Friday, March 19, 2004
Analysts Reinterpret Role Of Religion, Spirituality
Although psychoanalysts once took a dim view of spirituality and religion, deeming them infantile and psychologically unhealthy, some analysts are now studying the topics and discussing them with patients.
Half a century ago, the subjects of spirituality and religion were anathema in the realm of psychoanalysis, Mortimer Ostow, M.D., a psychoanalyst from the Bronx, N.Y., said at the American Psychoanalytic Association meeting in New York City in January.
"It has been the practice of analysis to ignore religious associations," he said. This is not good, he asserted.
Spirituality is a "reaching out" to a natural or religious source, Ostow said; one feels in touch with a transcendent object. Spirituality is a regression to an early phase of childhood development. It is like an infant yearning for its mother.
Spirituality and religion are not the same, Ostow continued. Spirituality exists prior to religion in a person. The spiritual experience is affect; religion is cult, ritual, myth, morality. "Spirituality has nothing to do with morality," he said.
Prayer, at least Jewish prayer, is essentially a mantra—a talking to God, Ostow explained. It is a desire to speak out and to be heard.
Mystical experiences "are typically altered states of consciousness," Leon Wurmser, M.D., a Towson, Md., psychoanalyst reported. "Such trancelike states," he explained, "necessarily entail large-scale denial. . . . Although one hears and sees, the content of what is seen and heard is being treated so as if one had not heard or seen it. . . . It is thus a matter of making its emotional, affective meaning invalid. . . . "
Mystical experiences, however, are not the same as psychotic experiences, Ostow stressed. For instance, whereas the psychotic hallucination is enduring, the mystical vision is transient. And in most mystical experiences there is a revelation, whereas if psychotic hallucinations contain a revelation, which is rare, it will be a pseudo-revelation.
"Mysticism," Wurmser continued, "tries to find access to the mysteries of ‘being’ with the help of a world of images, feelings, thoughts, and wishes of inwardness. It may come as ecstatically exalted erotic love without physical sexuality, rather known from Christian and Muslim mysticism. . . . In contrast certainly to Christianity, Jewish mysticism (as Judaism in general) values sexuality in its physical form very highly. . . ."
Some analysts attending the psychoanalytic association meeting also broached the subject of whether analysts should address patients’ spiritual and religious needs.
Hamm reported that she has a number of patients who want to talk about spirituality or religion. "The way I handle it is, I ask questions," she explained. "I’m very curious about it." Another analyst reported that discussing religion with a patient helped the patient seek forgiveness.
Ostow said that he does not introduce the subjects of spirituality and religion into analytic sessions, but if patients bring them up, he discusses such subjects with them.
In fact, Ostow attested, discussing spirituality and religion with patients sometimes furthers the analytic process. For example, he once had a patient describe what appeared to be a spiritual experience. He confronted the patient about it, and then the patient started to change for the better—it was a turning point in his analysis.
Permalink
