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personhood. 185 While psychoanalysis cannot speak with authority about ‘ultimate issues’
(Brierley 1947) 186 it can speak with authority about the psyche coexisting as ‘respective
conceptual systems … (I)ntrepid souls might even be found who could embrace
psychoanalysis as a conceptual framework and as a therapeutic technique without finding
themselves compelled to surrender their religious orientations and convictions’ (Meissner
1984a: 4). Meissner entered into,
the difficult and often contentious dialogue … my interest was drawn to the study of
psychoanalytic aspects of religious experience. But what I found was disappointing
and disillusioning. I saw clearly the limitations, interpretative and historical
misapprehensions, and fallacious reasoning in Freud's view of religion … I gathered
enough courage to attempt a book about this problem (Meissner 1984a) in which I
tried to set the Freudian argument in perspective and suggest that the argument had
outrun its usefulness (Meissner 2001: 77f.).
Meissner brought a new level of analytic and theological rigour, expressed in
Psychoanalytic Aspects of Religious Experience (Meissner 1978a) where he explored being
created in the image of God and ‘the image of man as advanced by psychoanalysis’
(Meissner 1978a: 107). Meissner sets up a dialectic framework of: conscious v.
unconscious; freedom v. determinism; teleological v. causal; epigenetic v. reductionist;
moral v. instinctual; and supernatural v. natural. Adopting Ricoeur’s notion of
185 Meissner, a Roman Catholic priest trained within the Jesuit tradition, began his writings on theological,
religious and psychoanalytic engagement in the late 1950s. Meissner produced a highly regarded annotated
bibliography that brought together religion, psychoanalysis and psychology in 1961 (Beit-Hallahmi 1996).
Having qualified with a medical degree from Harvard in 1967, he began medical practice in 1968 while part of
the religious community in John La Farge House, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Meissner’s ideas had been
published from 1960 and he subsequently produced a rich and consistent stream of psychoanalytic books and
articles.
186 Marjorie Brierley was a British psychoanalyst and a member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society since
1930, having trained with Edward Glover. Brierley played a conciliatory role during the ‘controversial
discussions’ and throughout her analytic career produced a wide range of thoughtful reviews and critical
papers, some drawing on a good working knowledge of the Christian tradition. Many of her papers were
published together in Trends in Psychoanalysis (Brierley 1951).
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