Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

The term ‘zeitgeist’ was used to describe the emergence of religion in the wider cultural
context that frames psychoanalysis. Jones saw a ‘huge explosion’ (JJ 922) of literature and
courses available on world religions stemming from the 1960s, which gathered pace to
become a significant cultural force in the USA. Rubin locates change in the last 20 years
towards Buddhism, a subject that’s become ‘hotter and hotter’ (JR 340), challenging the
functional atheism inherent in psychoanalysis. By contrast the situation in the UK is still
entrenched within a functional atheistic paradigm. Black saw the social and cultural
ferment of the 1960s, including non-religious spirituality, forming the context of many
British psychoanalysts before their analytic training. The current emergence of spirituality
DB finds ‘very striking’ (DB 398) but sees little impact on the psychoanalytic world.
Mollon adds ‘Well I suppose I don’t see that much of it really’ (PM 535), and while noting
the emergence of individuals who advocate religious and spiritual practices in fellow
psychoanalysts, does not see this as constituting a zeitgeist.
The psychoanalysts interviewed in New York and California saw relational psychoanalysis
as a highly significant development that includes a spiritual dimension. This is seen in the
rapid development of ‘mindfulness’ that Bobrow sees as potentially the next advance for
psychoanalysis.
What’s exciting about contemporary psychoanalysis is that it’s connecting with
other traditions and other areas of thought and practice, from the arts to social theory
and social action, including cultural life to spirituality and religion, to the biological
elements of our nature (JBR 34-37).
Of course they’ve stripped it of all the religion and its just got that guts of the
method, a secular version of mindfulness and … Buddhism … get(s) lost in the mix
at times of that. But that’s not always the case (JBR 200-203).
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