This article is my dissertation for my doctoral program (Th. D) and I will post it in parts as a series one by one from the abstracts to the conclusion every week.
- Introduction
1-A. The purpose of study and problem posing
Since most modern people tend to equate happiness with sensational pleasure, the accumulation of money to purchase materials that provide sensational pleasure is regarded as the surest way to happiness. As a result, they pursue a materialistic and consumer-oriented way of life. This way of life brought about the competition of people over material as well as the economic gap between rich and poor, and psychologically the fear of the possibility of falling out of the competition and the deepening of the comparative consciousness. In order to overcome the overall crisis faced by modern people, it is necessary to ask and redefine essential questions about human existence and happiness. Only through self-reflection and self-examination will one be able to overcome the mental emptiness of man and find the way of healthy living.
Likewise, missionaries living in modern society also suffer from economic and psychological crises. Even among missionaries, there is a gap in living conditions according to how much monetary support they receive, and despite having the same purpose and mission, there are invisible conflicts and competition between missionaries. Each missionary is afraid of failing or falling behind. This exacerbates comparison between them and also causes difficulties in ministry. However, the root of this problem can be found in the lack of clear understanding and awareness of the missionary himself who faces these phenomenal problems.
Human beings constantly face crossroads in their journey of life and must make decisions every time. And the more conscious we are, the more options we encounter. Moreover, the burden of choosing and taking responsibility as a missionary in other cultures is more than a big decision.
There is confusion about how missionaries should be guided in order to overcome their conflicts, urgent struggles, and spiritual stagnation. Psychological counseling is becoming more common in recent years, and more missionaries are actually knocking on the door of the counseling room. However, many missionaries often do not know if and how they can get help with their problems.
The experiences of conflict and suffering are different, and the diagnosis and prescription for each counselor are different. And there is no 100% healing and resolution. It’s just a little help from someone. However, if we re-examine and identify our existence, our hopes for solving the problem may be different.
So far, psychology has been extended from the starting with behavioral psychological studies that study how human consciousness manifested as behavior to researching of humanistic psychological studies that claims health psychology looking into the overall dimension of mind and body including human potential, ability development and self-realization. Furthermore, it is argued that the fundamental and starting point of consciousness is spiritual and that it is possible to understand the world of consciousness fully when this spiritual dimension is included.
This researcher has been deeply interested in Christian spirituality through pastoral activities for a long time. And while studying counseling psychology with a deep interest in humans, my understanding of God’s creation of humans has expanded, and I have learned a little about the mystery of God’s creation. However, in the face of the limitations of counseling psychology, that is, in the process of counseling and healing, full healing was not achieved, and my conflict had begun. At that time, since I came to learn Christian Spiritual Theology and learn Spiritual Direction in detail, I came to find the ultimate answer.
Furthermore, I’ve learned that when the frame of understanding and interpretation of human beings in psychology meet with the work of the Holy Spirit, it transforms, grows, and reaches maturity of a human being. If you use counseling and psychology as a tool to deepen your relationship with God, rather than defining and distinguishing it as a humanism which is on the opposite path, we can broaden our horizon of self-awareness. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of oneself in one’s relationship with God by reinterpreting and solving human understanding, especially the holistic difficulties of missionaries in psychological terms.
This paper primarily prescribes missionaries as evangelists who preach the gospel in remote cultural communities, and it aims to examine the care model as a way to resolve their emotional, psychological, and spiritual problems. With the extremely realistic concern that it is difficult for missionaries to expose their problems to others, I seek to explore the possibility of a self-expressing writing therapy model as “self-directed care” before they expose themselves to others.
This approach is made possible by understanding spiritual guidance for missionaries and self-expressing writing therapy. To understand missionaries, I will first approach them biblically and missionally. This is because missionaries, because of their social situation and the psychological burden of their group, hesitate to expose themselves and the problems surrounding themselves.
Writing makes people learn about themselves more deeply than if they were to express their life story verbally, and it contributes positively self-maturity and formation of self-identify by providing an opportunity to interpret and reflect on life. If speaking revolves around the foundation of our existence, autobiographical writing can be viewed as reaching a new understanding and seeing things from a new perspective like one does when flying to a high place and seeing a new landscape.
Another important thing is that meditation is one of the static treatment techeniques to effectively help people who participate in writing. If I look at it in this way, I can see that the concept of meditation(contemplation) as a universal method of spiritual guidance and the meaning of meditation(contemplation) as a static method of self-expressing writing therapy are the same. In addition, I do not simply understand experiencing God, which is the core of spiritual guidance that has been closely connected in Christian history, as a mysterious phenomena and experiences. Rather, I would like to deal with consciousness reflection as a way that transfer the experiencing God to the record and then make taste the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Another important thing is that meditation is a static treatment techniques that can effectively help people who participate in writing. If you look at it in this way, you can see that the concept of meditation (contemplation) as a universal method of spiritual guidance and the meaning of mediation (contemplation) as a static method of self-expressing writing therapy is the same. In addition, we will try to deal with consciousness reflection in such a way that the experience of God, which is the core of spiritual guidances that has been closely followed in Christian history, is not simply understood as mysterious phenomena but rather is taken seriously as an experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
For this, it is important to know what the psychological background of self-expressing writing therapy is. Therefore, I would like to explain in detail the content of psychological language covered in self-expressive writing therapy using Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, Carl Jung’s analytical psychology, and Fritz Perls’ Gestalt. In particular, we will discover ourselves through understanding core emotions, defense mechanisms, and resistances that are dealt with in the dynamic psychotherapy, a practical model of psychoanalysis. Whereas non-existent life clings to the concept of “what kind of person I should be,” existential life aims at realizing my own existence. A missionary lives a more existential life beginning with the re-examining of his existence. And “Missionary Care” means not only knowing the psychological and mental difficulties that missionaries have, but it also leads to spiritual growth and maturity through solving fundamental problems.
“Health” means “completeness,” and this completeness which means a state that encompasses physical, mental, and spiritual health. The purpose of this study is to show that self-expressing writing therapy as a tool for missionary care is a stepping stone for the missionary’s holistic recovery and growth and is a proactive care model, and the goal is to actually apply spiritual journaling as a personalized alternative considering their situation with social and psychological characteristics.
(Next article -> precedent research)
