Chapter 6 - Various Disorders PDF

# Chapter 6 - Various Disorders ## Introduction - "Unfortunately," writes critic Stanley Crouch in an article about jazz great Louis Armstrong, "our aesthetic sense of tragedy and comedy, sorrow and happiness, derived from the Greeks, has convinced us that spiritual affliction is a more serious su...

# Chapter 6 - Various Disorders ## Introduction - "Unfortunately," writes critic Stanley Crouch in an article about jazz great Louis Armstrong, "our aesthetic sense of tragedy and comedy, sorrow and happiness, derived from the Greeks, has convinced us that spiritual affliction is a more serious subject than spiritual exultation." - Many humorous activities that can produce joy, be uplifting, and promote personal growth can be garbled and distorted so that they give instead pain, anger, and frustration, which deplete and stifle the human spirit. - The Bible enjoins that people should "serve God with joy and awe" and "rejoice before Him with trembling." - Let people focus not on the tragic view of life but on life's bounties and opportunities. - In all human activities, it helps immensely to have a clear and positive perspective and to understand both one's responsibilities and potential. ## Section Highlights - Five biblical characters whose lives were disrupted by their inability to deal with matters that should have been simple and joyous. - Problems that involve ordinary day-to-day matters-eating, drinking, working, having sex, and acquiring possessions. - Common to all these stories is an inability to establish boundaries around the self and to regulate walls between the self and the outside world in healthy ways. ## Overcoming Eating Disorders: Adam and Eve versus Erysichthon ### Biblical Narrative - Eating disorders include a wide range of problems from dangerous anorexia to being a few pounds overweight, and they have become highly noticeable in modern society. - A report in 1999 claimed that since the introduction of television in several of the South Pacific Islands a few years earlier, the number of eating disorders there had increased fivefold. - Eating disorders are not an invention of modern civilization. - Ancient literature also features stories of anorexia, overeating, and the like. - The Bible offers its own approach to eating, and there is a striking difference between the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit and the Greek myth of Erysichthon, who ate himself. ### Erysichthon - Portrayed by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. - Wickedly chopped down an old huge tree that was sacred to Ceres, the goddess of grain. - Ceres punished him by giving him an insatiable appetite. - The more Erysichthon ate, the hungrier he became. - He finally sold his own daughter for food. - With Neptune's help, she changed her form and escaped her slavery. - When Erysichthon learned that she had this ability, he continued to sell her over and over. - Even this, however, did not supply him with enough food, and he finally devoured himself. ### Similarities between Erysichthon and Adam and Eve - Include an attack on an important tree and a problem involving eating, but here the similarities end. - Adam and Eve were not angry and hostile. - They did not chop down a sacred tree, although they did yield to temptation and ate the forbidden fruit. ### God's Approach vs. Erysichthon - No deity tried to help or rehabilitate Erysichthon, as God did to Adam and Eve. - Food was the medium of punishment for Erysichthon. - Adam and Eve sinned by once eating forbidden food, but they were not punished with self-destruction through food. - They could still eat well and enjoy food, although they had to work harder for it. - Production and the preparation of food became one way for people to express their creativity and to enjoy God's bounty. ## Erysichthon vs. Adam and Eve - Erysichthon was an angry, vicious man who destroyed everything around him: the sacred tree, a man who tried to stop him from attacking the tree, his daughter, and himself. - Adam and Eve were not inherently wicked. - Their act of eating the fruit was propelled perhaps by misguided sensuality or philosophy, but not by depraved hostility or cruelty. ### Erysichthon vs. The Serpent - Erysichthon resembled more closely the serpent in the Garden of Eden, who sought to destroy Adam and Eve with no tangible benefit to himself beyond the false thrill of causing trouble for them. - The serpent's end too was similar to Erysichthon's. - He would crawl on his belly, which seems to indicate that after having induced the people to sin through eating he would himself never enjoy the full pleasures of the belly. - For both Erysichthon and the serpent, eating is a punishment, for they can never enjoy it or be satisfied with it. ### The Greek Myth vs. The Bible - The Greek myth offers no resolution to Erysichthon's eating problem except his self-destruction. - The Bible's response is very different. - God intervenes in the manner of an expert therapist, not only to save Adam and Eve, but also to relax the strain that had developed in their relationship. - The Bible develops the approach that eating, like all activities of this earth, should be sanctified and made into a form of service to God. - Physical pleasure can enhance human holiness. - Thus the Bible ordains that some foods may be eaten while others are prohibited, and people must express gratitude to God for their food. - Eating is a form of expressing and contributing to the joy of life and of marking special occasions such as Sabbaths and festivals. - Both the nutrition and the pleasure of eating offer people a means of enjoying and sanctifying God's creation and their role in it. ### Clinical Implications - The Bible's approach to food has great practical significance for treatment of eating disorders. - Eating must not stem from aggression or loneliness nor should withholding of eating be used as an attempt to establish boundaries. - In these cases the underlying attitude toward eating is destructive, and this negativity will be manifested in the eating disorders. - A healthy individual approaches food in the context of one's entire life. - It can and should be enjoyed without descending to gluttony. - Likewise, one may eat moderately and keep to a desired weight without vomiting what is eaten. - One can have a healthy appetite without degenerating into insatiable hunger. - One can eat moderately without starving to death. - A good therapist will approach eating disorders by seeking to change underlying attitudes to food that are projections of a miserable and unfulfilled personality. - For a healthy individual, eating becomes a means of social and spiritual communication. # Chapter 7 - Overcoming Family Problems ## Introduction - A striking difference emerges in the patterns of biblical and Greek families. - The biblical matriarchs were devoted both to their husbands and to the raising of their children as continuations of the covenant with God. - They intervened strongly and successfully in family affairs and were profoundly important in maintaining both the high quality of the covenantal relationship and the unity within the family. - The Bible and the rabbinic writings regard women as equal and sometimes superior to their husbands in spirituality and in prophecy. ## Family Struggles and Successes - Through the various vicissitudes and disagreements of the lives of the founding families, the husbands and wives were able to support and enjoy each other while carrying out the duties that God had placed upon them. - The children in these families grew up in a milieu where fulfillment was not found in narcissistic acquisition of goods nor by destroying their relatives. - Instead, satisfaction was found in a steady development toward building a nation with a unique theocentric unity. - This development was affirmed anew in each generation by the fathers blessing the children. - Of course, there were some sad failures in biblical families too. ### Abimelech - Son of Gideon and his concubine, murdered all but one of his seventy brothers in an attempt to become ruler. - Perhaps his outsider status left him feeling unblessed by his father. ### David's Family - David's son Amnon raped his half sister Tamar. - Amnon was then murdered by Absalom, another son. - Absalom later led a revolt against David. - Another son of David, Adonijah, tried to seize the throne from Solomon, the designated successor, and was put to death. - The text explains that David did not sufficiently discipline him. - David still managed to build a line of royal succession that ruled Judah for over four centuries until the Babylonian conquests. - Some of the Davidic kings were outstanding personalities, including Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, and others. ### Greek Families - The narrative of Oedipus illustrates an important principle in the Greek family. - As the father recedes as a threat, previously repressed sibling rivalry and hatred becomes free to emerge. - This is because the earlier banding together of the sons was not done out of any filial love or mutuality of purpose, but out of a devil's pact against the murderous father. ### Castor and Pollux - Consider, for example, the story of Castor and Pollux, half brothers who, by all accounts, seem to get along quite well with each other. - Perhaps no paternal threat exists. - Nevertheless, their friendship seems to be without purpose. - They join in adventures that typically involve violent exploits such as rape or theft. - This type of bonding through violence is exactly what Jacob criticizes in Simeon and Levi. - Castor and Pollux do nothing to build families in which to raise future generations. - The children they beget are generally born of rapes and casual relationships. ## Five Family Narratives 1. **Rachel and Jacob:** explores how a husband and wife can learn to trust each other even if the relationship was formed in a deceitful manner. 2. **Achan's story:** shows the impossibility of successfully covering up a family problem rather than dealing with it. 3. **David and Bathsheba:** returns to the problem of how to overcome a less than honorable beginning of a relationship. 4. **Rebecca, Isaac, and Eliezer:** discusses the qualities that should be involved in a healthy approach to mate selection, since choosing a mate wisely goes a long way toward having a happy family. 5. **Boaz and Ruth:** illustrates how mutuality of kindnesses can lead to a deep bond between partners. # Chapter 8 - Parental Blessings, Permission, and Support ## Introduction - The importance of parental blessings, permission, and support cannot be overestimated. - Successful parenting involves blessing children's endeavors, giving them permission to succeed, and supporting them in this process. - A failure to provide this can lead to disaster for the children unless they are able to find a parental substitute. ## Section Highlights - Five biblical stories, each illustrating a psychological issue: 1. **Isaac, Jacob, and Esau:** focuses on the need of parents to be careful in what they assign to each child. 2. **Joseph:** extends this message, arguing that different children may receive different blessings and support. 3. **Hannah and Samuel:** focuses on the need of the parent to consider what the child needs first, even if it entails sending the child away from home. 4. **Naomi and Ruth:** portrays two people evolving their relationship with the realization of their respective developmental needs. 5. **Lot and his daughters:** focuses on the father's need to see his daughter as a person in her own right, and not simply as a possession to be manipulated. # Chapter 9 - Good and Bad Development ## Introduction - Any developmental theory worth its salt must explain how a given person develops from an infant, or even before, to adolescence, adulthood, and old age. - Human development is a complicated process involving a number of important life events. - Not everyone navigates these life events successfully or at the same speed. - Some people develop steadily over their lives; others are late bloomers. - Still others, even some with bright beginnings, do not fulfill their early promise. ## Five Biblical Stories of Healthy Versus Distorted Development 1. **Balaam's story:** portrays the evil resulting from an intellectualism devoid of a moral sense. 2. **Tower of Babel story:** warns of the dangers of a misguided utopianism. 3. **Solomon's story:** teaches how to acquire wisdom. 4. **Jeroboam:** a man undone by ambition. 5. **Amnon:** teaches us the dangers of using other people.