Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

into his being, but the meeting with Bion gave him insights that emerged over the next
decade (Molino 1997).
After a first interview it struck me forcibly how involved I was in the interview process,
itself revealing an intersubjective dimension. I wanted new insights and knowledge to
emerge from the lived experience of the interviews. 533 My relational way of being meant I
ultimately selected qualitative interviews as a means of discovery and dialogue through
person-to-person encounter (Hollway and Jefferson 2000; Kvale 2007; Kvale and
Brinkmann 2009). This drew on my theological and pastoral trainings and 30 years as a
minister of religion, alongside my eclectic and later psychodynamic trainings, working as a
therapist for 25 years. Awareness of my own subjectivity had also been a crucial part of my
own personal therapy with various psychoanalytic psychotherapists and Jungian analysts.
Developing insights drawn from my ‘self’ enabled pastoral encounters to be a rich
exploration of shared discovery, often focusing on an I-Thou dimension and forming the
basis of the pastoral counselling and supervision I offered (Ross 2003, 2006; Ross and
Richards 2007). Without conscious realization I was experientially and theoretically
moving towards a theory of intersubjective presence. This encompassed what could be
known in a shared reality of two people encountering one another in the potential or
transitional space that is created (Ross 1999) and the unconscious dimensions of psyche and
spirit connecting other and Other. 534
533 A full transcript of this interview can be found in appendix two.
534 A belief that God is Other reflects my theological view, however the use of the term Other allows people to
engage with that which they perceive to be Other, Ultimate Presence and similar descriptors, without limiting
this to my monotheistic stance. The Otherness of God or God as Other as both presence and absence, finds
echoes in many Christian mystics and reflects my spiritual understanding and practice, often experienced as I
climb or scramble up mountains or explore desolate or barren places (Lane 1998).
329