Journal of Psychology & Behavioral Science

The Failed Developmental Position of Concern in the Story of Job
Richard E. Webb, Philip J. Rosenbaum

Abstract
The Book of Job has been limited by theodical perspectives. We propose that the story also speaks of the challenges of developing from a concrete position of “right and wrong” or “good and bad” to one that appreciates the complexities and nuances of our inner psychological worlds. Rather than being a paean to God‟s omniscience and omnipotence, we propose that Job is a cautionary tale about the inability of the caregiver to embrace the ambivalence and otherness in the emerging being-ness of the child, consequentially delimiting the child‟s emerging appreciation of difference and otherness. We anchor our ideas in four existential-relational, developmental positions: the contiguous, paranoid-schizoid, depressive (concern), and transcendent.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jpbs.v12a4