Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Aron concluded,
Analysts have too often played God. We have acted as if we were omnipotent and
all knowing … my belief [is] that being deeply engaged with God, imitating God’s
ways, may paradoxically keep us from playing God. Michael Eigen (1998), 336
drawing on his own study of Judaism and Kabbalah, described psychoanalysis as a
form of prayer. Indeed psychoanalysis may be envisioned as a religious practice, a
form of worship, in which contact is made with the Almighty through immersion in
the richness and depth of the inner life in communion with the Other (Aron 2004:
449f.).
Self-Psychology, interpersonal, intersubjective and relational forms of psychoanalysis has a
yet untapped potential for further religious and spiritual engagement as will become clear in
the next part of the thesis, focusing on the lived experience of interviews with
psychoanalysts. 337
336 This is reference to his The Psychoanalytic Mystic (Eigen 1998).
337 Weiner, Cooper and Barbre’s edited text Psychotherapy and Religion. Many Paths, One Journey (Weiner,
Cooper, and Barbre 2005) brings together ten contributors who draw on self-psychology and relate this to
Tibetan and Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism, Jewish mysticism and Native American religious and
spiritual beliefs and practices. Authors begin with their autobiographical journey, linking this to their
theoretical understanding, and with illustrations from their clinical practice. This gives greater insight into
how religious, spiritual and psychoanalytic engagement takes place that was to be a feature of the interviews
that follow in the next chapters.
166