Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

A critical dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion needs to recognize that neither is
privileged and neither is pathological, and avoid adopting a position ‘that’s unquestioned
and … unimpeachable’ (JR 260-264). This dialogue is two-way as,
the analytic attitude is a depthful, compassionate exploration of the variety of
meanings and functions: compensatory; pathological; constructive of … the
patient… so to start out a priori and to think atheism is normative … and religion is
pathological, the first thing you are showing is you’re not really analytic … but also
its anti-analytic … to take … the meaning of someone’s spiritual quest at face value
… because we try to take nothing at face value (JR 488-499).
Rubin, Eigen and Jones suggest that every aspect of the psyche, including religion and
spirituality can be ‘all sorts of products of the psyche … religion, spirituality, artistic
creativity’ (JR 513-514) need to be approached from a position of ‘not knowing’ which
religious and analytic practitioners can find difficult to do. 461 Bobrow feels passionately
about Buddhist, Zen and psychoanalytic dialogue enriching life. 462 Mollon recalls ‘I could
talk freely about my spiritual interest and explorations and he would always respond with
interest … rather than discouragement, he wouldn’t try to analyze away what I was’ (PM
713-716).
461 Rubin adds we ‘have not fallen as deeply into the trap of assuming a priori that religion and spirituality and
mystical experience (are) pathological. We … look at the healthy and constructive aspects … I’m appreciative
of both traditions but … look honestly at what’s the impact on the life, the psyche and the behaviour of the
particular person I am working with’ (JR 539-546).
462 ‘Buddhists and the spiritual practitioners do not understand the unconscious. They don’t understand
unconscious emotional communication … Buddhists speak about transference and counter-transference and
projection. They don’t have a clue as to how it operates and how ubiquitous it is. So I want to educate those
people about unconscious emotional communication and how it happens, how powerful it is, … likewise, I
don’t think that the psychoanalysts I’ve known … [know] how things can be full and complete of themselves,
in a non-dualistic way. They don’t understand shunyata or emptiness … I think it takes religious experience
… to understand how similarity and difference, and all of those dualities fall away and are non-contradictory,
that you can have something incredibly universal that includes the particular and doesn’t rule out the
individual or the particular, and that is a religious experience … bringing those into dialogue’ (JBR 385-406).
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