Naturalistic and Supernaturalistic Disclosures: The Possibility of Relational Miracles

Abstract

This paper explores naturalism and supernaturalism as modes of disclosure that reveal and conceal different aspects of relationality. Naturalism is presented as a worldview or set of philosophical assumptions that posits an objective world that is separable from persons and discoverable or describable via scientific methods. Because psychotherapy tacitly endorses many naturalistic assumptions, psychotherapy relationships may be limited to an instrumentalist ethic premised upon use-value and manipulability. Given these naturalistic limitations, relationships may require a supernatural component – a component which reaches beyond the naturalistic and into the miraculous. The alternative grounding for this supernatural disclosure is found in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and that of Emmanuel Levinas, the former emphasizing the possibilities inherent in contemplative rather than calculative disclosures, and the latter emphasizing ethical obligation and absolute otherness. A therapeutic case is discussed as an exemplar of both kinds of relational disclosure – that is, naturalistic and supernaturalistic – and the therapeutic and relational consequences of each type of disclosure are explored.

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Notes on contributors

Amy Fisher Smith

Amy Fisher Smith is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Dallas. Her scholarly interests include psychotherapy ethics and the role of values in a postmodern and multicultural era, philosophy of embodiment and bioethics, and, more recently, holocaust and genocide studies.

She is currently on the executive committee of Division 24 of the American Psychological Association, The Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.

E-mail address: [email protected]