Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

… and God … tells you not to worship false gods and you can only have one God
and I’m it’ says the psychoanalyst (JB 589-592).
Psychoanalysis can be viewed as a form of ‘ancestor worship … that impedes creativity’
(JR 22-23). Stated more strongly it becomes ‘sectarian … feuding and idol worship’ (JR
124) and ‘a puritanical religion, not just a religion’ (JG 790).
Historically, psychoanalysis and religion acted in a similar manner, permitting or
prohibiting ideas and actions though adherence to orthodoxy. This power dimension is
challenged by the emergence of spirituality and postmodern forms of psychoanalysis.
Lemma, discussing religion reflects,
It’s about finding a sense of community and belonging, to something just slightly
bigger than oneself but … a version of being in the psychoanalytic world is that does
become your religion. I don’t mean … beliefs are absolute … I don’t engage with it
in that way but in terms of the structure that religion provides, a sense of belonging,
of having a sense of shared purpose with others, that I think I would probably get
from psychoanalysis’ (AL 466-474). 467
When asked about the psychoanalytic equivalent of faith, Lemma viewed ‘faith as being
hope and I would understand hope as being internal connection with a good object that gives
you a sense of perspective … so it frees you … as the activation of a benign internal figure’
(AL 739-748). AN viewed religion and psychoanalysis as philosophical systems, vital for
understanding humanity. ‘Freud and Marx … both … had a very deep respect for religion’
(AN 167-168) adding Marx,
describes it as the ultimate expression of man, where he expresses the highest in
himself … the soul of soulless conditions, it’s a real expression of a man. And
Freud certainly thought it one of the best ways of … studying … metapsychology …
467 ‘I see my relationship with psychoanalysis as being as I said earlier like a religion, … I don’t care if it’s true
or not, it makes sense to me, it has helped me, I see it helping my patients, I don’t have this investment … of
saying it is better than’ (AL 661-664).
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