Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Despite this inclusive vision a clinical approach prevailed within psychoanalysis ‘because in
the early years a single psychoanalytic “mastertext” (Schafer 1990) was still possible’
(Bateman and Holmes 1995: vii). For Blum this poses a difficulty, ‘As is true of any
revolutionary thinker, some of Freud’s propositions are no longer regarded as compelling or
correct’ (Blum 1999: 1033) and such an approach fails to take into account that
psychoanalysis has profoundly changed to a degree which ‘Freud would hardly recognize’
(Blum 1999: 1031). There are those who wish in an ideal world to return to Freud, who still
desire a mastertext and who do this by revisioning classic Freudian theory allied to clinical
practice (Perelberg 2005a; Chessick 2007). 15 Tuckett sees this as problematic, focusing on
the past rather than facing the future. 16
The loudest and dominant voice is of Freud the atheist 17 : unstinting in his criticism of the
Roman Catholic Church; profoundly and proudly atheistic allied to a Modernist scientific
paradigm; dismissive of any form of spirituality, tainted by connection or association with
Jung; consistent in his belief that any form of religious belief or experience could be
accounted for in evolutionary and cultural terms; certain that religion was evidence of
15
A growing trend in psychoanalytic writing is a re-focusing on Freud’s original clinical case material now
more easily accessible though the increased availability of the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological
Works of Sigmund Freud (SE) edited by Strachey and published in a paperback format from 2000. A Penguin
Freud Series has been available in paperback format since 1980, which excluded papers on technique and
much of Strachey’s additional material. These are now being re-translated and published under the editorship
of Adam Phillips. Solms is editing a long-awaited Revised Standard Edition due for publication in late 2011.
Freud’s original cases are being re-examined with an awareness of different interpretative strands and
revisions (Budd and Rusbridger 2005; Perelberg 2005a).
16
‘Our psychoanalytic thinking and work may enrich other disciplines and settings. In so far as we have
tended to close our borders or not to treat with merit the work of those that attempt to work across disciplines
or settings (indeed often seeking to settle questions raised using ostracism, diktat or rhetoric), I think our field
has reaped disastrous consequences, particularly in the intellectual world. In a highly pluralistic situation in
which we find ourselves we are not going to solve the questions we have about our discipline by fiat ... it is no
credit to us that over a hundred years since Freud founded the discipline we are still bickering about this in
largely ideological terms’ (Tuckett 2001: 430).
17
Loewenberg makes an interesting case that Freud was a pagan, understood in a religious sense (Loewenberg
1992).
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