This description would appeal to that great rationalist, C. S. Lewis, w h o said of his father: "What are facts without interpretation? It was axiomatic to my father (in ...
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Descriptive Psychology as Disciplined Phenomenology Hendrika Vande Kemp, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Psychology Fuller Theology Seminary Mary McDermott Shideler, Persons, Behavior, and the World. The descriptive psychology approach. Lanham, M D & London: University Press of American, 1988, 362 pp. Library binding: I S B N 0-8191-6786-X, $32.50. Paperback: I S B N 0-8191-6787-8, $17.50.
It was our mutual interest in the writings of Charles Williams that led to m y first encounter with the writings of M a r y McDermott Shideler (see Shideler, 1962; Vande K e m p , 1986). M o r e recently, m y "psychological sleuthing" into the spirituality of Robert Brodie M a c L e o d again led m e to Shideler, for w h o m MacLeod was an influential spiritual mentor (see Shideler, 1970, pp. 30-45, 70, 151-152; Vande K e m p , 1989). In her more recent writings, Shideler emerges clearly as an heir of MacLeod, in both her disciplined phenomenology and her emphasis on the "religious doctrine of m a n " (MacLeod, 1975). In this recent book she renders her o w n interpretation of Peter G. Ossorio's descriptive psychology. In related writings (Shideler, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1988), she applies this approach to the relationship between psychology and theology. Descriptive psychology involves the parametric analysis of behavior, which the author summarizes verbally as follows: "Behavior is something that has the following aspects: an Identity, what that individual Wants, Knows, K n o w s H o w to do, Performs, and Achieves, what his Personal Characteristics are, and what the Significance of that behavior is" (p. 23). For the more logically inclined, this m a y be stated as: B Shideler presents extensive rules for understanding the roles of Actors, Observer/Describers (who m a y play the role of Spectators), and Critic/Appraisers. The latter role most interests the philosopher, as "any object, process, event, state of affairs, or relationship that can be described in one way can also be described in another way or in m a n y ways, and even seemingly incongruent descriptions can indeed be congruent" (p. 35). Shideler is careful to disavow any pretense to an absolute perspective: "a God's-eye view, which presumably would be the one that is true in the absolute sense, is possible only for a god, and finite h u m a n beings do not qualify even as godlings" (P- 36).
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In the role of Appraiser, "certain perspectives have universal relevance" (p. 72). These are the Hedonic, the Prudential, the Ethical, and the Esthetic (which includes the artistic, the intellectual, the social, and the spiritual). T h e esthetic perspective "is focused upon the relation of the parts within the whole so that their interrelationships produce or maintain not only the integrity of the whole, but also the integrity of the parts into which it can be articulated" (p. 77). Elsewhere, she identifies the ultimate esthetic principle as coherence (1981, p. 150). In another paper (Shideler, 1988), she uses this scheme to analyze the theological concept of will power. O n e w h o has a "strong will" or "great will power" is one w h o "is not fragmented, cleaving to mutually contradictory values or pursuing mutually exclusive ends. Whatever he wants, knows, and does is held together without internal dissension or behavioral incongruity" (P. 8).1 Another paradigm related to the Appraiser is that of Negotiation, which involves the four stages of taking positions, criticizing and defending them, adjusting them as necessary, and drawing conclusions. For this task, Ossorio and Shideler offer a Justification Ladder: identified rungs from the bottom to the top include judgement, custom, theory, principle, and perspectives and competence. Again, this scheme is applied in the area of spirituality (Shideler, 1988). Persons w h o are deeply spiritual tend to refer their behavior, "not to custom, theory, or principle, but to the perspective that corresponds to the domain of spirituality, and to the ethical and esthetic perspectives" (p. 9). The ethical sensitivity of such persons m a y "lead them to break new ethical ground," but also leads them "into trouble with those religious and secular authorities w h o hold to custom, theory, or principle, or to one of the other perspectives. History is replete with instances of their battles and sometimes burnings" (p. 10). Descriptive psychologists describe the person as "an individual whose history is, paradigmatically, a history of deliberate actions" (p. 92). Person descriptions can follow psychodiagnostic, literary, or situational formulas. Each formula begins with a paradigm case, which is amenable to transformation. Complete understanding of persons requires description of Dispositions (traits, attitudes, interests, style), Powers (abilities, knowledge, values), and Derivatives (embodiment, capacities, psychopathology). This understanding is applied in Shideler's essay on "The Lover and the Logician" (1981). She states: T h e presumed conflict between thinking and feeling, therefore, is in fact no such thing, but is instead a discrepancy between different wants supported by reasons, or different reasons supported by wants. T h e lover wants to achieve one state of affairs, the logician another. In both cases, feeling and thinking are conjoined, but in the one case serving the hedonic perspective, and in the other, the intellectual or social, perhaps, or the ethical or prudential, (p. 151) She also applies these persons principles to the analysis of "five principal ways in which spirituality can go wrong" (Shideler, 1983, p. 238). These in-
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elude defects in knowledge, both factual and conceptual; values which restr us spiritually and limit our behavior potential; defective abilities (such as the inability to imagine, or to concentrate); dispositions which might shut the person off from the domain of transcendence; and the fact of embodiment, which some spiritual leaders regard as a hindrance. Principles and categories for describing the world are too m a n y and complex to list. Again, their use is illustrated in a separate chapter on "The Priest and the Psychotherapist" (Shideler, 1983). Any world is a domain of possible facts and their interrelationships. Worlds are distinguished from one another by the particular facts that are involved, and the boundary of the world is generated by the internal links a m o n g those facts—compare the worlds of fashion and of football, or of science and of spirituality. T h e worlds that especially concern us here are what w e might call the m u n d a n e and the transcendental, or the immediate and the ultimate, (p. 233)
Interdisciplinary conflicts can easily be resolved when it is recalled tha real world is "the state of affairs which includes all other states of affairs," a totality characterized by the boundary condition that "there is nothing outside or beyond it" (p. 237). Psychology and theology are both domains within the totality: "one domain can exclude or contravene or engulf another, but such exclusions and contraventions and absorptions can occur without violating the framework within which they occur. T h e real world has places for all these disparate domains" (p. 237). After outlining basic descriptive principles, Shideler devotes the second half of her book to an examination of Persons in Relationships, Person as Such and W h o l e Persons. A special form of the relationship is with the Ultimate. In the best of the personalist tradition, she states (1978) that: . . .the assignment of ultimate significance could be certified only by a person w h o is not subject to our limitations with respect to ultimacy, totality, and boundary conditions, i.e., an ultimate or limiting-case person —such a person, indeed, for w h o m the n a m e G o d would not be inappropriate. A G o d of this kind — a limitingcase person w h o is the ultimate and supreme Judge, omniscient and having impeccable judgment-is one of the possible facts within the spiritual domain, which is as far as any conceptualization of the spiritual domain as such can take us. (p. 205) O n e of the potential dangers in the relationship with G o d — o r the Other —is that of "mistaking the nature of the relationship" (1988, p. 88), transforming transcendent into the psychological in a form of "domain confusion" that others might simply classify as misunderstanding: . . The Other cannot be confined within the categories of our h u m a n relationships, and we bring It or H i m or Her or They d o w n to our level at the risk of destroying the relationship. R e m e m b e r
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the Relationship Change Formula: "If the behavior of X vis-a-vis Y is not an expression of the relationship between them, then that relationship changes in the direction of one from which the behavior that did occur would have been an expression." (p. 11, Shideler quoting from Ossorio) I found myself writing most extensively in the margins as I reached the section on Persons as Such. Here, I began to wonder about the relative merits of descriptive psychology and interpersonal theory, which describes m a n y similar phenomena and relates them to a broader psychological literature. A s a clinician, I was not convinced that descriptive psychology would provide a more empathic framework than would object relations theory, despite some interesting reframing. Yet I found considerable merit in her discussion of the unconscious, which introduces alternative descriptive explanations for phenomena so labeled: " W h a t is important is that the description in terms of the unconscious is always m a d e by a Critic w h o has picked out one of the logical possibilities. . . A n imaginative Critic can trace logical connections indefinitely in all directions and impute corresponding motivations" (p. 263). This description would appeal to that great rationalist, C. S. Lewis, w h o said of his father: " W h a t are facts without interpretation? It was axiomatic to m y father (in theory) that nothing was said or done from an obvious motive. . . . Once embarked upon that, he might m a k e his landfall anywhere in the wide world: and always with unshakable conviction" (Lewis, 1955, p. 118; one might ad, "just like a psychoanalyst"). In the tradition of such well-known critics as R. D. Laing and T h o m a s Szasz, Shideler anchors her discussion of psychopathology in the observation that such judgments of status are "made by particular persons functioning as Critics, at a particular time and place, and with reference to a particular set of social practices" (p. 285). In the book, a discussion of spirituality reappears in the chapter on positive health, where Ways of Living are subjected to description. The book ends with a chapter on personal change—tantalizing because it offers restatement of familiar principles from interpersonal and family theory, but n o w fits them into the descriptive framework. It is, perhaps, difficult to learn a new language and descriptive framework in midlife — I certainly a m reluctant to give up the categories which have worked so well up to this point. Yet any phenomenologist should be tempted by a framework that so elegantly incorporates all aspects of persons, behavior and the world.
References Lewis, C. S. (1955). Surprised by joy: The shape of m y early life. London: Geoffrey Bles. MacLeod, R. B. (1975). The persistent problems of psychology. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press. Shideler, M . M . (1962). The theology of romantic love. N e w York: Harper & Brothers.
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Shideler, M. M. (1970). Consciousness of battle: An interim report theological journey. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. Shideler, M . M . (October 1975). The mystic and the theologian. Theology Today, XXXII, 252-262. Shideler, M . M . (April 1977). The mystic, the psychic, and the magician. Dialog, 17, 107. Shideler, M . M . (1978). The psychologist and the theologian. Dialog, 17 (3), 200-207. Shideler, M . M . (1981). The lover and the logician. In K. E. Davis (Ed.), Advances in descriptive psychology. Vol. 1. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Shideler, M . M . (1982). The creator and the discoverer. In K. E. Davis & T. O. Mitchell (Eds.), Advances in descriptive psychology. Vol. 2. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Shideler, M . M . (1983). The priest and the psychotherapist. In K. E. Davis & R. M . Bergner, (Eds.), Advances in descriptive psychology. Vol 3. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Shideler, M . M . (1985). Science, religion, and religions. In K. E. Davis & T. O. Mitchell (Eds.), Advances in descriptive psychology. Vol. a. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Shideler, M . M . (1988). Spirituality: The descriptive psychology approach. In K. E. Davis & A. O. Putnam (Eds.), Advances in descriptive psychology. Vol. 5. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Vande Kemp, H. (August 1989). From preacher's kid' to phenomenologist: Robert Brodie MacLeod and the 'religious doctrine of man.' Presented to Division 26 (the History of Psychology) of the American Psychological Association, N e w Orleans, LA. Vande Kemp, H. (1987). Relational ethics in the novels of Charles Williams. Family Process, 26, 283-294.
Footnotes 1 References in this case are to the unpublished, manuscript version of the book chapter.
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