Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

post-critical thought. These complex developments formed the philosophical and
ontological backgrounds to the hermeneutic and intersubjective approaches in contemporary
psychoanalysis (Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood 1987; Stolorow, Atwood, and
Brandchaft 1994; Gomez 2005; Stolorow 2006). 44
Buber who combined ontological and existential dimensions in an epistemology of
encounter and revelation offered a parallel but unique development (Katz 1978). 45 A
contemporary of Freud, Buber retained his Hassidic Judaism and allied this to his emerging
philosophy that drew in part on Kierkegaard. Buber’s central focus was on relatedness as
the essential aspect of humanity, a relatedness expressed in nature, with other men, women,
and spiritual beings. 46 Relatedness takes the twin forms of I-It and I-Thou encounters,
where life is a balance of both, but it is the I-Thou that links us to the eternal through love.
Buber therefore offered a way of relating to the eternal that was not encumbered with ritual
or doctrine and kept the eternal dimension as an essential part of true humanity, finding
expression through love and mutuality. 47 Buber particularly influenced Eigen 48 and his
44 A parallel development can be discerned in the twentieth century theological discourse. Tillich’s theology
represented both the nature of being and the ground of Being as discourse and experience – philosophical and
phenomenological. Tillich never loses sight of the activity of being human – best represented in his
collections of sermons and dialogues with students (Tillich 1952, 1955, 1965) rather than his systematic
theology (Tillich 1951).
45 Katz offers a helpful overview of Buber but is critical of the adequacy of his account of revelation. A
detailed evaluation is beyond this thesis, however Buber offers a philosophical and existential analysis that
corresponds to the complexity and elusiveness of our understanding of the unconscious.
46 ‘In every sphere in its own way, through each process of becoming that is present to us we look out towards
the fringe of the eternal Thou; in each we are aware of a breath from the eternal Thou; in each Thou we address
the eternal Thou’(Buber 1987: 19).
47 ‘The description of God as a Person is indispensable for everyone who like myself means by ‘God’ not a
principle (although mystics like Eckhart sometimes identify him with ‘Being’) and like myself by ‘God’ not an
idea (although philosophers like Plato at times could hold that he was this): but who rather means by ‘God,’ as
I do, him who - whatever else he may be - enters into a direct relation with us men in creative, revealing and
redeeming acts, and thus makes it possible for us to enter into a direct relation with him. This ground and
meaning of our existence constitutes a mutuality, arising again and again, such as can subsist only between
persons’ (Buber 1987: 168).
48 Eigen is an influential psychoanalyst based in New York, whose many books return to the notion of
encounter. See appendix seven, ‘Meeting Mike Eigen – a Psychoanalytic Mystic’.
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