The Temptation of Christ

A few weeks ago, Enzo (from TherapyRoute) asked if I would contribute a piece for writing. In my head, I said “Yes” but I wanted thinking time. And energy time. Whether it’s a side effect of the Covid-19 lockdown or just old age, I’m not sure. But this is the first time for some weeks where my brain hasn’t felt in a fog and my response to doing any writing hasn’t been “Not today!” Which is uncharacteristic. I normally enjoy writing. So here, at last, are the results of my thinking.

My immediate thought when I got the request was “I want to write about the temptation of Christ” which was a fascinating thought. Could I write psychoanalytically about a well-known story such as this one? My second thought was “Why has this idea come to mind?” (I’m still not sure about this part of my thinking. I’m hoping that as I write something might become clearer! Having finished the paper I can report that I’m none the wiser about why I chose this story.

The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is found in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 4: 1-11. (as well as in Mark and Luke’s gospels.) It’s a well-known story but here is a brief synopsis. Jesus has just been officially confirmed as God’s son, following his baptism by John the Baptist. From here, we are told, he is sent by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. In the story, Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights and was, presumably, tired and hungry. At the end of this time, we are told that he was challenged by Satan over three interventions. One was to turn stones into bread, the second was to jump from a high building knowing that God would save him, the third temptation was the offer of world domination if he would give homage to Satan.

How might we understand this story?

It’s probably useful to reframe it slightly. So we might replace Satan with the Jungian shadow which is defined as all those aspects of ourselves that are unknown to us. In this case, what would Jesus do under pressure, particularly with no witnesses to his choices? What kinds of objects did Jesus have within his psyche? The point is that the temptations had been real possibilities. If he could turn stones into bread for his own satisfaction, why not do the same for others? The Galilean poor, homeless, beggars etc. could all be freed by this power. What better act for a Messiah than to feed the poor? The temptation to jump from a tall building might be seen as an attempt at inviting God to intervene in people’s lives in a particularly dramatic way. If self-harm could be prevented why not all forms of damaging human behaviour? Similarly, the offer of worldly power would have been a way of avoiding the crucifixion and its pains. Simply accede to Satan’s offer and Jesus would achieve his aim of becoming the Messiah and of beginning a possible new chapter in humanity’s history. The temptations are a test of Jesus’ integrity.

We might also suggest that Satan stands for the Freudian id “the dark, inaccessible part of our personality” (Rycroft 1968). The id is deemed to be that part of our personality that is concerned with instinctual gratification: food when one is hungry. drink when thirsty, rest when tired. Put us under pressure and, suddenly, we discover aspects of ourselves that we were unaware of. We might assume that whilst we are all id-driven at times, we try to regulate our lives in an ego healthy way.

How does this relate to psychotherapeutic work? I want to suggest some links, whilst avoiding turning the temptation story into a clumsy allegory. The turning of stones into bread may be related to our wish as therapists for instant results. Being able to bear sitting with our patient week after week after week, hearing the “same old stories” is exhausting and dispiriting. But we try our best to bear it because, we hope, in this process lies healing. As Freud observed “One day in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

This maxim is, of course, true in many contexts. But particularly so in the area of psychotherapy where one may sit with a patient several times a week for a number of years whilst they work through their issues. (I remember talking to my analyst about the merits of sitting behind a patient. I wasn’t really expecting her reply which was to the effect that one could quietly pull out one’s hair in exasperation or a similar response, and not be seen by the patient. I must add this was said after I’d been her patient, or I might have asked some more questions! As it was, it served to reassure me that my own “hair-pulling” wasn’t too far from normal!)

It is this technique, amongst others, that separates psychoanalytic work from CBT, and its associated forms of therapy, where a more surface resolution of painful material is offered. Stones into bread speaks of a quick fix to manage an immediate need. Very helpful in a crisis but of little lasting value. And it fails to build resilience in either our patients or ourselves. Part of the faith of psychotherapy is that “We will get through this together”. As Winnicott points out in his work of Transitional Space, the question “Who owns the breast?” is never to be asked. That transitional space between the baby’s mouth and the mother’s breast is a shared space belonging equally to both of them. The breast is equipped to feed the baby; the baby is equipped to avail itself of the breast. Feeding is a shared task. We don’t ask “Did I do this or did my patient?”

The second temptation is that Jesus should throw himself off a high mountain (or high tower) on the assumption that God would not allow him to fall to his death. This seems to me to speak of the temptation of omnipotence. A belief that whatever we do, we will come out unscathed. Shane Sneyd in his paper “Omnipotence: the hidden danger” notes that one feature of what we might call therapeutic omnipotence is:

“…Imagining that you can cure and find the answer to every problem. This is particularly prevalent in health professionals who potentially can fall into the trap of thinking that they can fix every client and provide intervention or answer to every problem. that you can cure and find the answer to every problem.” (Sneyd 2018)

This is a dangerous trap for us as therapists whose being is based on being able to get people better – or, at least, help them with the process. I remember an example from my nursing days. We had admitted a man, Mike, to our ward. (He was well known to the team and liked. He was a quiet, gentleman.) But he became floridly psychotic, continuously finding ways to self-harm. Cutting himself, hitting walls, even setting fire to himself. All this whilst being nursed on 1:1 observations.

As would be expected, he was heavily medicated on major tranquillisers. And nursed with two nurses following him at all times. He could not take a bath or shower unsupervised. Nor go to the toilet without the door being left ajar. He had two nurses watching him whilst he slept. Yet still, he managed to find ways to hurt himself.

The psychiatrist in charge of his medication upped his dosage to the maximum allowed. And still, there was no improvement. The psychiatrist contacted the Dept. of Health to gain permission to increase the medication levels outside the prescribed guidelines. This permission was given and Mike was prescribed an unprecedented level of medication. To no avail.

He was on this regime for several weeks with nothing changing. One day a radical decision was made. We would take him off all his medication and stop having him on Close Observations. Within a week, Mike was back to his usual self. We never found out what had trigged his psychotic episode. He seemed not to know any more than we did about its origins.

We all learned a valuable lesson with Mike. Therapeutic desperation had set in (with an undercurrent of therapeutic omnipotence! How dare he not get better!) It was a case of “less is more”. The temptation for Jesus was to put himself at risk for no good reason.

There comes a time when all therapeutic interventions have to end. Hopefully with a satisfactory resolution and a shared sense of achievement. Plus, knowledge as a therapist, that we have done all within our power to help our patient to grow. But sometimes this will not be the case. Then the temptation is to try even harder. To add sessions. To break boundaries. All in the best interest of the patient of course! Sometimes we have to choose impotence over omnipotence. And trust the process.

Jesus’ final temptation was to gain worldly power and recognition. Another tempting offer since his mission was to usher in the kingdom of God. And Satan was offering it to him, which would have allowed Jesus to avoid his crucifixion. As with each of the previous temptations, there are various ways in which we might read this one. But I want to explore the lure of power and influence.

Social and political power has a certain appeal. In the same way that turning stones into bread could have been viewed as a metaphysical “food aid” programme so ruling all the kingdoms of the world could be seen as a political programme. Here are some reflections from the Jungian analyst, Andrew Samuels:

“In simple terms, the worlds I live in or have experienced on my travels have disturbed me. Inequality, prejudice, violence and a lack of imaginative vitality have affected me and worried me. I felt I wanted to do something about it and could not contemplate going back to the left-wing splinter politics of late adolescence. Then it gradually dawned on me that the profession I had ‘chosen’, for whatever reason, offered a particular way of making the contribution that my conscience was demanding” (The Political Psyche)

This is one approach to politics and psychoanalyst. Susie Orbach’s book “Fat is a Feminist Issue” also links the personal with the political:

“When I sat down to write Fat Is A Feminist Issue 40 years ago I never dreamed, or feared, it would still be in print today. I naively hoped my book would change the world. By analysing and suggesting solutions to body and eating problems, I imagined they would disappear.” (The Guardian 24 Jun 2018)

As does liberation theology in the religious realm:

“The core of liberation theology is profoundly "theological" - that is, rooted in the very nature of God. You see, there's an immediate relationship between God, oppression, liberation: God is in the poor who cry out. And God is the one who listens to the cry and liberates so that the poor no longer need to cry out.” (Leonardo Boff, quoted in Voices of Liberation Theology)

The three examples I’ve mentioned are all from people who have taken their work onto the streets, a long way from the relative safety of our therapy rooms or churches. And there is a tension. At what point do we stop interpreting anorexia in psychoanalytic terms and view it, as Orbach does, as a socio-political agenda? This tension is writ large in all kinds of “people work” be that as a priest, a social worker or a therapist. At what point does the personal become political? This seems to be the temptation facing Jesus this time. Except that the price of Jesus taking “political power” would have been to compromise his integrity. He would have gained power but at the cost of his “soul”.

As Will Shetterly, a writer of science fiction quipped “Politics is a dirty business, but if you do not do politics, politics will be done to you.” An excerpt from a poem by the Liverpool poet Brian Patten sums up this tension. (It always reminds me of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount which gave us the maxims we now call the Beatitudes, in that both Patten’s poem and the Beatitudes call for a fundamental rethinking of social norms and values.)

"When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers. On sighting mathematicians, it should unhook the algebra from their minds and replace it with poetry; on sighting poets, it should unhook poetry from their minds and replace it with algebra …" (Prose Poem towards a Definition of Itself 1967)

When I was teaching, I would give this to my students who looked at me blankly. I’d watch their reactions which went from boredom to confusion via annoyance that I was wasting their time with poetry when they could be learning important things like the signs and symptoms of Schizophrenia or the side effects of Clozapine. Then I would ask them to use the phrase “psychiatric nurses” instead of “poetry”. Then to use the word “God”. This made some sense to some students. (But I suspect some of them would have had me Sectioned if they could!)

I’m writing this piece on Maundy Thursday, part of Passion week with the world struggling to cope with the impact of Covid-19. What better time to think about how religion, psychoanalysis and politics might come together?

Bibliography

Winnicott, D. Transitional objects and Transitional phenomena in Playing and Reality Routledge 1972

Rycroft, C.. “A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis Penguin 1968

Brazilian Voices of Liberation Theology faculty.chass.ncsu.edu ) slatta ) documents ) LTBRAZIL

Sneyd, S. Omnipotence; the hidden danger. Counselling Directory 14th May 2018

Patten, B. Prose poem towards a definition of itself 1965

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay