Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

to contemporary psychoanalysis and the recent debates stemming from the 1970s. Two
parallel accounts cover the distinctive developments in both the UK and the USA.
PART B: Chapters 7-16
Having outlined wide-ranging contextual issues in part A that circle around the subject
discursively, I adopt a more linear approach in chronicling the evolution of sacred
psychoanalysis from the 1970s to the present day. While several brief accounts have been
published as part of wider discussions or research (Meissner 1984a; Symington 1994;
Simmonds 2003, 2006; Black 2006), no detailed narrative of religious or spiritual
engagement in psychoanalysis has so far been written. This thesis offers a new account of
these vitally important developments. Beginning with the theoretical foundations
established by Winnicott and Bion, I go on to tell the story of pioneering psychoanalysts
who describe being at the margins of psychoanalytic thought by engaging with issues of
religion and spirituality. Their narratives and subsequent engagement with contemporary
psychoanalysis marks the recovery or rediscovery of an important aspect of psychoanalytic
history. The following chapters examine creative forms of theoretical engagement
understood from the following perspectives:
• Christian 1
• Natural Religion
• Maternal
• Jewish
• Buddhist
1 The Christian traditions represented here are predominately drawn from the Western Church. Eastern
Orthodox Christianity has had little engagement with psychoanalysis, though one of the very few responses is
found in Chirban’s edited work (Chirban 1996).
3