Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

is to study religion because religion is writ large, the expression of the struggles that
are very human struggles’ (AN 171-177).
Within psychoanalysis certain figures always attracted a religious-like following. ‘Bion …
everything he said was invested with such powerful meaning by everyone else that you did
feel you were at a … religious gathering and if you said anything you would be heretical’
(AN 442-445) yet such a stance is endemic within psychoanalysis and of Freud himself and
subsequent apostles (Schwartz 1999). Grotstein locates himself in opposition to
institutional, religious psychoanalysis with its canons, revelations, founding figures and high
priests. Psychoanalysts have subsequently acted as if ‘their spirituality was the
unconscious’ (JG 334).
Theme 6: Spiritual/Spirituality 468
As noted earlier it is difficult to separate religion and spirituality, many analysts using the
terms interchangeably. A thematic narrative analysis of the terms ‘spiritual/spirituality’
revealed three clusters of meaning in addition to those already discussed in relation to
‘religion/religious’.
Religious decline and spiritual growth
Phillips believes ‘people don’t recover from 2,000 years of religion in ten minutes …
secularization either is impossible or is much much more difficult than anybody thought’
(AP 388-390) – a view supported by some contemporary social theorists (Woodhead and
468 159 references.
281