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Psychoanalysis – a moral natural religion 242
Neville Symington was brought up as a Roman Catholic, trained for the priesthood in the
late 1950s but left to pursue a career in psychology and later psychoanalysis. 243 While
Symington left behind orthodox religion, a story told in his autobiographical novel
(Symington 2004b), his thinking is steeped in theology and philosophy, especially Aquinas
and Macmurray. His published work synthesizes complex ideas: analytic, theological, and
philosophical (Symington 1986, 1994). This includes narcissism (Symington 1993b, 2002),
Bion (Symington and Symington 1996) an enduring interest in religion (Symington 1993a,
1994, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004a, 2008) and the moral dimension of psychoanalysis
(Symington 1997) alongside a critical and reflective self-awareness in his later work
(Symington 2006b, 2007). 244 Symington records the influence of his first analyst, Klauber
(Symington 2007) 245 and his brief supervision with Bion. In his psychoanalytic training
242
Symington produced a paper with the title ‘The spirituality of natural religion’ in 2004 (Symington 2004c).
He adopts a universal approach drawing on the core ideas of religious and spiritual traditions. Marcus takes
this idea further devoting a book to ancient religious wisdom found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism,
Taoism, Stoicism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, then applying their insights to psychoanalysis. Marcus
believes that psychoanalysis can be enriched through this and ‘become a more compelling, relevant, and
appealing life-and-identity-defining narrative of the human condition and mode of self-transformation’
(Marcus 2003: 177).
243
Symington was educated at Ampleforth College, Britain’s leading Independent Catholic School, part of a
Benedictine monastic community.
244
Symington has been published in psychoanalytic journals since 1980 and his later books are collections of
various articles primarily on psychoanalysis (Symington 2007) and religion (Symington 2004a).
245
Symington fails to mention Klauber’s 1974 paper ‘Notes on the psychical roots of religion, with particular
reference to the development of Western Christianity’ (Klauber 1974) later published in a collection of papers
(Klauber 1986) that Symington does quote from (Symington 2007). Klauber was a well-known member of the
Independent group that formed a crucial part of the British psychoanalytic world, and later became President
of the British Psychoanalytical Society and helped develop psychoanalysis in Europe after the Second World
War. He had been appointed the Freud Memorial Visiting Professor of Psychoanalysis at University College
London but died before able to take up this post. Gillespie’s obituary records, ‘In his latter years John Klauber
became increasingly concerned with the phenomenon that he called “illusion”, a term he may well have
borrowed from Freud’s “Future of an illusion”. He defined it tentatively as “a false belief causing uncertainty
as to whether it should be given credence”. His most interesting development of this theme concerns the
relation and contrast between religion and psychoanalysis. The essence of religion is indeed an illusion in that
it consists in the assertion of the truth of things that are incredible (credo quia absurdum). But our experiences
as infants are indeed incredible, yet also true. Psychoanalytic therapy is likewise based on the illusory element
of the transference, and its effectiveness depends on the coming together of this illusion with the truth, an
amalgamation of id with ego. What would distinguish psychoanalysis from religion is a readiness to believe
that we may be mistaken (and one is reminded of Oliver Cromwell’s famous recommendation to the Scottish
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