Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

consequently love is of all terms the one most directly attributable to God as
essential to God’s being … we are not without some knowledge of love as human
beings, for no person can grow to maturity without it. Love is a confluence of two
seemingly paradoxical impulses: the hunger for the desired object and the desire to
do good for the beloved (Oden 1987: 118f.).
Love can be further understood as a capacity of authentic personhood that goes beyond the
self to influence family, friends, children and patients, consciously and unconsciously. It
was a quality that was also revealed in the interviews, consciously and unconsciously,
whose insights into my self and the self of the interviewees were at times, moving and
profound. I came away changed in some ways through meeting: my I, had met a Thou, in
shared encounter. This captures a dimension of authentic personhood that like Ogden and
Benjamin’s ‘thirdness’ has the capacity for something unique. Such encounter is shared, yet
can be understood or experienced in different ways, depending on each person’s orientation
to ontological, spiritual or religious dimensions that form ‘sacred psychoanalysis’.
348