영성과 심리학의 관계에 대한 비교연구

Study on the relation between Spirituality and Psychology

Today Christian Spirituality is understood in a wholistic viewpoint, that is, physical, psychological as well as spiritual viewpoint. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to compare Christian spirituality with psychological theory to get deeper un-derstanding to the former for contemporary people who are famil-iar with and are influenced strongly by psychology. In chapter 1, the reason why we need to compare spirituality with psychology is explained. In chapter 2, the major characteristic of christian spirituality is introduced. The essence of Christian spirituality is the deep relationship with God that occurs when the human spirit is grounded in the Holy Spirit. As spiritual growth occurs, our wills and characters are increasingly conformed to God s will and character, and we become more whole. Spiritual growth is thus closely related to psychological growth. To grow into a deeper relationship with God is to find our place, identity, and purpose and to discover a point of reference for the in-tegration of our personality. Here ways to experience God, kata-phatic and apophatic spirituality, is referred, focusing on the latter which is based on an emptying technique of meditation. In chapter 3, the contact point between spirituality and psy-chology is analyzed. Especially Jung s theory is introduced for this purpose. Jung s theory of Individuation refers to the lifelong proc-ess of becoming whole through the synthesis of conscious and un-conscious aspects of personality, focusing on function of symbol, myth, and ritual process. Jung viewed this individuation as a reli-gious process, describing it as the submission of the ego-will to God s will. Spiritual growth was thus viewed as the movement away from the ego as the center of personality toward the self as that center. In chapter 4, benefits we can get from comparison of spiritu-ality and psychology is introduced. Those who do not love oneself, have boundary confusion disorder, have low self-esteem, have ir-rational thinking, and do want always to be perfect can get help from psychology and this kind of psychological healing leads to spiritual maturity. Especially Jung s contribution is introduced. Jung correctly realized that spirituality must involve the language of the unconscious (symbols), not merely the language of the con-scious(words). His discovery of the important role of symbols in the integration of the psyche is a major contribution to our under-standing of the place of symbol and liturgy in religious life. Spirituality and psychology are here deeply interconnected.