earticle

영어

The purpose of this study is to help clients' distorted representations of God be restored to a correct representation of God through an empathic selfobject experience with a pastoral counselor. Individuals can develop an intact or distorted representation of God depending on the caring environment of their primary caregivers. Individuals who fail to establish an empathic relationship with a primary caregiver develop a distorted self-representation and an object-representation. The distorted object representation becomes entrenched within the individual, resulting in a dysfunctional God representation. In addition, individuals who have experienced psychological trauma in their upbringing are unlikely to develop a healthy self. They remain in a fragmented self that feels like it will fall apart whenever they encounter another traumatic event in their life journey. Rizzuto said that the formation and reshaping of an individual's image of God is never a one-time event. Even individuals with a mature sense of self revisit the God of their childhood at critical junctures in their lives. Thus, the representation of God can be reshaped as self-understanding changes through interaction with the objects they encounter at critical junctures in their lives. So, how can individuals who have developed a distorted representation of God throughout their life journey recover a correct representation of God? As for the research method, a single case study method was adopted, and the study participant is a 31-year-old man who is a young adult. A total of 50 sessions were conducted once a week for 60 minutes from February to December 2023. The researcher will examine how the young man who has experienced a negative upbringing may have developed a distorted representation of God, but through safe and healthy encounters with the pastoral counselor who provides a secure base, he can rebuild his representation of God. To do so, this study first provides a theological and pastoral counseling review of the representation of God. Next, Heinz Kohut's (1913-1981) Self-psychology provides a case example of how reflective selfobject experiences, idealized selfobject experiences, and the twin selfobject experiences can help the individual recover a positive image of God.