John G McKENZIE – författare

It is acknowledged by most students of human behaviour that the idea of guilt is closely connected with that of man’s freedom and responsibility. It is a theme of law-court and pulpit, a concern of psychoanalysis and probation officers, a growing pre-occupation of the novelist. Our era has even been described as a ‘guilt-consciousness age’. It comes as a surprise, therefore, to discover that there are so few modern books in which the meaning of guilt is thoroughly explored.

In the present volume, originally published in 1962, Dr J.G. McKenzie makes an admirable attempt to fill the gap. He begins by describing and analysing the various senses in which the word ‘guilt’ is used and by making a number of important distinctions. There follows a close psychological study of the origin and development of guilty feelings which is illumined by Dr McKenzie’s interpretation of ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ conscience. The author then turns to the legal, ethical and religious concepts of guilt and examines each with care and insight, always raising and facing the deepest issues for both theory and practice. In the concluding section of the book he deals with the question ‘How can the sense of guilt be dissipated?’ Against the backdrop of depth-psychology and theology he offers a penetrating and provocative understanding of divine forgiveness which plumbs the deeps both of man’s sin and of God’s love.

Dr McKenzie writes out of a long lifetime of teaching and of clinical work in psychotherapy. The range of his reading and interests is extraordinarily wide. Through all his writing there shines not only his profound concern for people but his lively and indeed infectious conviction that man is still in the making and that his one true Maker is God.

It is acknowledged by most students of human behaviour that the idea of guilt is closely connected with that of man’s freedom and responsibility. It is a theme of law-court and pulpit, a concern of psychoanalysis and probation officers, a growing pre-occupation of the novelist. Our era has even been described as a ‘guilt-consciousness age’. It comes as a surprise, therefore, to discover that there are so few modern books in which the meaning of guilt is thoroughly explored.

In the present volume, originally published in 1962, Dr J.G. McKenzie makes an admirable attempt to fill the gap. He begins by describing and analysing the various senses in which the word ‘guilt’ is used and by making a number of important distinctions. There follows a close psychological study of the origin and development of guilty feelings which is illumined by Dr McKenzie’s interpretation of ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ conscience. The author then turns to the legal, ethical and religious concepts of guilt and examines each with care and insight, always raising and facing the deepest issues for both theory and practice. In the concluding section of the book he deals with the question ‘How can the sense of guilt be dissipated?’ Against the backdrop of depth-psychology and theology he offers a penetrating and provocative understanding of divine forgiveness which plumbs the deeps both of man’s sin and of God’s love.

Dr McKenzie writes out of a long lifetime of teaching and of clinical work in psychotherapy. The range of his reading and interests is extraordinarily wide. Through all his writing there shines not only his profound concern for people but his lively and indeed infectious conviction that man is still in the making and that his one true Maker is God.

Originally published in 1951, this title is a study in developmental psychology with special reference to the effect of various types of religion on mental health and religious experience. With instinct as a ‘disappearing category’ in the psychology of human nature, a new approach to the realization of a harmonious interior life has been made using a doctrine of biological and personality needs as a starting point. Human nature is acquired and is not a static datum. The interior conflicts, the development of conscience and the origin of guilt feeling, the morbid complexes and the character-trends resulting from these conflicts with their sense of guilt are all studied. A long chapter on the various methods of mental healing through the doctrines of psycho-somatic medicine, with a new approach to Spiritual Healing in particular, prepares the way for the final chapter on the types of religion which originate or accentuate psychological conflicts, and the kind of religion which leads to a basic sense of security and harmonious personality. The illustrations are nearly all taken from Dr McKenzie’s own thirty years’ experience of dealing with neurotic disorders.

This volume contains the substance (greatly expanded) of the Tate lectures delivered in Manchester College, Oxford, in 1947, and repeated at the St Andrews Summer School of Theology in1948 and at Iona Community.