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6 - How We Are Changed and Transformed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2012

Warren S. Brown
Affiliation:
Fuller Theological Seminary
Brad D. Strawn
Affiliation:
Southern Nazarene University
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Summary

THE MALFORMATION OF JANE

Jane reported that she didn’t “feel in control of her life or herself.” She had come to notice a persistent discrepancy between what she said she believed as a Christian and how she lived. For example, Jane believed it was important to “love God and to love your neighbor as yourself,” but she continually found herself gossiping about others, being hurtful to friends and family, losing her temper, and even engaging in behaviors that violated her own Christian ethics. Jane would become aware of the discrepancy between her beliefs and behavior (often after the fact) and feel terribly guilty. Her typical cycle would be to act (her inappropriate behavior was always triggered by interpersonal interactions), feel regret and guilt, repent, and then, pulling herself up by the bootstraps, try to muster the willpower to do better next time. This never-ending cycle was not only leading Jane to social isolation, but to a growing sense of depression and hopelessness.

Throughout Part II, we have been describing how people develop and change. We enter the world as physically open and self-organizing systems, but also prewired for relating to other persons. Therefore, it is relationships that shape our process of self-organization. Through interpersonal experiences and imitation, we learn to interact with others, and, in the process, hopefully emerge as complete persons (fully capable of reciprocal loving relationships with others). As we continually interact with others, these reciprocal interactions become reinforced, creating habitual patterns that come to characterize our interpersonal interactions. If it is true that we are formed in and through relationships with others, then it makes sense that it is also in and through relationships that we can be changed and transformed. In a nutshell, we believe people change in, through, and with other people.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Physical Nature of Christian Life
Neuroscience, Psychology, and the Church
, pp. 88 - 100
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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References

Bargh, John A.Chartrand, Tanya L.The Unbearable Automaticity of BeingAmerican Psychologist 54 1999CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yalom, IrvingThe Theory and Practice of Group PsychotherapyNew YorkBasic Books 2005Google Scholar
Balswick, Jack O.King, Pamela EbstyneReimer, Kevin S.The Reciprocating Self: Human Development in Theological PerspectiveDowners Grove, ILIVP 2005Google Scholar

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