Robert Charles Powell, MD, PhD
After earning a bachelor’s degree in the natural sciences, with special distinction in the social sciences, from Shimer College (Illinois), a “Great Books” school, Dr. Powell earned doctorates in medicine and in history from Duke University (North Carolina), within its Behavioral Sciences Study Program (linguistic psychiatry & theoretical biology/ ethology) and its Medical Historian Training Program (European/ American history of science & of ideas).
During his graduate years, he earned the Josiah C. Trent Prize in the History of Medicine, from Duke University, in 1970, and the William Osler Medal, from the American Association for the History of Medicine, in 1971. In 1994, Dr. Powell was named “Psychiatrist of the Year,” by The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Illinois, and, in 1996, he was named an “Exemplary Psychiatrist” by the central office of The National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Following postgraduate work at the State University of New York/
Upstate Medical Center (Syracuse) (psychiatry/ neurology/ medicine),
and at the Michael Reese Institute for Psychosomatic & Psychiatric Research (Chicago) (clinical research on adolescence), Dr. Powell
earned certification by the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology.
He taught briefly at the medical schools of the University of Missouri – Kansas City, the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, & Northwestern University (– Chicago).
His earliest writings concerned the development of holistic/ organismic theory in psychosomatic medicine, the concept of the subliminal/ subconscious, and the invention of clinical pastoral chaplaincy. His earliest research coordination concerned lithium and premenstrual syndrome.
Having earlier hitch-hiked throughout the British Isles, France, and Italy, he was among the last solo travelers on the overland trail from Istanbul to Kabul to Kathmandu – eventually wandering throughout Iran, India,
Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma).
In late 1998, he was “rediscovered” by the clinical pastoral chaplaincy movement, and once again began contributing to its history, giving major presentations in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2012, and 2025, as well as providing relevant essays during the years between and since.
In private practice for 34 years -- followed by public practice since late 2013 -- he generally treated mixed psychiatric/ neurologic/ endocrinologic disorders in all age groups. During much of that time, he also worked, as a civilian medical officer, with military active duty personnel, retirees, & dependents, on whatever problems with which they presented, without assuming these
to have emotional etiology. With sustained curiosity, he explored,
among other things, how non-psychiatric factors masquerade as psychiatric disorders,
how inflammatory & circulatory factors
impact the whole body (including the brain),
& how answers to five short questions might suggest a person’s level of ego organization.
He and his wife, Pat, have a blended family of two sons, one daughter (now deceased), and four grandchildren. In November 2013, they moved from the Chicago Northshore to the Long Island Northshore. In October 2016, they began moving to the Boston Northshore, to be closer to their children and grandchildren.
Historically, Dr. Powell’s most popular booklet has been Anton T. Boisen (1876-1965): “Breaking an Opening in the Wall between Religion and Medicine,” 1976; 2nd ed., greatly expanded, 2021. His 2nd most popular booklet has been C.P.E. [Clinical Pastoral Education]: Fifty Years of Learning, through Supervised Encounter with “Living Human Documents,” 1975; 2nd ed., greatly expanded, 2021. Historically, his 3rd most popular booklet has been When Death Is Not Theoretical: The Readiness of the Music Group ‘Queen’ for Living with Freddie Mercury’s Dying, 2014; 2nd ed., greatly expanded, 2018. His 4th most popular booklet has been Differentiation of Moods as a Reflection of Ego Organization and Personality Style: Listening Very, Very Closely as Patients Answer Only Five Questions, 2017; clinical trainees especially have appreciated this booklet.
His most popular article by far is “Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959) and a Holistic Approach to Psychosomatic Problems. I. The Rise and Fall of a Medical Philosophy,” Psychiatric Quarterly 49: 133 -152, 1977 (the 1st ed. is available online through ResearchGate; the 2nd ed. is not). His 2nd most popular article is “The ‘Subliminal’ versus the ‘Subconscious’ in the American Acceptance of Psychoanalysis, 1906-1910,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 15: 155-165, 1979; revised & updated as a chapter in Freudian Concepts in America: The Role of Psychical Research in Preparing the Way: 1904-1934, 2015. His 3rd most popular article is "Anton T. Boisen's 'Psychiatric Examination: Content of Thought (1925-31): An Attempt to Grasp the Meaning of Mental Disorder," Psychiatry 40:369-375, 1977. An article he most had wished had had wider availability is “Psychosomatic Aspects of Affect in Psychoanalytic Theory, 1950-1970,” invited review essay, The American Academy of Psychoanalysis Forum 23 (4): 5-8, 1979. Of the above noted articles, the first, third, and fourth will be republished in expanded editions during late 2021.
In mid-2021, a number of his clinical studies were collected in one teaching volume:
Listening Closely to Patients:
without Jumping to Conclusions
{essays on practicing psychiatry}
[ > linguistic/ cognitive dynamic psychiatry meets
neurologic/ nutritional/ endocrinologic psychobiology < ]
In 2021-2026-, forty essays (1969-2025) plus one widely-cited book (Healing & Wholeness ... , 1974; 347 pages) were prepared for re-publication across the next several years in seven inexpensive volumes – in expanded and revised form – after at least ten of his published writings had appeared on the internet without authorization (one very detailed article was submitted in 2020
under someone else's name as a medical dissertation). Most of these studies touch
upon “psychosomatic" medicine & "clinical pastoral" care, counseling, &/ or psychotherapy. He stands as a de facto biographer of Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959), Anton Theophilus Boisen (1876-1965), Elwood Ernest Worcester (1862-1940), James Hervey Hyslop (1894-1920), a& Ethel Phelps Stokes Hoyt (1876-1952).
[the first of the seven volumes is noted at
https://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Pastoral-Training-Education-Transformation/dp/1957994010/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1649320379&sr=1-1&asin=B09XC3H83V&revisionId=d3edcd90&format=1&depth=1 ]
[the second of the seven volumes is noted at
https://www.amazon.com/1876-1965-Breaking-Opening-Religion-Medicine/dp/1957994045/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&asin=1957994045&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1]
[the third of the seven volumes is noted at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G257J1TG?ref_=pe_93986420_774957520
In 2026, a much expanded edition of his monograph
on anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and pro-circulatory pentoxifylline will be published -- along
with a smaller, related monograph on "
pentoxifylline and the brain".
A psychiatry research group in Egypt integrated data from my
long draft manuscript “Pentoxifylline & the Brain” into their
review article:
Ramzi A, Maya S, Balousha N, Amin M, ** Powell RC **,
Shiha MR. "Effects of the anti-inflammatory pentoxifylline
on psychiatric and neuropsychiatric conditions: Exploring
various off-label utilities with meta-analyses”. Inflammopharmacol, Jan 2025 [analyses data on use, with a
good safety profile, of pentoxifylline in severe depression, vascular cognitive impairment, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, & autism; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11799099/
[PubMed Central lists the many references including my 2015 bibliography on pentoxifylline use in general medicine;
readership of this article has grown rapidly – with >328 full
manuscript readings on ResearchGate within 8 months.
>> Powell (2015) demonstrated via charts that
“after pentoxifylline went off-patent in the United States in 1998
the supposedly more prestigious journals lost interest – while the generally non-Anglo-American journals retained or gained interest”. Ramzi et al (2025), starting with Powell’s data, demonstrated via distinctive graphs that “Despite the
decline in PTX [pentoxifylline] studies after 1997, research
on NPS [neuropsychiatric symptoms] has continued to account for
around 11% of all PTX publications, indicating enduring interest in
this domain”. “ This item’s Research Interest score” in Oct 2025 is
“higher than 55% of … items on ResearchGate,”
“higher than 89% of … items published in 2025.”
“higher than 52% of … items related to General Medicine.”
“higher than 50% of … items related to Psychiatry,"
“higher than 46% of … items related to Neurology.”
psychosomatic somatopsychic consultation-liaison
percepts concepts suffering bewildered vulnerable
"... Powell, the leading historian of psychosomatic medicine." [John C. Burnham, Jelliffe: American Psychoanalyst & Physician, 1983, p.xv]
"... Powell continued to function on his own authority as
the preeminent historian of the clinical pastoral movement, and remains so today. He is without peer in this self-assumed role." [Raymond J. Lawrence, Recovery of Soul ..., 2017, p.132]
Addendum: (autobiography, forthcoming someday:)
“Only I Escaped Alone to Tell Thee”:
A Memoir from the 1950s through the 2020s
(The Life & Times of a
Wondering, Wandering, Writing Doctor)
a number of appendices will be included after the main text:
>> “Thelma & Bob”: My Parents’ Life Together
[Thelma Bibler Powell (1922-2015) &
Robert Edwin Powell (1921-1984)]
>> 9-11’s Effect (2001) on a Quiet US Military Base
>> Obtaining Official Clearance (2010) for Saudi Arabia
>> Foreign Wanderings [including
“The Asian Overland Trail”/ “The Hippie Trail” /
"The Road to Kathmandu" – plus adventures
further east – the 1960s thru the 1980s]
>> Focusing on the Differentness of
a Great Books School
>> Toward a Semiotic Approach to History:
Behavioral Analysis in the Diachronic Dimension
>> Medical Notes on the Older Sister I Never Met
[1st recorded live birth (1942) of a child with
**homozygous ** hereditary
hemorrhagic telangiectasia/ HHT].
Elizabeth Anne Powell ("patient EAP" in the
medical articles) lived 11 weeks.
>> Medical Education & Care before 1980
synchronic (with time) (psychology/ sociology)
diachronic (through time) (history/ ethology)
Greece Turkey Iran Afghanistan Pakistan
India Nepal Sri Lanka Myanmar/ Burma Thailand
Hong Kong Macao Taiwan Japan
&&&&&
Dr. Powell’s cover letter was added to Grok AI & in November 2025.
https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1994849531226460217
&&&&&
Others’ non-Amazon Comments about
Doctor Powell’s Writings
[Still active as a clinician and as an author, Dr. Powell has seven more manuscripts in final preparation for publication during 2026.]
>Burnham, John C.: Jelliffe: American Psychoanalyst and Physician, 1983, p.xv: “… Powell, the leading historian of psychosomatic medicine ….”;
>Lawrence, Raymond J.: Recovery of Soul… 2017, p.132: “… Powell continued to function on his own authority as the preeminent historian of the clinical pastoral movement, and remains so today. He is without peer in this self-assumed role.”
1973, “The ‘Subliminal’ versus the ‘Subconscious’ in the American Acceptance of Psychoanalysis, 1906-1910.” presented before the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation Conference on the History of Medicine & the Biological Sciences, Princeton, NJ, March 1974; presented as The Fishbein Lecture before The Division of the Social Sciences, The University of Chicago, 27 Sept 1976. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 15: 155-165, 1979; abstract on the internet at www.pubmed.gov;
PubMed.gov & Google Scholar noted that as of Jun 2025, it has been cited by 18 other articles; Grok, scanning also Semantic Scholar & CrossRef, in Oct 2025 noted 25 unique citations since 1979 – 5 in 2021-2025. cited in Subliminal Literature: Bibliography and Review https://www.progressiveawareness.org/research_desk_reference/Peripheral_Desk_Reference_P.html ; a 2nd, revised edition = “Part Two” of Freudian Concepts ….
research cited extensively by other scholars; among the more insightful comments:
> Kelly, Edward F. et al: Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. chapter by Crabtree, Adam. ftn, p.301. re a key question of which 1886 article influenced Wm. James’ notion of the subconscious, 7 authors’ conclusions are discarded & Powell’s is accepted.)
> Alvarado, Carlos S.: Frederic W. H. Myers, Psychical Research and Psychology …. J Soc Psychical Res. 2009; 73(3)(896):150-170, p.160 [“Studies of how Myers influenced others are needed. An Interesting one is Powell's (1979) discussion …”]
> Knoper, Randall: Literary Neurophysiology …, NY: Oxford Univ Press, 2021. ftn, p.250 [“helps to clarify … the battle between those who attributed behavioral and unconscious mentation to brain physiology and those who attributed them to an integrated and conscious second self ….”]
[this essay includes much original research about the life & work of the Rev. Dr. Elwood Worcester (1862-1940). [appears to be the 2nd most cited Powell article]
1974, Healing and Wholeness: Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-59) and an ExtraMedical Origin of the American Psychosomatic Movement, 1906-36, doctoral (PhD) dissertation, ii+347pp. Dept. of History, Duke University, 26 April 1974. Ann Arbor: [University Microfilms>] ProQuest (order# AAT 7502415) (1st 18 pages, with footnotes, can be previewed here: https://www.proquest.com/openview/2a703909a7278d6a271f05c34a7cc91c/1?pqorigsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y ; National Library of Medicine ID: 7808493; call #: WZ 100 D899P 1974F. cited in “One Hundred First Critical Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (to January 1976).” Isis [The History of Science Society].67(5): section, “Contemporary: Sciences of Man, Medicine,” p.147; cited in Erlen, Jonathan: The History of the Health Care Sciences and Health Care: 1700-1980: A Selective Annotated Bibliography. NY: Garland Reference Library 1984, p.809.
> Google search for “American Psychosomatic Movement” > 600+ references to my writings. > Grok & Gemini in Nov 2025 could not find any use of that phrase prior to Powell’s introduction of it in 1974.
> someone unknown to me actually posted in November 2020 the entire seven-page “Introduction” to Healing and Wholeness … – minus the 11 original footnotes – on the internet: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3657153744?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1 ; it is labeled as an appreciative review of Dunbar’s Mind and Body: Psychosomatic Medicine.
(per WorldCat.org, 01 Aug 2021, 19 libraries hold copies of the dissertation). (research cited extensively by other scholars, eg:
> Burnham, John C.: Jelliffe: American Psychoanalyst and Physician. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983, pp.xv n, 86 n, 132-134, 154-155 [“Powell, the leading historian of psychosomatic medicine ….”];
> Stokes, Allison: Ministry After Freud. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1985, pp.73-74, 86, 197, 201-203, 206 [“… scholarly research and analysis of the highest order,” p.xviii];
> Hyrkäs, Eve-Riina: Psychosomatic Connections: Mind-Body Histories …; PhD diss, Oulu, FL: Univ. of Oulu, 2022, pp.16-17, 64, 81 [uses Powell’s work to structure her doctoral study of “grounded meanings”; “A deep understanding of psychosomatics requires the researcher to pay attention to the non-medical personae of doctors …,” p.81;
> George, Carol V.R.: God's Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp.8, 12, 89;
> Severino, Sally K & Liew, Richard, eds: Pastoral Care of the Mentally Disabled: New York: Haworth Press, 1994, pp.58-59;
> Gifford, Sanford. The Emmanuel Movement: The Origins of Group Treatment and The Assault on Lay Psychotherapy. Boston: Harvard University Press, for The Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, 1997, p.107 [“Powell’s brilliant dissertation … ,” p.108];
> Hart, Curt. J Relig Health. 2010; 49:536–546 [“Two of the three best histories of the origins of the clinical pastoral movement have been written by psychiatrists Robert Powell and Sanford Gifford.”; p.539.]);
> McGovern, Constance. American National Biography. 2000, “The most complete assessment of her [Dunbar’s] work is Robert C. Powell, "Healing and Wholeness ….”.
** H & W, p.360: “this became somewhat of a handbook on the broad subject of ‘emotion’.” ** In addition to original research re the life & work of Dr. Helen Flanders Dunbar as well as that of the life & work of the Rev. Dr. Anton Theophilus Boisen (1876-1965), the dissertation includes original research re the life & work of the Rev. Dr. Elwood Ernest Worcester (1862-1940), founder of the Emmanuel Movement, & his associate, the Rev. Dr. Samuel McComb (1864-1938); that latter research was spun off as ~~~ Elwood Worcester and The Emmanuel Movement: Physician of the Whole Man, of the Soul as Well as of the Body; a 67-page booklet available on Amazon through Kindle e-books & KDP Print, August 2018.
> Franzen, David. “Foreword” to Healing and Wholeness … 2nd edition: “Powell’s biography of Worcester is perhaps the best researched and written work on Worcester to date.”
> Smith, Brian Dean. “For a thoughtful discussion of higher criticism and Worcester’s intellectual development see Robert Powell ‘Healing and Wholeness …’.” The Moral Treatment of Psychological Disorder …,1989. ~~~
2022, Healing & Wholeness, 2nd ed, revised & expanded; content increased by 12%; “Specific “Index of Psychoanalytic Concepts” & “General Index of Names & Concepts” added.
> emailed comment: “Holy cow! This revision is really extraordinary. Your scope and organization of the materials is invaluable.”
> “Records of The American Psychosomatic Society” “The Committee, headed by Dr. Helen Flanders Dunbar, published a first volume in 1935, titled Emotions and Bodily Changes: A Survey of the Literature on Psychosomatic Interrelationships. According to R.C. Powell [1974] … this work quite literally launched the American psychosomatic movement’.”; http://psych-history.weill.cornell.edu/pdf/American_Psychosomatic_Society_Records.pdf
a rare historical article on the Joint Committee: this is the ONLY article on the committee picked up by Google.
republished, 2021, 2nd edition in Clinical Pastoral Training, Education, & Transformation ….
1976, “Anton T. Boisen's ‘Psychiatric Examination: Content of Thought’ (c.1925-31): An Attempt to Grasp the Meaning of Mental Disorder,” Psychiatry 40: 369-375, 1977;
> Noll, Richard. “Feeling and Smelling Psychosis: American Alienism, Psychiatry, Prodromes and the Limits of ‘Category Work’ .” History of Human Science 31(2):22-41, 2018, cites Powell and then notes that Boisen created one of the first forms for rating psychotic symptoms – thus helping to transform American psychiatry into a more scientific endeavor. abstract on the internet at www.pubmed.gov ; [outlines Boisen’s decades-long intellectual relationship with Harry Stack Sullivan, MD] on the internet at
https://archive.org/details/sim_psychiatry_1977-11_40_4/page/368/mode/2up?q=powell on the internet at
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00332747.1977.11023950 ; on the internet (fee) at
https://www.proquest.com/openview/de76bb81debaa0b176641f1518e7151d/1.pdf?pqorigsite=gscholar&cbl=1816654 see 6 citations in Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cites=16143386626254896225
2021, republished in Boisen: Clinician …
[a prominent theologian who functioned as a sociologist/ psychologist, “inventing” clinical pastoral chaplaincy]
[appears to be the 3rd most cited Powell article]
1979, “Psychosomatic Aspects of Affect in Psychoanalytic Theory, 1950-1970.” invited review essay. [The American] Academy [of Psychoanalysis] Forum 23 (4): 5-8, 1979.
> [George L. Engel, MD (1913-99), personal letter dated 25 September 1979: “It is always interesting to have someone else put one’s work in perspective – especially since, with the passage of time, one all too easily becomes confused about the order of development of one’s own ideas. … So … I found your presentation most interesting and informative.” Engel’s commentary provided some reassurance that I had untangled his arguments correctly.] to be republished in Psychosomatic Healing ….
&&&&&&&&&&
Healing and Wholeness – 2nd ed
Robert Charles Powell
Foreword [2021]
It is a distinct pleasure to join a chorus of voices in praise of Robert Charles Powell’s Healing and Wholeness, a biography – and more – of Dr. Helen Flanders Dunbar. Dr. Powell completed in 1974 his Ph.D. and M.D. degrees from Duke University. His studies for the Ph.D. were concentrated in the European and American History of Science and Ideas with a specific focus on the development of theory in psychosomatic medicine – and on the context of that development.
In addition to his long list of publications in medicine and in the history of medicine, Powell has published a number of important books and articles on the history of the clinical pastoral movement – including, Anton T. Boisen (1876-1965): “Breaking an Opening in the Wall between Religion and Medicine,” (1976; 2nd ed., greatly expanded, 2021, and his C.P.E. [Clinical Pastoral Education]: Fifty Years of Learning, through Supervised Encounter with “Living Human Documents,” 1975; 2nd ed., greatly expanded, 2021). His most popular article by far is “Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959) and a Holistic Approach to Psychosomatic Problems, … The Rise and Fall of a Medical Philosophy” (1977). Along with his many publications, Powell has practiced psychiatry for over four decades. In late 1998, he was “rediscovered” by the clinical pastoral chaplaincy movement and once again began contributing to its history, giving major presentations in 1999, 2002, 2005 and 2012, as well as providing relevant essays during the years between and since. I first encountered Powell in 1975, when he made a memorable presentation in Minneapolis at the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Clinical Pastoral Education.
Now, in the pages to follow, Powell comes full circle with the republication of his widely cited doctoral dissertation from 1974: Healing and Wholeness: Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902-1959) and an Extra-Medical Origin of the American Psychosomatic Movement, 1906-36. The pastoral care, counseling, and psychotherapy community has waited too long for the reappearance (with significant editorial enhancements) of this stunning piece of investigation. This book is foundational reading for all pastoral practitioners. It is by far the most authoritatively researched and elegantly nuanced book on the context, life, and career of Helen Flanders Dunbar regarding her immense contributions to the movement for professional chaplaincy. While she went on to make a major contribution to psychosomatic medicine (Cf., her book, Emotions and Bodily Changes: A Survey of Literature on Psychosomatic Relationships, a book that in its fourth edition ran to 1,191 pages), Powell here demonstrates how the American psychosomatic movement and the movement for clinical pastoral chaplaincy were intertwined.
How does one write a biography of a woman whose pedigree, by her mid-thirties already included B.A, B.D., M.D., Ph.D., and Med. Sc.D. degrees? Moreover, in the early years of her career she had a crucial impact on the life and professional good fortune of Anton Boisen, founder of the clinical pastoral movement in America. Both Dunbar and Boisen enjoyed the support, influence, and colleagueship of the Rev. Dr. Elwood Worcester, founder of the Boston-based Emmanuel Movement, the latter part of whose career coincided with theirs. In 1925 and for years thereafter, the lives of these three extraordinary persons intersected to help Boisen launch clinical pastoral training, counseling, and psychotherapy in America.
An answer to the above question begins with an overview of Powell’s plan for this book. The opening chapter introduces us to “the medical, theoretical context” of the European and American world into which Dunbar was born and educated. Chapter two introduces the “Holistic, Organismic Approach (of) Psychobiology” that cast the foundation for Dunbar’s thought, research and practice. Chapters three, four and five are masterfully researched biographies of Dunbar, Boisen and Worcester, concluding in early 1925 before they began their work together. (Powell’s biography of Worcester is perhaps the best researched and written work on Worcester to date.) Chapter six traces the years from 1925 to 1938 when Dunbar collaborated with Boisen, Worcester, and others to begin the clinical pastoral training movement. In chapter seven Powell gathers and more fully develops the themes of symbolism, whose emergence in religious experiences, mental illness, and psychosomatic phenomena were described in the earlier chapters. In brief, Dunbar perceived that humans symbolize their emotional conflicts and concerns through religious practices and rituals, as well as through the mental and physical symptoms they display in illness and health.
One can only gesture toward Powell’s command of the many and complex facets of this study of Dunbar: the vast historical detail; the powerful dynamics of Dunbar’s relationships with Boisen and the other main protagonists in her life; her crucial leadership of the fledgling Council for Clinical Training; the penetrating energy and scope of her many interdisciplinary research endeavors; the development of her theoretical perspectives over the span of her life and career; and her contributions to psychosomatic medicine. Readers of this book will be richly rewarded. It should be required reading for all clinicians interested in the mind – who will learn a lot about psychoanalytic thinking along the way.
A prime example is his account of Dunbar’s life from childhood until 1931 to which I refer at some length. Powell says, “She grew up as a lonely, overprotected child, more comfortable with books than with people”. Her early education occurred mostly in girls’ private prep schools where her nickname was “Little Dunbar.” She compensated for the pain of her difficulties in socializing through her voracious pursuit of academics. In college at Bryn Mawr, she majored in mathematics, pre-medicine, and psychology, and here she encountered her first mentor, James Henry Leuba, whose field was psychology of religion. He held that religious experience must be understood psychologically, and he studied religious emotions and the changes they produced in the body. This perspective made a deep impression on Dunbar and shaped, in part, her future career.
During her Ph.D. studies at Columbia University, Dunbar met her next mentor, Jefferson B. Fletcher, who was a Dantean scholar. Steeped in the medieval theological method of Thomas Aquinas, Dante used a symbolistic and organismic way of thinking, believing that science and religion “are not antagonistic but complementary”. He took medieval theological symbolism to unprecedented heights in his Divine Comedy, a work that was the subject of Dunbar’s first of three doctoral dissertations. Powell says, “Her dissertation: Symbolism in Medieval Thought and its Consummation in the Divine Comedy (1929) – a definitive study of the field – earned her a reputation as a Dantean scholar which still persists” (p.96).
Powell sketches a penetrating summary of the relationships Dunbar found between the function of medieval symbolism, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, and ultimately the dynamics of human psychosomatic processes:
Her research in medieval symbolism revealed three interrelated understandings of the medieval mind, all centered in the notion of a tendency toward unity or wholeness. First, there was a belief in “the ultimate unification of opposites” through symbol. One might consider the similarity of this to Freud’s theory of symptom formation, whereby symptoms may be viewed as expressions of both a wish and its defense. Second, there was a belief in “a unity underlying all forms”. Again, one might compare Freud’s theory of pregenital psychosexual development as providing the prototype for the whole of an individual’s mode of reaction to life. Third, there was a belief in the “ultimate incomprehensibility” of this unity, “even through all symbols put together….” (p.98).
Medieval symbolists felt that “the meanings of the universe lay, not in isolated phenomena, but in their relationships, and that scientia, knowledge of the particular, derives its significance from sapientia, knowledge of the underlying patterns and unifying powers.” “Thus, like Dante,” Dunbar concluded, “some psychologists are finding the necessity of a deeper order of symbolism…through which, in the bringing together of thought and emotion, unification of personalities may be accomplished” (p. 99).
These key ideas were foundational to Dunbar’s research perspectives in her subsequent work with Boisen on the relation of religion and medicine, and to her understanding of psychosomatic medicine over the balance of her career.
During summer, 1929 Dunbar spent 15 weeks in Austria working with Freud’s colleague, Felix Deutsch in Vienna. Deutsch worked with patients presenting with both organic and psychic illnesses and held that “the developmental stages of the instinctual … life always have their complementary physical correlates” (p.101). Dunbar also had a brief “didactic therapy” with his wife, Helene Deutsch, who, with Wilhelm Reich, coordinated Freud’s training seminar.
Characteristic of her work ethic, Dunbar commuted on weekends to Zürich, where she had multiple interviews with Carl Jung and became an “Assistant” at the Burghölzli Clinic. Here she was impacted by Jung’s belief in the intermingling of bodily and psychic traits. Jung said, “(T)he spirit is the life of the body seen from within, and the body the outward manifestation of the life of the spirit – the two really being one” (p.104). Powell notes that based on her work with Deutsch and Jung –not to mention her work with Boisen during the four preceding summers – Dunbar sought to deduce the role of symbolism in narcissism.
Turning from Powell’s account of Dunbar’s intellectual development, he also relates her development to that of Boisen. He traces the formative and constructive outcome of Boisen’s delusion as he emerged from a mental breakdown. In his delusion, Boisen “found that he had ‘broken an opening in the wall which separated religion and medicine’…. After he recovered, he wrote, ‘The cure has lain in the faithful carrying through of the delusion itself’ – which is exactly the task to which Boisen dedicated the rest of his life…. He also began reading Freud and developing his germinal idea of ‘breaking down the wall’ ”. Boisen would later say, “In many of its forms, insanity, as I see it, is a religious rather than a medical problem, and any treatment which fails to recognize that fact can hardly be effective” (pp.132-37). Consider, for example, Boisen’s revealing letter to Norman Nash:
There is no line of separation between valid religious experience and the abnormal mental states which the alienist calls ‘insanity’. The distinguishing feature … is not the presence or absence of the abnormal and erroneous, but the direction of the change [italics mine] that may be taking place. For the most part … the cases with which the psychiatrist is concerned are the cases in which the patient is losing ground. Valid religious experiences, on the other hand, are unifying (p.137).
Dunbar approached religious experiences such as Boisen’s delusion through the lens of symbolism. As Powell put it, “Symbolism, to Dunbar’s mind, was ‘a fundamental impulse essential in human expression,’ serving both to conceal the sense of something from all but the elite and to reveal the sense so as to make it understood. This revelatory aspect of symbolism especially intrigued Dunbar” (p.252). Dunbar summarized it nicely in 1929: “Symbols are the chief means by which the mind expresses ideas it has not yet mastered” (p.251). Thus, Boisen’s “breaking an opening in the wall” was a symbol, albeit delusional, that led to his own recovery as he worked out its real-life implications. In the real world, as Boisen collaborated with Worcester, Dunbar, and others he worked out a method of training persons to integrate theology and psychology, theory and practice, in the care of souls. People express their inner conflicts through symbols that are either psychic (as did Boisen), or somatic (as do countless medical patients). Following Dante, Freud, Jung, Boisen, Worcester and others, Dunbar understood psychosomatic phenomena as the means by which the patient symbolizes deeper relational, psychic, and religious conflicts through physical symptoms.
In this brief space, I have attempted to give the reader a small taste of what Robert Charles Powell so eloquently offers us in Healing and Wholeness. You have my best wishes as you begin the feast that he has set before us.
David M. Franzen, MDiv, ThM, DMin
Pastoral Counselor & Psychotherapist
The Graduate Institute of
The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy
