(notes taken from Donald Capps’ two books: 1)
Agents of Hope and 2) Pastoral Care: A thematic approach.)
There are three attitudes where, once
internalised and well established, poses a powerful threat to the maintenance
of a hopeful attitude toward life: despair, apathy and shame.[1]
Despair is the perception that what is wanted will not happen, the sense
that what is realisable for others is not realisable for me, in spite of the
fact that I very much desire it.[2]
It essentially takes two forms: It may be projected outward in the form of
disgust directed against other persons or institutions, or it may be deeply
internalised in the form of depression. What makes it so difficult to combat is
that it feeds on itself in a downward spiral of hopelessness. It involves the
perception that the future, already narrowed, is foreshortened, either because
it is too late to start over, or because the future is blocked.[3]
In despair, we place a great deal of blame on ourselves for the failure of our
hopes to materialise. It is our deficiency, the inadequacy of our own skills
and abilities, which is primarily responsible for the frustration of our hopes.[4]
It is only when one recognises the grace of God that our hopes are kept alive.[5]
Apathy is the state of desirelessness together with a strong element of
“not caring” about what is happening around us, to us, or within us.[6]
Humans are by nature desiring beings since we are always experiencing the
presence of an absence. Apathy is a condition that is the very antithesis of
human nature.[7] It
sees no meaningful connection between short-term activities and long-term
goals, eg. I will become my father’s successor as the CEO of the family
business when he eventually retires.[8]
The sociopathic personality is one who have no realisable hopes beyond the most
immediate present. Even short-term desires are difficult to entertain because
there are no long-term aspirations or desires to which these more immediate
desires are related. The sociopath,
beginning in childhood, has never had much hope for the long-term future and is
therefore “geared primarily to getting immediate gratification in the present
and near future.”[9]
Boredom and indifference are characteristics of apathy, because they have
ceased to love: no love for the other, no love for self, and no love for the
world of nearly infinite possibility. Perhaps the only way for apathetic selves
to find hope again is to rekindle the fires of love that have long since been
extinguished, for love is the ultimate source of all desire.[10]
Shame is the painful realisation that events have in fact turned out very
differently from what was hoped for and confidently expected. Another words, we
have made a serious misprojection of ourselves.[11]
In fact, the pain of realising that we have been wrong, stupid, or naïve, that
we have assumed too much, is usually considered punishment enough. And we may
have invested a lot in these hoped-for outcomes.[12]
In summary, the three major threats to the
maintenance of a hopeful attitude in life. Despair occurs when we have reason
to believe that what we desire so much to come about is not likely to occur
after all. Apathy occurs when we no longer invest desire in anything that is
happening to us, and it usually results from the fact that the future is
already determined. Shame occurs when what we confidently expected to happen
does not occur and we are faced with the painful realisation that we put our
trust and confidence in a reality that was not there.[13]
What is so devastating about these threats to hope is not only that it makes us
more reluctant to entertain specific hopes, but that we allow them to affect
our basic sense of who we are, our very selfhood. The capacity to hope is the
core of human selfhood, and this is why despair, apathy, and shame are so destructive
of the human self.[14]
Three attitudes that undergird hope are
trust, patience, and modesty.
The general meaning of trust is a confident expectation, anticipation, or hope for the
future. Another more specific meaning is a firm belief or confidence in the
honest, integrity, relationship, or justice of another person or thing.[15]
It is like the “general state of trust” found among infants where they have
learned to rely on the sameness and continuity of the outer providers.[16]
Another meaning of trust involves the act of entrusting something of value to
us into the hand of another person or institution, eg. entrusting our children
to the care of teachers and schools. We have relinquished control over the fate
or future of what is of value to us by entrusting it to the care of the other.
Entrusting is a voluntary act.[17]
Fear is the experience that threatens our natural disposition to trust and our
willingness to entrust ourselves and that is dear to us to another. The source
of fear can be outside of us as the world is not a uniformly safe place to be.
It may also be due to the fact that persons on whom we must rely are unreliable
or even abusive.[18]
In order to hope, we must have the experience of trust.[19]
Patience is concerned with keeping hopes alive. It is the will or ability to
wait or endure without complaint; and it is steadiness, endurance, or
perseverance in performing a task. One is to wait in an uncomplaining manner,
accepting and serene. Patience is what we develop by engaging in difficult
tasks without giving up: steadiness, endurance, perseverance.[20]
Frustration is the experience that creates the need for patients. Basic to
apathy is the experience of frustration and patience is the human capacity to
enable us to endure it. Patience is the assurance that the hoped-for outcome is
worth the frustration and therefore keeps us steadfast in our hope.[21]
As patience develops into an enduring attitude, it, in turn, enables us to keep
our sense of frustration at manageable levels so that we do not abandon our hopes.[22]
Modesty the avoidance of excesses or extremes, whereby we remain situated
within the real world and do not try to distance ourselves from it. It is a
self-referential statement about ourselves where in hoping, we try to avoid the
self-deception that occurs when we take leave of the real world and enter a
fantasy world.[23]
It is an appropriate reaction to the failure of hope to materialise and a
positive alternative to shame. By recognising our place in the world and
accepting the fact that our hopes are vulnerable to events and circumstances
beyond our power to control, an attitude of modesty regarding ourselves can
emerge which fortifies us against shame. Our power to influence and control
events is necessarily limited, as we are not omniscient beings who are able to
anticipate everything that may or may not happen in the future, and we will
continue to hope in spite of this knowledge.[24]
Because we trust, we are able to exercise
greater patience. Because our attitude is one of modesty, we are conscious of
the necessity of trust. These, then, are not discrete virtues, but a system of
dispositions that support and enhance one another. Most importantly, the three
of them together assume a life of their own and sustain the hopeful self even
as specific hopes may go unrealised.[25]
The meaning any event has for us depends
upon the frame in which we perceive it. When we change the frame, we change the
meaning. Reframing is changing the
frame in which a person perceives events in order to change the meaning. When
the meaning changes, the person’s responses and behaviours also change. There
are two reframing methods in which pastors may use to encourage hopefulness.
One is the method of envisioning the future, the other is the method of
revising the past. The first method encourages us to take a future persepective
on the present. The second invites us to locate our past with a new frame,
thereby revising the meaning it has held for us, and thus “changing” the past
from a basis for hopelessness into a basis and resource for hopefulness.[26]
Revisiting and rebiographing it is
one way of reframing. One possible meaning of repentance is that one’s sinful
past is blotted out, like an erased debt. Another is that one’s sinful past is
rectified. The story of Joseph is a biblical example of rebiographing[27],
whereby he turned his brothers’ act of betrayal into a “useful event for
humanity”, a viable method of reframing because it is grounded in the boundless
mercy of God, who is able to take sinful actions that we or others committed in
the past and make them something better than we would ever have imagined.
Therefore, rebiographing makes the past as open and possibility-filled as the
future.[28]
Theological themes in pastoral counselling:
l Providence: trust vs.
mistrust. The theological theme focuses on the
counselee’s sense that the world is under God’s guidance and therefore
trustworthy. The psychosocial theme concerns the counselee’s sense of being
able to rely on the sameness and continuity of other providers.
l Grace or gratefulness:
autonomy vs. shame and self-doubt. The theological
theme recognises that the counselee often rejects the kindness and generosity
of others[29]
because he has an excessive sense of his own unworthiness. The psychological
theme focuses on the counselee’s capacity to appropriate the goodwill of others
when he is not overcome with feelings of shame and self-doubt.
l Repentance: Initiative vs.
guilt. The theological theme focuses on the
counselee’s acceptance of an appropriate level of moral responsibility for his
situation. The psychosocial theme focuses on the counselee’s capacity not to
allow himself to become immobilised by guilt on the one hand or to display
excessive self-righteousness on the other.
l Vocation: industry vs.
inferiority. The theological theme focuses on the
counselee’s sense of purpose, dedication, personal competence and
effectiveness.[30]
The psychosocial theme centres on the counselee’s capacity to participate in a
productive situation and bring it to completion.
l Faith: identity vs
identity diffusion. The theological theme focuses
on the counselee’s affirmative attitude toward life; his religious proclivities
as widening his scope of engagement. The psychosocial theme centres on the
counselee’s desire to affirm and be affirmed by others; it manifests itself in
a concern to integrate one’s experiences to date into a widening radius of
psychosocial commitments and expressions of fidelity.
l Communion: intimacy vs. isolation.
The theological theme focuses on the counselee’s sense of being accepted into
social groups that matter to him. The psychosocial theme focuses on the
counselee’s capacity to commit himself to concrete affiliations, even though
they may call for significant sacrifices and compromises.
l Vocation: generativity vs.
stagnation. The theological theme focuses on the
counselee’s sense of purpose, dedication, personal competence, and
effectiveness. The psychosocial theme centres on the counselee’s capacity to
play a productive role on behalf of other people, especially the younger
generation.
l Awareness of the holy:
integrity vs. despair. The theological theme
focuses on the counselee’s relationship to powers or forces beyond himself. The
psychosocial theme centres on his sense of comradeship with the cultural forces
that have shaped his life.[31]
[1] Donald Capps, Agents of Hope:
A pastoral psychology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 98.
[2] Capps, Agents of Hope,
99.
[3] Capps, Agents of Hope,
105.
[4] Capps, Agents of Hope,
105.
[5] Capps, Agents of Hope,
107.
[6] Capps, Agents of Hope,
107.
[7] Capps, Agents of Hope,
108.
[8] Capps, Agents of Hope,
116.
[9] Frederick Townes Melges, Time
and the Inner Future (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1982), 187.
[10] Capps, Agents of Hope,
122.
[11] Capps, Agents of Hope,
123.
[12] Capps, Agents of Hope,
125.
[14] Capps, Agents of Hope,
136.
[15] Capps, Agents of Hope,
138.
[16] Erik H. Erickson, Childhood
and Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), 248.
[17] Capps, Agents of Hope,
141.
[18] Capps, Agents of Hope,
144.
[19] Capps, Agents of Hope,
145.
[20] Capps, Agents of Hope,
148.
[21] Capps, Agents of Hope, 151.
[22] Capps, Agents of Hope,
152.
[23] Capps, Agents of Hope,
156.
[24] Capps, Agents of Hope,
157.
[25] Capps, Agents of Hope,
161.
[26] Capps, Agents of Hope,
165.
[27] Capps, Agents of Hope,
173.
[28] Capps, Agents of Hope,
175.
[29] Donald Capps, Pastoral Care:
A Thematic Approach (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), 113.
[30] Capps, Pastoral Care, 114.
[31] Capps, Pastoral Care, 115.
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