Psychoanalysis, Religion and Salvation - Essay Example

Psychoanalysis, Religion and Salvation Introduction Psychoanalysis is a large body of literature, created by many sharing common assumptionsabout personality dynamics. Today, it is known as a personality theory, as a theory and practice of psychotherapy, and then as a psychology of culture. Psychoanalysis still exists and refuses to die. In spite of the Freud bashers, the complete disregard of contemporary psychoanalytic theory in undergraduate textbooks, the pressure of managed care and graduate schools' focus on empirically validated treatment models, psychoanalysis appears to be entering an exciting new phase: new research in cognitive psychology, infant studies, and trauma support long-held psychoanalytic concepts (e.g., the unconscious, defenses, dissociation, the importance of early childhood experiences, etc.). Within its own circles, new varieties of psychoanalytic theory (e.g., Intersubjectivity theory, Relational psychoanalysis) offer new opportunities to interface with contemporary philosophy, sociology, and literature and gender studies. And as the discipline of psychology continues to open its doors to a renewed rapprochement with religion and spirituality, psychoanalysis is following suit. This is perhaps the most surprising advancement of all. There have always been prominent psychoanalytic thinkers who have grappled with religion in positive ways but the typical clinical psychoanalyst has been prone to pathologise religion as either a punitive superego or as a defense against drive derivatives a la Freud. Yet the publication of several new books (Schermer, 2003; Sorenson, 2004) suggests that psychoanalysts are starting to believe that religion may actually have something to offer psychoanalysis. Theoretical Principles of Psychoanalysis Freud suggested two assumptions in characterising his approach. The first states that all psychic processes are strictly determined (no accidents, chance events, or miracles), and the second states that the unconscious mental processes exist, and exert significant influences on behavior. These unconscious forces shape much of the individual's emotional and interpersonal experiences. The Unconscious Observable behaviors like momentary, fleeting, childish, irrational thoughts are possibly determined through the unconscious processes. The emphasis on the unconscious part of the personality can be summed up as follows: part of the personality is unconscious, and it is the more important part; the unconscious is the repository of significant early experience; in the adult, unconscious ideas are projected, creating severe distortions of reality, especially interpersonal reality. Motivation The psychoanalytic view of human motivation is often regarded as utterly pessimistic. Judging by their conscious and unconscious drives, humans may become nasty and brutish, aggressive, infantile, libido driven. Beyond this bleak picture of immorality and perversity, however, lies the capacity for sublimation, love and culture. Personality Development Freud's psychoanalysis on development focused on psychosexual development. That is the transformation, molding, and sometimes perversion, of biologically determined erotic drives in early childhood. The Oedipus complex is its focal point woven around the child's attachment to its parents as love objects or identification models between the ages of three and six. Early childhood experiences serve as historical precedents in every individual's life, and in the life of every human culture. The reconstruction of personality development is based on the infant's and child's way of thinking, which is impossible to recover. It is based on behavioral observations and sometimes inferred, like unconscious processes. The central issue defining psychoanalysis is the never-ending impact of childhood. The infants' irrational wish fulfillment is supposed to be left behind by the adult, but childhood is always alive behind the faade of adulthood. The legacy of childhood is far from marginal and is co-existent with the adult level of thinking and functioning. Structure and Function The psychoanalytic view of personality structure can be characterised as a transplantation of the conflict idea into presumed struggling entities. It is an internal war of all against all, as the id relentlessly fights the superego, and the ego has to cope with both. It is this permanent structural conflict which leads to neurosis, as the ego is sometimes incapable of satisfying the warring sides without paying a heavy toll in adaptation. Psychoanalysis and Religion Development and the Study of Religion Theoretical changes over time should have found their reflections and repercussions in the approaches to religion. Psychoanalysis has had more to say about religious actions than any of the various traditions in academic psychology. It is the one psychological approach to the understanding of religion which has exercised a major effect on both religion as an institution, and on the academic study of religion. Psychoanalytic approaches to the question of culture and religion, and to the question of individual integration in society, have affected all social science disciplines. The psychoanalytic study of religious beliefs and institutions has drawn considerable attention from scholars in the fields of religion, history, sociology, and anthropology. Psychoanalysis is the only major psychological theory which offers an explanation of religion as part of a comprehensive theory of human behavior, in which religion is presented as an instance of general psychological forces in action (Dittes 1969). Psychoanalytic Views on Religion Freud had two remarkable works that focused on psychoanalysis and religion. These are the Totem and Taboo that pursued the cultural origins of religious belief and social practice in the earliest periods of human history, and The Future of an Illusion that mounted a four-part attack on religion. Freud offered an interpretation of religion as illusion, a critique of religious belief, and analysis of the psychological origins of religious belief, and a manifesto for a religionless utopia. Freud's interpretation of religion was based on his projection theory: He showed that religious beliefs are projections or fulfillments of unconscious wishes and fantasies. Correspondingly, his critique grew from this interpretation. Freud urged an abandonment of ideas based on fantasy in accord with the enlightenment tradition of skepticism and he outlined what he saw as the individual and cultural pathologies produced by religion. Freud's analysis of religion brought psychoanalytic attention to familial and Oedipal patterns underlying religious beliefs, while his manifesto outlined a utopian vision of a glorious future based on science rather than religion. According to Freud's interpretation, religion is a projection or fulfillment of three human wishes: the wish for a loving, protective, omnipotent, parental figure; the wish for immortality; and the wish for a just and moral universe. These three wishes are fulfilled quite directly by religious claims for the existence of a loving and omnipotent God, a blissful afterlife, and a system of divine reward and punishment (Freud 1961b, p. 30). Illusions are thoughts based on wishes. For the reason that these religious notions are direct fulfillments of human wishes, these ideas are illusions. They are not necessarily delusions, wishes for which there is clear negative evidence, but unless their truth can be demonstrated, illusions should be treated with suspicion, since they fail to provide solid foundations for morality or culture. Freud's critique of religion focused attention from the epistemological weakness of religious belief to the negative consequences of the acceptance of these religious illusions. The consolatory belief in a protective deity obstructs a mature and resigned acknowledgement of our status as insignificant beings in the universe. The belief in a heavenly afterlife inhibits an effort to improve the quality of life on earth, and it discourages an encounter with life as a unique, richly meaningful, and transitory moment. Furthermore, Freud analyse that God and morality are products of Oedipal structures: The belief in God is a projection of the helpless child's need for the father's protection, and the religious demand for morality is a projection of the father's demand for the son's renunciation of Oedipal fantasies. Through associating critique with analysis, Freud argue that the belief in divine reward and retribution contributes to an immature form of morality where fear of punishment remains the primary motivating factor and an internalised, independent sense of conscience is suppressed. The Future of an Illusion concluded with a deeply optimistic vision of a religionless world, a golden age characterised by primacy of the intellect and education to reality (Freud 1961b, pp. 53, 49). "You must admit," Freud proclaimed, "that here we are justified in having a hope for the future - that perhaps there is a treasure to be dug up capable of enriching civilization and that it is worth making the experiment of an irreligious education" (p. 49). He proposed a new foundation for morality through conscious, rational control over the instincts rather than fearful submission to Oedipal authority, and he outlined an illusionless, resigned engagement with the realities of human finitude. New generations of humans will "have to admit to themselves the full extent of their helplessness and their insignificance in the machinery of the universe; they can no longer be the center of creation, no longer the object of tender care on the part of a beneficent Providence" (p. 49). Freud's optimism and enthusiasm about this religionless future affected even his style. At the near end of his book, he became witty and playful, inverting his own terms to proclaim devotion to "Our God Logos" (1961b, p. 54). His words echo theological notions of Christ as the Logos, the Word of God, and acknowledge Freud's fantasy that psychoanalysis or science will replace religion as a cultural ideology or worldview. His hope for a better world may be "illusion" according to his definition, but he insisted that "science is no illusion" and its "future" is not in doubt (pp. 54-56). Hence, both his reference to "Our God Logos" and his title, The Future of an Illusion, are beautifully vague and confusing: The future of the religious illusion of divine providence and justice is thrown into question, while the future of the scientific illusion of increasing justice and reason on this earth is affirmed as a realisable dream or illusion. Freudian Revisions to Assessment of Religion The text In the Beginning Was Love: Psychoanalysis and Faith by Kristeva raises the same issues that Freud addressed in his work The Future of an Illusion. Even though she accepts Freud's interpretation of religion as wish, Kristeva rejects his enlightenment critique. She extends Freud's analysis of religion; taking a stand that religion embodies not only Oedipal but also pre-Oedipal fantasies. Lastly, she offers a manifesto of her own, articulating a utopian vision of a psychoanalytic - rather than a scientific - future. Kristeva referred directly to The Future of an Illusion near the outset of In the Beginning. In a chapter entitled "The Unshakable Illusion", she stated that Freud "saw religion as nothing less than an illusion, albeit a glorious one a rather unrealistic construct which nevertheless gives an accurate representation of the reality of its subject's desires" (Kristeva 1987a, p. 11). Taking up the Freudian project, she initiated an inquiry into those desires, exploring not the Oedipal fantasies Freud uncovered but a rather different set of desires. While Freud sought the fantasies underlying the belief in God, the belief in the afterlife, and the belief in salvation and judgment, Kristeva focused on the "Almighty Father" and the "Virgin Mother" in the Nicene Creed. She suggested that Almighty Father and virgin mother are transparent expressions of desires. We all fantasise a powerful father and a mother who belongs to us alone: "The Credo embodies basic fantasies that I encounter every day in the psychic lives of my patients. The almighty father Patients miss one, want one, or suffer from one. Consubstantiality with the father and symbolic identification with his name Patients aspire to nothing else. . . . A virgin mother We want our mothers to be virgins, so that we can love them better or allow ourselves to be loved by them without fear of a rival" (Kristeva 1987a, pp. 40-42). Therefore, even though her project is identical to Freud's, the specific content of her interpretation differs. Kristeva's revision of Freud led her to a stance toward religion and illusion that is far less critical than Freud's. For Freud, illusion provided a weak epistemological foundation for thought. On the other hand, Kristeva emphasizes the enlivening, creative effect of illusion: "Fantasy returns to our psychic life, but no longer as cause for complaint or source of dogma. Now it provides the energy for a kind of artifice, for the art of living" (1987a, p. 9). She argues that the factual goal of psychoanalysis is to make possible a self-reflexive engagement with the illusions produced by the unconscious, to enact a resurrection of the imagination: "The function of the psychoanalyst is to reawaken the imagination and to permit illusions to exist" (p. 18). Freud's epistemological critique of religious belief as illusion was accompanied by a critique of the negative effects of religious belief - the obstruction of intellectual development and the discouragement of efforts at enacting social change. Nevertheless, Kristeva's assessment differs considerably. In her view, religion provides valuable support for our vulnerable, fragmented subjectivities. Christianity "supplies images for even the fissures in our secret and fundamental logic" (Kristeva 1987a, p. 42), she argued, suggesting that religion can be effective, valuable, and even therapeutic. Even Freud's playful, ironic, and ambiguous reference to "Our God Logos" reappears in Kristeva's text. She interprets Freud's "famous remark" as an expression of the healing effects of the "logos" or the "word" in psychoanalytic discourse and as a paean both to relationality and to the biblical God: "This mobilization of two people's minds and bodies by the sole agency of the words that pass between them sheds light on Freud's famous remark in The Future of an Illusion that the foundation of the cure is "Our God Logos". It also recalls the words of the Gospels 'In the beginning was the Word' and 'God is love'" (Kristeva 1987a, p. 3). Kristeva title In the Beginning Was Love offers a similarly ambiguous reference to the biblical "in the beginning," and her emphasis on the foundational qualities of love - for psychoanalysis and faith - underlines her radical revisioning of Freud's assumptions. Thus, In the Beginning Was Love revises Freud The Future of an Illusion. Kristeva offers an interpretation of religion that affirms Freud's definition of religion as illusion, but she goes further than Freud in her embrace of illusion as beneficial. She reevaluates Freud's critique, showing that his own attitude toward fantasy and the unconscious was far more tolerant of illusion than he admitted in The Future of an Illusion - establishing the possibility of a more benign psychoanalytic reading of religion. In her analysis of religion, though she notes Oedipal fantasies involving fathers and sons, she emphasizes narcissistic fantasies involving relationships with the mother as well. And, like Freud, she ended her book with great optimism for the future - Freud's hope that science could create a better world is transformed in Kristeva's volume into a hope that psychoanalysis can create a better world. The Great Religion but also the Saddest Under psychoanalysis, every individual is psychologically prepared by universal experiences (i.e. helplessness, tendency for compensation through fantasy, and the experience of early relations with protective figures) to accept religious ideas which are obviously culturally transmitted. Psychological answer given by psychoanalysis to the question of the existence of world of spirits is that it exists within, in our own mental apparatus and our own mental abilities to fantasise and project. According to psychoanalytic theory, the world of spirits, the supernatural world unseen and somehow felt in religious experience, is a projection of the internal world. Freud's theory does not suggest that the individual creates his religion as he grows up, but that childhood experiences within the family prepare the individual for the cultural system known as religion. Psychoanalysis sees every religious act, every religious belief or ritual, as an appropriate unit of analysis. There is no need for special sampling, since every unit of behavior is equally representative. The same basic method can be used to analyse a whole mythical system, or one individual believer. The psychoanalytic paradigm enables us to analyse both process and content in religion. In assessing the impact of the psychoanalytic approach on the psychology of religion in general one must consider facts both inside and outside of the psychoanalytic movement. Psychoanalytic studies of religion might have become more esoteric, because they are usually published in psychoanalytic journals, and are not usually read by the uninitiated. Their sphere of influence is thus limited. Some of the writings may be viewed as "sectarian" in the sense that one needs fairly esoteric knowledge, or one has to accept psychoanalytic working assumptions, but the effort is well worth it. Some of the classical ideas suffer a degree of obscurity. More recent developments, and specifically the object relations school, are even more complicated. To truly appreciate a psychoanalytic article, the reader may need doctoral degree in social science and an extensive background in religion and psychoanalysis. One piece of evidence regarding importance of the psychoanalytic interpretation of religion is the level of reactions to it by religionists and religious institutions. Psychoanalysis has been perceived as a major intellectual challenge to Western religion in the twentieth century. For religionists, psychoanalysis has remained a problem. Despite all critiques and criticisms, there is no substitute and no theoretical alternative to psychoanalysis, as the most, and the only, comprehensive theoretical approach to the psychology of religion. This is not a matter of belief or acceptance. Psychoanalysis is not a religious system. Despite many deficiencies, it is a good theory of religion not only for cases of high ego-involvement, but for explaining cultural commitments and the universal readiness for supernaturalism. Conclusion Religion and psychoanalysis are two fields of human endeavour that have not often had much good to say about each other. However, there are certainly some striking similarities. Both make a similar claim to an ultimate truth - that it is the capacity to achieve and maintain a relationship with 'the good object' that results in emotional or spiritual maturity. For the psychoanalyst, this is a scientifically demonstrable truth; for the religious, it is based on intuitive understanding. Both offer ways for personal salvation. Both religion and psychoanalysis enable us as individuals to pursue the quest for truth through shedding light on who and how we currently are in deeper ways than we are immediately aware - and on what we have become without necessarily realising it. Both provide inter-personal settings specifically structured to permit the revelation of spiritual or emotional truths. References Dittes J. E. (1969). Psychology of religion. In G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (eds.) The Handbook of Social Psychology. Vol. 5. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Freud, S. (1927). The Future of an illusion. Penguin Freud Library. Volume 12. Freud, S (1913). Totem and taboo. Penguin Freud Library. Volume 13. Freud S. (1963). Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1915/1916). In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol 15. London: Hogarth Press. Kristeva, J. (1987). In the Beginning Was Love: Psychoanalysis and Faith. New York: Columbia University Press. Schermer, V. L. (2003). Spirit and psyche: A new paradigm for psychology, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy. London: Jessica Kinglsey Publishers. Sorenson, R. L. (2004). Minding spirituality. Hillsdale, NY: Analytic Press. Read More