Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Theme 9: Love 490
Sayers suggests that love, alongside religion, is being recovered by psychoanalysis (Sayers
2003) 491 and this was an important concept used by most of the interviewees. While there
was a large numerical occurrence of the word, a thematic narrative analysis understands a
word or idea within its context. This is especially important when love is used so widely to
mean many things. Six uses of the word ‘love’ were identified. Firstly, love is simply a
general expression, i.e. ‘I love to read …’ as a personal statement about a like or a desire.
What is significant is that the interviewee is choosing to tell me, as the interviewer,
indicating a willingness to enter into a degree of self-revelation. Secondly, love is an aspect
of being, so interviewees talked about making love, searching for love, or used love in the
context of relationship. AP said of his former analyst, the controversial Masud Khan 492 , ‘I
loved him and vice-versa actually’ (AP 165). Thirdly, love is used as an over-arching
concept, bearing meaning in philosophical rather than religious terms. JB finds parallels in
‘the history of love in the Western world … this idea of being partners in God rather than
being partners with God, being partners with another person in God’ (JB 239-243) and
connection to the third/Third as an aspect of psychoanalytic encounter. Fourthly, love is
clearly identified as a specifically Christian concept with reference to ‘God is love’ (three
references) and the love of God. Fifthly, love was used to refer to the legacy we pass on to
our children and our patients. As they evolve their own futures, it is out of the knowledge
of having been loved by their parent, grand-parent or analyst that enables greater potential to
490 There were 43 references to love made by nine of the eleven interviewees.
491 Love has been the subject of psychoanalytic reflection especially by focusing on its clinical aspects in the
work of Bergmann (Bergmann 1980, 1982, 1988, 1995) and Kernberg (Kernberg 1974, 1977, 1994, 1995).
See also Solomon on love and lust in the countertransference (Solomon 1997).
492 Khan can be better understood through a reading of his key text (Khan 1988) and recent biographies by
Willoughby and Hopkins, with Willoughby offering the best critical and contextual insights (Willoughby
2004; Hopkins 2006).
291