Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

get going: I felt … when AR asks a very personal question, there was some kind of
movement towards each other; until then, it seemed more like AR and AN were circling
each other, warily, trying to establish context/meaning/ a sense of engagement.’
JG commented on the second interview, ‘a dance of tentative exploration, exploring
positions and boundaries, resulting in an attunement and sharing. I see JB’s statement about
religion and psychoanalysis as a metaphor for the dynamics of the interview – I think what
we are really struggling with here, is what it means the people to have less conventional
boundaries, not between disciplines, but between ways of thinking and being in the world
and of opening these boundaries up so we can see one way of being and thinking enhancing
another way of being and thinking, rather than being guarded and territorial … a modality of
being, that is much more postmodern recognizing different strands of thinking.’
ARF writes ‘I felt on reading the transcript, Alistair had experienced the interview as rich
and interesting, my own counter-transference to the interview was different. I had a strong
sense of frustration and irritation at times when reading the transcript. This was associated
with the tendency for AN to talk in what I felt were very intellectualized ways, and to draw
extensively on the writings of others. This, it felt to me, meant that I never really got a clear
sense of where AN was personally coming from. For example, I wanted to know where the
roots of his “passionate atheism” lay … some important connections appear later in the
interview when AN talks briefly about Freud's Jewish background, and being Jewish
himself, and of Freud being an outsider, but these connections never become explicit …
While I think I was probably being quite unrealistic in expecting this professional encounter
to provide something beyond a relatively academic discourse, I found it hard to get beyond
my counter-transference to this to think more Alistair's experience in the interview.’
‘When I reflected upon this feeling, it led me to wonder whether there might be a parallel
process in operation, and to consider whether Alistair may have experienced some
frustration in the interview … AN was very hard to pin down at a personal level. Alistair's
remark that “all the other contributors have written something (i.e. bio data) but you haven't
written anything” might be, in terms of counter-transference, an invitation for AN to
“contribute some bio data” during the interview. Perhaps Alistair had a sense, at the early
stage of the interview, the AN might need to be encouraged to contribute some “bio data”
here? … I was also interested by AN’s remark at the end of the interview that, “at the back
of my mind I avoided asking you what your attitude was to religion”. This could be a
reason for worry … However, overall, I felt that AN had found the interview extremely
interesting and useful. He comments that he wants a copy of the transcript because he has
“put one or two things together I hadn't done before”. I get a sense that perhaps he is
slightly surprised by this, having originally said he did the interview more or less out of a
sense of duty … the analysis of AN’s position on religion and psychoanalysis appeared very
accurate and rich.’
ME adds, ‘Alistair seemed to start with a number of positioning statements, and I was not
sure whether this set the scene for the interview or influenced it, or shaped it in some way?
A ‘purist’ approach may have started from a more neutral place of not locating himself as a
‘minister of religion’ BUT this was requested by JB and AR responded. This left me with a
sense of two dancers circling each other … was this going to be a collaborative or
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