The Pharisaic Structure of Psychological Conflict

Ioannis Kornarakis (+2013)

Emeritus Professor of Pastoral Psychology and Confession, University of Athens

 

 

A fundamental structure of psychological conflict is also the Pharisaic one. The central characteristics of the “Pharisaic” structure are initially twofold: external behavior and internal psychodynamic activity.

The external “Pharisaic” behavior: The Pharisaic structure of psychological conflict is expressed through the following particular elements.

1. With excessive piety or observance of religious forms. In the Pharisee's behavior, there dominates an anxious tendency to experience and fulfill every religious “form,” which is considered essential for the self-assurance of religious superiority. The Pharisee has a thirst for religious experience.

2. With proclamation of religious fulfillment. The Pharisaic structure of psychological conflict drives toward the proclamation of religious fulfillment. The Pharisee feels the need to assure other people of this fulfillment and, in fact, to convince them of it. For this purpose, he makes use of statistics. The experiential elements of his piety are objectified in such a way that they can be measured and evaluated.

3. With comparison of individual religiosity to that of other people. The Pharisee is not social in the deeper sense of the word. However, he needs other people in order to affirm his religious superiority. Even though he isolates himself to project this religious superiority, he simultaneously invokes the weaknesses and deficiencies of other people in order to experience the satisfaction of his religious self-sufficiency.

Therefore, let us summarize: the basic characteristics that compose the “mask” of Pharisaic behavior are the thirst for experience, the objectification of the experiential elements of piety, and dependence on other people (through comparison).

This mask, as behavior, gives the impression of self-sufficiency from every perspective. The Pharisee is the proud (arrogant or falsely humble) person who has a “peaceful” (religious) conscience, because he is complete and perfect. He is thus independent from both God and other people, because his existential outlook coincides with the image he has formed of himself. Therefore, his mask (his behavior) is identified with the “ideal” image of himself. This external image of the Pharisee’s behavior gives the initial impression that this person does not face existential problems, that he does not experience inner conflicts, that everything in his life is going well. He does not feel that anything is lacking, and he believes he has nothing to envy in others.

Nevertheless, all these external elements constitute symptoms that express the lived psychological conflict. The “perfect” mask underscores an experiential rigidity. This rigidity, moreover, is understood as an expression of unconscious—and indeed compulsive—processes.

But what is the problem the Pharisee experiences?

The person who behaves with moral and spiritual self-sufficiency and holds a “grand idea” of himself is, in essence, experiencing a deep disappointment over his inability to be genuinely perfect. His self-sufficiency is thus the result of the repression of this disappointment, and especially the repression of his guilt over the failure of his existential outlook. The Pharisee struggles for self-justification. He tries in every way to be justified before himself, before other people, and before God. Yet the fact—as the Lord affirmed—that he “did not go down justified” from the Temple shows that his inner state was “diametrically” opposed to the apparent psychological self-sufficiency and calm. His effort to display or proclaim his perfection reveals the active presence of guilty anxiety, which—serving as a fundamental psychodynamic motive—led “necessarily” to the composition and construction of the Pharisaic mask.

Thus, the external Pharisaic behavior, as a composition of partial symptoms, leads us to the guilty interiority of the Pharisee. The main characteristics of this interiority are the following:

1. Sense of insecurity: This feeling is betrayed throughout the Pharisee’s behavior, especially in his effort to underscore his superiority over other people. The comparison with others essentially constitutes an attempt at compulsive dependence upon certain supports. Other people are those supports, which can uphold his perfection, because one is usually perfect in something only in relation to others who are not perfect.

But of course, the more specific problem here is the reasonable question that arises:
What, after all, does the Pharisee want to secure himself against? Or, put differently, from what is the Pharisee threatened? The Pharisee is threatened by a realization of his personal guilt over his inability (and incapacity) to progress toward a genuine and authentic moral and spiritual fulfillment. If, for any reason, he were to arrive at this realization, the edifice of the illusory (idealized) image of himself would collapse. But this would mean, for him, true destruction. Thus, through comparison, he attempts to secure himself by assuring himself that, since other people are inferior to him, he possesses a kind of perfection that leaves no room for feelings of guilt.

Yet the deeper meaning of the Pharisee’s insecurity is more closely tied to the fear he has toward himself. At root, he fears his “naked” self (cf. Gen. 3:7) and wants to hide behind the backs of other people so that he will not have to see himself.

2. Sense of inferiority and inadequacy: Every excess in human behavior usually constitutes a symptom of a corresponding deficiency. The Pharisee displays an intense sense of superiority, which seeks to compensate for (or cover) a strong feeling of inferiority and inadequacy, which lies repressed in the subconscious.

Indeed, if—as we have said—guilty anxiety is the fundamental psychodynamic motive that directs the Pharisee’s external behavior toward the formation of a mask of superiority and psychological (moral and spiritual) self-sufficiency, then the inner problem of this person is the “unbearable” feelings of inferiority, due to the inauthentic realization of the goals of his existential outlook.

3. Projection of personal guilt onto other people: The Pharisee’s total contempt toward all other people—and especially the condensation of this contempt in the person of a specific individual—reveals his deeper psychological need. Here too, the excessive element (“the rest of men”) constitutes a symptom of a profound conflict.

The Pharisee is in conflict with his guilt, and because he represses it, he projects it onto the universal screen of human nature. All people are worthy of contempt because all have failed to realize their existential potential. They are all extortioners, unjust, adulterers. The absolutization of the guilty condition of all people functions, in the Pharisee’s conscience, as a psychological compensation for his need for self-justification.

The repressed moral conscience of the Pharisee produces such intense guilty anxiety that only this absolutization can psychologically “relieve” him, as he unconsciously struggles with his unfulfilled existential potential (according to the likeness). But the particular “symptom” of the psychological conflict that the Pharisee experiences in the domain of guilt is undoubtedly his aggressiveness toward other people—specifically, toward the publican. That is, the projection of his guilt onto others is carried out with a spirit of aggressiveness.

The Pharisee is indeed aggressive when he compares himself with other people. This very fact makes his self-justification and his effort to prove his moral superiority suspicious. His superiority lacks “personal” self-sufficiency. In order to stand, it requires—as we have said—the “backs of others.” He thus loads his personal guilt onto them (through the unconscious “mechanism” of projection), and at the same time, in this way, he crushes them. For, after all, the placing of guilt upon any “scapegoat” also bears the meaning of their destruction.

4. Sense of anxiety and despair: The absolutization of the guilty image of the world (“all people are sinners”), combined with the sense of absolute self-sufficiency (“the Pharisee has no need of God”), precisely underscores the pervasive anxiety in Pharisaic behavior. Since this anxiety wells up from the deep layer of guilt that undergirds the structure of psychological conflict, it simultaneously expresses the despair experienced by the bearer of the Pharisaic conflict. This despair arises from the collapse of his existential outlook within the struggle of daily life.

The distinctive trait of the structure of Pharisaic conflict is the COMPULSIVE SEARCH FOR, EXPERIENCE OF, AND PROCLAMATION OF PERFECTION—THAT IS, OF THE IDEAL IMAGE. The Pharisee lives to pursue his perfection and to boast that he has attained it independently and justly.

The “type” of the Pharisee is a neurotic person who holds an excessively high opinion of himself and, for that reason, regards his arrogant ideas as genuine ideals. Only when the Pharisee is confronted with the reality of his failed existential outlook is there a possibility that he may awaken and become aware of the need for change.

 

Greek source: https://agiazoni.gr/slug-1100/