experiences that give him, however temporarily, the feeling of “being alive and real”. Steve began this search by being turned onto alcohol and marijuana. These depressants have the biochemical affect of reducing anxiety and also provide the social illusion of intimacy with other users. Through their use he could stave off the omnipresent anxiety. However, all such chemicals contain the risk of building tolerance. The person needs more and more of the drug or stronger drugs to achieve the same effect. When the drug(s) of choice are no longer enough, new behaviors many be experimented with. Steve, with the social support of his peers, began stealing. Although stealing has an instrumental use, the financial support of the thief and his habit if he has one. It also has a psychological use, the adrenaline rush. Many of my clients who regularly engaged in theft have reported this rush is far more important to them than the actual proceeds of the theft, which may be given away or simply discarded. Steve is no different in this. He admitted that he often shoplifted when he had money in his pocket and the experience of being in someone’s home, particularly if they were home and asleep at the time, was the prime motivator in his criminal behavior as a pre-teen and adolescent. For those moments, he was alive. In between experiences, however, the primal anxiety returns and a troubled conscience only adds to it. The individual’s self-identity becomes entangled with the destructive and antisocial behavior. His relationships with others, often who suffer like himself, is typically marked by further disloyalty, betrayal and consequent distrust. He becomes socially and psychologically

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isolated. The authors of the Narcotics Anonymous text put it succinctly, “Anything not completely familiar became alien and dangerous. Our world shrank and isolation became our life. We used in order to survive.” (1988, p. 4). In short, the drug becomes a god, the addict’s one reliable port in the storm. Our world is full of idols, objects in which we can invest our loyalty, trust and hope. They are ideologies, wealth, fame and social achievement for many, while for others, like Steve, the object of chemicals was presented in his social narratives as that which could be trusted and relied upon. This is not a new phenomenon in human experience; St. Augustine was familiar with this search as well. Almost 1600 years ago he wrote, “I began to look around for some object for my love, since I badly wanted to love …To love and to have my love returned was my heart’s desire… I exhausted myself in depravity, in the pursuit of an unholy curiosity” (1961, pp. 55-56). The Decalogue lists idolatry first, because it is the first rule of human nature, without which all the other rules lose their meaning. God is not imposing a heteronomy here; He is revealing to us our nature. Idolatry was the constant temptation of the Israelites and though we today we seldom make burnt offerings before idols of “silver and gold”, we are still subject to worship those things that “have mouths but they cannot speak” (cf. Ps 115). Addicts like Steve, after completing programs of psycho-education, group therapy and relapse prevention, are typically referred to 12 step groups for ongoing care and re-integration into society. Although these groups have only appeared in the last 75 years or so, they operate by principles that are as old as the human psyche itself. They are more or less patterned after the 16th century Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. They treat the addiction as a bio-psychosocial disease and direct the addict to a spiritual solution to his spiritual problem. The first three steps seek to reorder the addict’s relationship to that ultimate object which is God and their entire

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focus is towards the creation and deepening of a relationship with that God who is “the love that moves the sun and all the stars”. However, it is not simply cognitive restructuring. The regular meetings and the addict’s experience with a sponsor, who is an informal counselor, a member of the group and who understands what the addict has been through, combines to provide support and love and may give the addict the opportunity to experience, perhaps for the first time - loyalty, trust and hope. It is only on this foundation that the addict can find his/her way to God.

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P634 – Dr. Brian Grant

References Lamothe, Ryan. (2001). Revitalizing Faith Through Pastoral Counseling. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. Narcotics Anonymous (5th ed.). (1988). Van Nuys, CA: World Service Office, Inc. St. Augustine of Hippo. (1961). Confessions (R.S. Pine-Coffin, Trans.). New York, NY: Penguin Books.