| Popis: |
My friendship with the Pfister family dates back to 1949. In years critical for me, Oskar Pfister was my fatherly adviser and friend. In preparing for this centenary, I fortunately had the use of the comprehensive writings of Pfister, kindly placed at my disposal in 1965 by his wife, Mrs. Martha Pfister-Urner. From them I had lectured briefly on his work as a psychotherapist at the Fourth World Congress of Psychiatry in Madrid in 1966.1 Since then, I have worked more intensively through this material. One thought runs through all of it: How is it possible to intervene most effectively in a crisis situation of a human being and at the same time offer him moral-religious freedom; or, in Pfister's words, accomplish the r?int?gration of love, the removal of the unconscious lie of life, and the liberation of certain repressed psychic energies? Pfister had no time to set up theoretical models, and his thinking went beyond any Kantian hierarchical value constructions. In his pointed theological and psychoanalytical conceptualizations, he developed an appealing, richly poetic style well suited to his multilateral struggle. Often he wrote also with sharp and colorful vigor, especially when defending his strong convictions. The fact that he was searching unconsciously to unify his own work, being kept constantly on the move in this search, did not help to build up his own school of thought or the teaching of any one system. We can now see retrospectively that there were definite starting points toward this search in his scientific theological work and in his practical pastoral care. This centennial observance would be pointless if there did not emerge from it the full figure of this giant personality who contributed so richly to his own time and to the future. His continuing potential for showing how to make Christian love fully effective in every aspect of life is only now becoming obvious to those working today in the fields of pastoral care and |
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