In the early 1960s van Kaam, along with
Gurwitsch develops his theories of the field of consciousness
out of a background of gestalt psychology and out of reference to a
number of theorists, especially
...the totality of co-present data. Co-presence is understood in a broad sense so as to comprise not only data which are experienced as simultaneous but also those which are simultaneously experienced, though not as simultaneous. ...For a field-theory of consciousness there arises the task of investigating the articulation of the total field of consciousness and of bringing out the patterns and forms in which co-present data are organized with respect to each other.
Gurwitsch points us in the direction of the need to construct a model that will articulate not the contents or details of human experience, but the general organization of those contents or details. Byrne writes:
Hence, the science of [Formative Spirituality] does not focus its investigations on the person-in-isolated-subjectivity, but on the wholistic formation process as it unfolds within what the science calls the "field of formation." Parallel to the science of physics which sees the structures of the universe as unfolding through dynamic interaction within a foundational energy-field, the science of [Formative Spirituality] views the formation of human life as a dynamic process of unfolding through interaction within polarities of one foundational field of formation. [Formative Spirituality] is, therefore, "field-thinking" about formation experience.
The construct of the formation field is the key structure by which Formative Spirituality points to the dialogical nature of human formation and thus avoids reductionistic tendencies. It would seem to have its roots in van Kaam's earlier concerns with anthropological and existential psychology.
Human life is a field of forces that interact with one another. An analysis of any facet of the field or of any event or its apprehension in isolation will not yield a sufficient understanding. No particular event, apprehension, or direction is a self-sufficient unit. Any one of them is only what it is because it is coformed by other forces.
By means of the formation field, it is stressed that human formation must always be understood as a dialogue among the various spheres of the field. "The dialogical nature of human formation, on the basis of transcendent presence, is one of the foundational principles of [Formative Spirituality]." By "transcendent presence" is meant that both implicit and explicit awareness of the mystery of formation necessarily enters into the dialogue in a significant manner-- the human spirit.
Van Kaam's proposed model of the human-as-field is complicated in its detail. William Thompson, a Catholic theologian who is here nodding towards Eric Voegelin, utilizes a four-fold, or quaternion model to organize human experience. He writes:
...four cardinal dimensions of our common human life: (1) our relation to the Divine, (2) our vision and praxis as individuals, (3) our network of social relationships... (4) our relationship to the natural environment and our very material body... I did not arrive at these four poles of human life by accident. As I hope to illustrate throughout this book, it seems that every human being is an intersection between these four poles. There is a kind of quaternion structure to our human existence. Furthermore, it seems as if the poles are interrelated, so that oscillations in any one of the poles seem to reverberate upon the others.... If something is askew in one of the poles, the probability is that something will be askew in the other poles too. Conversely, healthiness in one of the poles will contribute toward the healthiness of all the poles.
Simple experience tells us that our lives are constituted by relationships to these various "poles."....Simple experience also tells us that these four poles are interrelated.
In my clinical and educational work over the last few years I have utilized to great success a slight adaptation of Thompson's articulation of this structure-- a quaternion structure composed of subjective, physical, social, and spiritual poles.
Subjective: What goes on "inside" the us. It would include psychological states; thoughts and emotions. It also includes our awareness of bodily states such as hunger or pain. The subjective area is largely "private". Others do not necessarily know what is happening "in" this area unless we share it.
Physical: Our bodies and their chemical interactions, also our environment--the world as a whole. When we think of "health" we tend to think only of this area.
Social: Other human forms and the symbolic forms (traditions, artifacts, communications) that emerge from them.
Spiritual: Our awareness of, and response to the mystery of reality. The mystery is "epiphanized" by means of, or is implied by the other three poles of the field in its cosmic, human and alleged transhuman epiphanies.
Thus, we can say, by "field" we mean both an approach to and a conceptualization of. The field is a conceptualization of the human subject that allows us to visualize and organize diverse and "co-present" aspects of our experience, that is; it is wholistic. It is a model that forces us to keep in mind the diversity, interrelatedness and interpenetration of various areas of human experience. The field approach resists any attempt to reduce the complexity of any human event to one specialization or to one pole of the field. It provides us with an intellectual map.
The key to understanding such a field approach (regardless of how we will construct the field model) is this: any change, good or bad, in any one area will necessarily show up in the other three areas. When we focus our observation on spirituality we are looking for changes in how the person responds to awareness of the mystery: the degree of that awareness, and how that awareness is then correlated to form reception and donation in the other poles of the human-as-field. And conversely, we observe how human formation in the other three poles affects levels and types of awareness of and response to the mystery. That is, we observe the dialogue among the poles-- the dialogue that is the human form.