Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

paradox, creativity and wisdom in the analytic relationship that enters into a unique dialogue
with religious and spiritual dimensions (Parsons 2000, 2006). 105
Christopher Bollas’ seminal The Shadow of the Object (Bollas 1987) took Winnicott’s ideas
further when he developed the ‘transformational object’ as a concept to account for the
psychic world and its development, providing important links with religious and spiritual
experience. Similarly, Black critiques Freud’s focus on religious origins at the expense of
religious experience, and advocated object relations as a more creative form of engagement
(Black 1993a). Further impetus was provided by the Freud Museum’s publishing of Is
psychoanalysis another religion? (Ward 1993) drawing together Black, Symington 106 ,
Coltart, Kristeva, and Stadlen. 107 Symington advocates psychoanalysis as spirituality in the
world, and the small number of psychoanalysts who struggled to reconcile their faith
tradition and psychoanalytic practice valued this inclusive focus. 108 Symington’s work
shaped subsequent British engagements with religion and spirituality and the positive
105 Parsons uses the metaphor of the dove, taken from the biblical account of Noah found in Genesis chapter 4,
to form the opening page of his first book published in 2000. He argues that psychoanalysts need to draw on
technique and personal being in order to offer the reparative and healing resources to those in need.
106 Symington’s chapter mentions a forthcoming book Religion, psychoanalysis and the modern world, though
the published title became a more inclusive Emotion and Spirit: Questioning the claims of psychoanalysis and
religion (Symington 1994).
107 This title arose out of questions schoolchildren asked when on educational visits and Ward was ‘surprised’
that so many wanted to contribute to issues he believed had been resolved by Freud long ago.
108 ‘A child psychotherapist … when he heard that my father had been a rabbi and I had been brought up in a
rabbinical household, he said, “Well, I suppose psychotherapy is that modern priesthood.” When I studied
psychoanalysis here, it didn't quite seem like that. It seemed much more that the tradition of Freud was rather
hostile to religion and the religious outlook; it was seen as something rather ill, neurotic and illusory, and, of
course, it involved a personal struggle for me. How could I take up this work and think about the spiritual
dimension? So, of course, this is what attracted me particularly to Neville's book Emotion and Spirit, in which
he tackles, in a very new, original way, what is a religious philosophy that does fit in with psychoanalysis’
(Introductory remarks in Symington 2001: 2).
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