| The principal research question addressed in this theoretical dissertation is: "How could Taoist ancestor worship be translated into an Ecumenical Transgenerational Psychotherapy?" A proposed answer is divided into six chapters. Chapter One, "The Tao of Ancestors," is a pilgrimage into the recesses of the author's unconscious to find the seamless connection with his ancestral mind. It describes his youthful ancestral visitation and how he burrowed into Western science and Taoist practices to search for explanations. Autoethnography, writing self in culture, was chosen as the over-riding methodology for this dissertation. Chapter Two, "The Mythic Scheme," is an explication of the methodology behind Joseph Needham's lifework. This chapter carries a depth psychology-based Taoist psychotherapy as presented by Needham. Chapter Three, "The Ethogenic Mythic Scheme," is an amalgamation of the respective methodologies of Rom Harre's Ethogenics and Needham's Mythic Scheme. Banking on Harre's elucidation of the philosophy of Wittgenstein as therapy, it is brought to light that Needham's lifework propounding Chinese science to the world is itself an example of what this dissertation describes as Ecumenical Psychotherapy. The first three chapters culminate in Chapter Four, "Kuan as Taoist Autoethnography." Couched in the Taoist concept of kuan (perception), Autoethnography becomes a first order methodology. This is the Tao of Ancestors: We and our ancestors are One -- as the God or Tao the world has since time immemorial rumored it to be. Chapter Five, "The Researcher as an Autoethnographical Case Study," applies the Taoist Autoethnography onto the researcher to further explicate the concept of Taoist Autoethnography and exemplify the process of Ecumenical Transgenerational Psychotherapy. Chapter Six is conclusion and implications. The answer to the research question consists in the delineation of the researcher's life-course under the framework of the methodologies proffered. Together, they allow the translation of ancient Taoistic ancestor worship into the modern terms of transgenerational psychotherapy. This is a pioneering research, and more research is welcome and needed.;Keywords: the Tao of ancestors, ecumenical, transgenerational, psychotherapy, ecumenical transgenerational psychotherapy, Autoethnography, mythic scheme, ethogenics, ethogenic mythic scheme, Taoist Autoethnography, kuan. |
