Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

INTRODUCTION
My conscious engagement with Freud emerged during my training as a minister of religion
working out what theology meant in the context of doing group therapy with in-patients in a
psychiatric hospital. At first it seemed as if I was acquiring some esoteric knowledge
represented by the 24-volumes of the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud proudly displayed in a locked glass cabinet in the hospital library.
At another level I intuitively understood Freud’s insights into the unconscious and saw these
evidenced in both Church and theological college. This research represents the fulfilment of
my longstanding desire to understand how psychoanalysis, religion and spirituality connect,
and influence each other.
This thesis advances the interpretation that a new category termed ‘sacred psychoanalysis’
can be identified within contemporary psychoanalysis, which accounts for the emergence of
religion and spirituality as subjects of theoretical and clinical importance in the last 30
years. Sacred psychoanalysis throws new light on: the limitations of Freud's account of
religion that has dominated psychoanalysis; the contours of the recent history of
psychoanalysis focusing on both religious and spiritual engagement (from the 1970s); the
development of contemporary psychoanalysis as a pluralistic and accommodating enterprise
for religion and spirituality; and the lived experience of contemporary psychoanalysts
working with religious and spiritual issues, for themselves and their patients. It is in this
context that my research is set. The thesis is structured in four parts, providing an inter-
locking foundation to support the conclusion that sacred psychoanalysis is an important
category that has evolved within the pluralistic framework of contemporary psychoanalysis.
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