Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

was a high level of honesty – a genuine person to person encounter – and when I asked JB
why she had been willing to be interviewed, the initial reply was ‘You were so bloody
persistent’ but then she went on to talk about a desire to help as she had a colleague who
struggled to find suitable analytic interviewees when in New York.
Unconscious encounter
The central tenet of psychoanalysis is that all encounters have unconscious dimensions 367
and layers of unconscious meaning communicated through dreams, symbols and metaphors
(Long and Leper 2008). 368 Several key metaphors emerged in this interview. One was
‘Republican’ (representing all that she is opposed to and evident in the then US
Government) that JB used metaphorically to represent all that she stands against all she
believes as vital for human well-being. JB views fundamentalism (Christian, Islamic,
political) as something she abhors and wants nothing to do with. Her fear of being
described as ‘spiritual’ was that it would align her with people/groups she is fundamentally
opposed to. JB’s approach is of an inclusive spirituality that accommodates Buddhism,
yoga and other religious/spiritual practices - rather than right-wing Christian
fundamentalism. Yet there is another more profound analytic metaphor that I initially
missed until discussion with my supervisor – that JB and I were caught up in some Oedipal
dynamic. We did not address issues of authority in this interview based on my intrinsic and
projected authority as a male minister of religion. JB requested I remove one reference, as
she was concerned it would be taken out of context and misunderstood. I agreed to do this
367
While some philosophers and theologians would dispute this statement, it forms part of my ontological
understanding and is the contribution of psychoanalysis to the history of thought.
368
A search using the word ‘metaphor’ in the title in PEP v.7 produced a list of 95 articles and reviews
predominantly from the 1970s onwards.
201