Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

analytic theory, and clinical techniques that are at the core of the psychoanalytic enterprise,
the capacity to sustain dialogue in other areas, including the more controversial areas of
religion and spirituality, is severely limited and not just because of the implicit and explicit
atheism of Freud and Klein. This is most clearly seen in the little discussed place of
Judaism within British psychoanalysis, 115 and the fact that no British analyst has engaged in
a dialogue between Judaism and psychoanalysis. 116 Most engagement has happened on the
fringes of the psychoanalytic world 117 or within the academic community. 118
Parsons, Spillius, and Johns identify another distinctive aspect of British psychoanalysis,
where the focus is on becoming an analyst. After the training is completed, the task is to
enter into the ‘being’ of being an analyst, a process that takes between a decade and a
lifetime. How this occurs is either a self-reflective drawing on the past of an ontological
analytic identity as seen in Rayner or Symington, or adopting a new psychoanalytic identity
dominated by a new-found focus on accessing and utilizing their internal world. Here the
person’s past and external world appears to have little impact. The first approach has a
capacity to incorporate religious and spiritual dimensions much more so than the other, as
seen in Symington. What Parsons also identifies is the place within the BP-AS of an analyst
becoming influential through the sheer force of their personality. For example, the uneasy
115 Another ‘long shadow’ is the unanswered question of anti-Semitism, which surfaced in the events around
Masud Khan. A highly controversial and colourful figure in BP-AS and the international psychoanalytic
community, Khan’s long-standing unethical behaviour led to removal of training analyst status in 1977 and
finally expulsion from the BP-AS in 1988 for his anti-Semitic comments in When Spring Comes (Khan 1988).
Hopkins’ research for a biography on Khan details a belief that anti-Semitism was a part of the BP-AS that
was never addressed (Hopkins 2006).
116 Issroff details her Jewish background but offers no form of engagement (Issroff 1999), while Stein
describes his move away from Jewish religion to spirituality (Stein 1999). Parsons was most surprised by my
assertion in a recent discussion, but on reflection he could not think of any British analyst who had explored
this area.
117 Stadlen’s writing as the Freud Museum Fellow, though not a psychoanalyst, argues that recognising Freud’s
Judaism is essential for understanding psychoanalysis, but the two are not the same so it is important for
Judaism and psychoanalysis to retain their distinctiveness (Ward 1993).
118 As seen in the work of Stephen Frosh (Frosh 2006).
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