title: Redemptive experience in relational family therapy: a Christian perspective.
abstract: We all long for relationships with others, because only in connecting with others can we develop our intrapsychic structure and become functional adults. We are psychologically predisposed to have a constant connection with others and are driven toward relationships with others. Our deepest yearnings are therefore devoted to building solid dialogue as the means of becoming fully human. We, therefore, consciously or unconsciously, long for a relationship where we can experience happiness, satisfaction and, above all, redemption or salvation from our dreads, miseries and unhappiness. In this article we presuppose that a therapeutic relationship, demonstrated in a psychoanalytic setting, namely in relational family therapy, can contain redemptive dimensions in which the inextinguishable longing for salvation is always present.
authors.affiliation: Department for Psychology and Sociology of Religion, Faculty of Theology, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. christian.gostecnik@guest.arnes.si
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gostecnik
authors.forename: Tanja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Repic
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cvetek
mesh_terms: D002835:Christianity; D005196:Family Therapy; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D011613:Psychotherapy; D012069:Religion and Psychology