The Relational Soul: Moving from False Self to Deep Connection

Authors James Cofield and Richard Plass have teamed up for a book filled with Christian “wheat”, a meal aimed to serve both the weary and prideful soul, though included in the rich meal are a couple helpings of “chaff”, though it doesn’t retract too much from an otherwise outstanding book on the Christian life.The central theme of this book is absolutely beautiful, namely, that every person’s life is made up of three things: Events (Historical/What Happened), Emotions (Affections/How Did I Feel) and Interpretations of those events and emotions (Philosophical & Theological/How It Made Sense in My Story).Given this theme, they then spend a large part of the book explaining the differences between the “false self” and the “true self”. These are psychological ways of explaining the terms the Bible normally uses, namely, the “flesh and the spirit” (Gal. 5; Rom. 6-8). The flesh is a person who is controlled by and enslaved to self-image, self-dependency, self-ishness, self, self and self. Love is inward for the person controlled by the flesh (Rom. 8:7-8). The person “born again” of the Spirit of God is moved into an-OTHER world of love (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:17) who is no longer captured by self-love, but has received the love of Jesus Christ and is now re-directing it to others in the world. This is what it (relationally) means to be “born of the Spirit”. It means your love is now redirected to the appropriate objects – God and others (Deut. 6:4-6).The book then spends time on coaching Christians in reinterpreting their story through the story of the Triune God, where the loving Father, sent His Son in love, through the binding power of the love of His Spirit. The Christian reinterprets (and fights for) this new RE-interpretation of life, moving from the false self to true self, again, a psychologizing of the Bible’s use of “put off the old man, and put on the new man” (Eph. 4:22-24), “crucify the flesh and its lusts, and walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-26), and “whoever wishes to be my disciple, must take up their cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).The wheat far outweighs the chaff, but chaff there is. The chaff the authors serve up is an unfortunate blending of a more traditional, Evangelical understanding of the spiritual disciplines (Word, Service, Community, Prayer, Fasting), with the more non-traditional (Catholic/Eastern Orthodox) practices of silence, solitude and contemplation. In these practices there is more relationship to “self-discovery”, and asceticism than the Evangelical practice of Scriptural meditation. Scriptural contemplation is not quite the same as Scriptural meditation.The former looks for hidden, personal meanings inside the literal passage, an Augustinian, allegorical hermeneutic found wanting in later Reformation church history. The latter looks for life-meaning by laying ourselves before the Scriptures, letting God unfold His story in an historical-grammatical fashion, then (and only then), may we hear from God how our story is intertwined with God’s story (application to life). God story and life-drama precedes our story and life-drama, not the other way around.While the authors give a helpful, qualifying statement when they state “the Bible interprets us”, it is indeed true, but how we achieve that goal also matters. The primacy of silence, solitude, contemplative prayer and reading unfortunately shifts the Christian disciplines from the objective (Word of God, God’s promises), to the subjective (child of God, our promises/responses to God).While there is certainly a place in every Christian’s life for what the authors discuss, and there is great benefit, the Word of God is merely hovering around silence and solitude, and the subjective grounded in the subjective is not healthy. Again, the subjective (solitude, silence, prayer, etc.) must be grounded in the objective (Titus 1:2; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).Lastly, this approach is also somewhat counter-intuitive to some of the excellent points they make throughout the book, such as the Christian finding their (reinterpreted) story in the story of God. They essentially draw on the mystics too much here (Thomas Merton, Thomas a’Kempis, Richard Rohr), and in doing so, take a few steps back in an otherwise outstanding book which breathes life-giving power to the recreated human soul in Jesus Christ. We are truly made for deep, life-giving relationships in our very DNA, with God and others, and the authors have given us much to dwell on, and dwell in Christ about.

The Relational Soul: Moving from False Self to Deep Connection (2014, IVP) by Richard Plass and James Cofield is gold. Previously, I have been honored to include each of their submissions in the newsletter I edit for the Society for Christian Psychology, but even knowing a modest amount about their work, this book far exceeded my expectations.The Relational Soul, as I had hoped, deals with the importance of relationships in human well-being. Drawing upon work in the fields of attachment and interpersonal neurobiology, Plass and Cofield show their readers why relationships are essential to functioning. In fact, on page 15 they wrote, "All reality is relational." I tend to agree with them, knowing that we are created in the image of the triune Godhead.I appreciated a great deal about this book. Chapter 3, which deals with the importance of implicit memory with regard to early attachment and relational formation. Too often, it seems to me that much of American Christianity deals with the logical aspects of faith and life and downplays the emotional/relational aspects. The authors encourage their readers to think about both.As they move on, they spend a lot of time exploring the notion of our false self versus our true self, which reminds me of Larry Crabb's discussions of mask wearing. Relational formation can only occur when we learn to recognize our false selves and grow into our true selves.The final section I would mention is chapter 8, which deals with community. I do not think it is much of an exaggeration to claim that I underlined half of the chapter. Each paragraph in the chapter on community could stand alone as worth pondering deeply.If you seek to understand yourself and your relationships on a deeper level, this is the book for you. Fans of authors like Larry Crabb, Curt Thompson, or Dan Siegel are sure to benefit from this book. But if you want to borrow my copy, you may have to wait awhile, there are things I want to read again.

This is a book that I will immediately read again. Despite telling myself over and over again to slow down, some books are so stimulating, so helpful, that they’re hard to read slowly the first time through. But this is a book to read slowly and thoughtfully and I will do that . . . the second time through. One of the things I liked about the book is that, although I have studied the Enneagram for years and have read a number of the books they suggest for further reading, I struggle to synthesize it. The authors did that for me in this book. However, that’s not to suggest there is nothing original in the book. Quite to the contrary. I found myself continually highlighting a sentence here, an entire paragraph there, of insights, gems really, that I have never read anywhere else. I know I will be rereading and soaking in those comments in the months to come. The stories they tell of ones they’ve worked with, dear people struggling with significant issues but who find significant help, add so much to the book.As a counselor who loves spiritual direction and who is always thinking of and reading about how people change, I find this book an exceptional entry in furthering the conversation. I know it is going to be very helpful to me in my work with clients as well as, and especially in, my understanding and personal growth. You can be sure I will be recommending this book to others on my staff and the counselors I supervise. The questions at the end of each chapter are extremely helpful for personal understanding and growth as well as for teaching the book and using it in a small group or Sunday School class.If you want to understand your story, who you are and why you do the things you do, and the ways you struggle, read this book. If you want to clear away some things that get in the way of loving God and others more fully, read this book.

Read this with a pen, a journal, and an open heart and God will use it to transform you, heal you, and make your life richer

Promised much and has some good insights, but I could help thinking that the New Testament doesn't seem to go have the same approach and wanted greater explanation of why the author's approach was correct in the light of this.

A must read! If you do what this book says, your life and relationship with God will definitely change.

Awesome book