Tenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

For many years and even at the present time, religious representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church have been suspicious towards psychologists. There is a belief that priests are the only adequate representatives of God and only priests can represent God. The present paper does not touch the reasons behind such belief but tries to understand from a psychotherapeutic point of view one of the seven holy sacraments of the Christian Church as a social phenomenon that facilitates individual’s spirituality. Thus, confession is the holy sacrament, which this paper sheds light based on two scholars; James and Klein. The importance of confession is that it deals with human souls in their journey to maturation and momentarily be in touch with the transcendent God and receives some of God’s glory. In addition, confession is the sacrament through which sins are forgiven (Matsoukas & Pournaras, 1992). William James’s and Melanie Klein’s doctrines are used to add on our understanding of the Greek Orthodox holy sacrament of confession and how it facilitates a spiritual journey and wellbeing.