Developing an interdisciplinary concept of “ambivalence-sensitive thoughtfulness”. Reflexive resilience for young professionals in healthcare and pastoral/spiritual care

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Franziska Geiser; Professorin Dr. Cornelia Richter
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 560174322

Throughout our many years of professional experience as professors as well as a physician and pastor, we have both observed how difficult it is, especially for young professionals, to perceive, reflect on and assess critical situations in all their dynamics and complexity, while constructively incorporating possible ambivalence and ambiguity. In our preliminary highly interdisciplinary work in the context of the DFG research unit FOR 2686 “Resilience in Religion and Spirituality”, we identified ambivalence and ambiguity as central elements of resilience processes and interdisciplinary approaches from the fields of philosophy and life sciences. However, disciplines do not always conceive of or encounter these phenomena in the same way. While theology offers a more anthropological and phenomenological approach to ambivalence in secular and religious respects, medicine and psychology tend to emphasize the measurable and functional as well as the emotional and interactional aspects. Both sides, the “unapproachable” or even “ineffable”, and the “functional”, are inextricably linked to the concrete experiences of ambivalence in challenging situations. Consequently, we see a need to develop an integrative approach that ties together these perspectives. Starting from a theoretical perspective, the primary aim of this project is to compare and integrate theoretical and conceptual frameworks and models on ambivalence, ambiguity, vulnerability and reflection in an interdisciplinary way. From there, we propose to develop an interdisciplinary concept of an “ambivalence-sensitive thoughtfulness”, encompassing the incorporation of vulnerability and the reflexive acknowledgment of, and constructive engagement with, the "contrasting resistance" inherent in complex situations. Under the pressures of everyday professional life, there is often a lack of both external and internal permission to come to a halt for a moment, to reflect, to trace the ambivalences, to change perspectives, but also to rediscover oneself, to be allowed to wait, to feel held. By comparing concepts from both fields, we aim to facilitate an understanding of the multifaceted and often contradictory meanings associated with professional situations (physical, psychological, social, and spiritual) and to present options for understanding, containing and addressing them. After a theoretical synthesis, we also hope to pilot some practical ideas and thereby offer new starting points for translating academic discourse into pronounced interdisciplinary/interprofessional forms of training or further education. The uniqueness of our application lies in our determination to engage in a genuinely interdisciplinary dialogue, overcoming disciplinary boundaries in language, reasoning and structures. The risk lies in a possible failure of the attempted synthesis, as well as a failure to convince our respective communities of the relevance of our work with respect to publication, funding, and dissemination.

• DFG Programme: Reinhart Koselleck Projects
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Thomas Schlag