Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Before Lynch’s working definition is fully adopted it needs to add the experiential
dimension offered by Otto that finds expression through relationship. 74 The sacred always
implies a connection, a way of being, such as relational being that forms the heart of healthy
psychoanalytic engagement. It also requires an aesthetic dimension, so that sacred is not
just a way of being, it is also a way of seeing. It becomes an aesthetic vision and seeing of
the world, past and present, inside and outside as one becomes set apart in the aesthetic
experience (Elkins 2004; Orsi 2004). At times such a way of being and seeing will not be
reducible to words or images: thus, it will retain something of the numinous quality offered
by Otto. The term sacred is able to convey dimensions of religion and spirituality, and
offers opportunities for further discovery that can be found in psychoanalysis. 75
74 Jones links Otto’s work to that of Winnicott, Loewald and Bollas (Jones 2002b).
75 Given Freud’s views on religion, it is interesting to see how he uses the term ‘sacred’ in his writings.
Firstly, Freud uses it as a response to works of art. On viewing the Maddona and child by Raphael, he detects
a ‘sacred humility’ resorting to religious language to capture the power of this aesthetic encounter. Freud goes
on ‘but the picture that really captivated me was the ‘Maundy Money’ by Titian … this head of Christ, my
darling, is the only one that enables even people like ourselves to imagine that such a person did exist. Indeed,
it seemed that I was compelled to believe in the eminence of this man because the figure is so convincingly
presented. And nothing divine about it, just a noble human countenance, far from beautiful, yet full of
seriousness, intensity, profound thought, and deep inner passion … I would love to have gone away with it’
(Freud 1960: 82). On a later visit to Rome, Freud was also moved by Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love. ‘The
title doesn't make any sense; what the painting actually means is not known; that it is very beautiful is quite
enough’ (Freud 1960: 259). Secondly, Freud used sacred in a general sense. In stating he ‘regarded nothing as
sacred’ he meant nothing is beyond analysis or interpretation or the tendency to make someone or something
special through using the term sacred (Freud 1900: 206). Thirdly, Freud uses the term in a general discussion
on religious faith, cure, pilgrimage, and holy places. He later refers to the commandments given to Moses and
written on stone tablets as sacred objects, Jewish law as a sacred ordinance, and the evolution of the ideas of
the Church fathers as sacred history. Fourthly, Freud links sacred acts and religious rituals to the evolution of
obsessional actions and taboos, with by far the greatest number of references to the sacred is found in his
Totem and Taboo, though several are also found in The Future of an Illusion. Freud argues that guilt forms the
‘sacred cement’ that holds society together. Later he sees neurotic disturbance in the sacred beliefs, stories,
narratives, symbols or figures of a child patient that he links to a repressed sexuality. Fifthly, Freud further
links the sacred to the sexual. He describes the love and intimacy between lovers in terms of ‘a sense of awe’
or ‘some sacred act’ (Freud 1907: 88), yet also saw the root of impotence as a psychical split where love was
drawn to the sacred and the profane. Finally, in advocating ideas about the Oedipal complex, Freud
recognized that he has ‘hurt the most sacred feelings of humanity’ (Freud 1926: 213). Freud's use of the term
sacred does reveal an awareness of aesthetic and universal feelings that go beyond a general or technical use of
the word.
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