Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

tolerate periods of “not-knowing”, at both subjective and theoretical levels, is positively
valued in some contemporary forms of psychoanalysis’ (Elliott and Spezzano 1996: 75).
This epistemology radically opens the psychoanalytic process to the ontological dimension
and to including religious and spiritual dimensions (Spezzano 1996).
The shape of my reflexive ontology and epistemology focuses on generation of meaning
related to ‘being’, through critical reflection and through conversation and dialogue, which
offers potential for revealing or seeing aspects of the sacred. Qualitative research and
contemporary psychoanalysis focus not just on what we know and how we know, but what
we do with what we know, including critically reflexive approaches to truth and values
(Wallwork 2005). Religion and spirituality embrace ultimate concerns, values, moral and
ethical stances, which connect us to that which is Thou and other/Other. Therefore an
emerging stance in qualitative research and psychoanalysis is the re-emergence of a sacred
paradigm as an essential part of humanness, where the psyche/spirit/soul connects with the
self and beyond the self (Sheldrake 2005). This in turn requires further clarification and
definition outlined in chapter two.
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