"A gentle and quiet whisper”: psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and religion

Authors

  • Dieter Sträuli

Abstract

At certain moments in psychotherapy, questions of religion and faith may acquire vital importance. On the basis of psychoanalytic theory and technique, I show that it cannot be the aim of the therapist either to refer his client to a rational position or to restitute a lost faith to him. The ethics ofthe symbolic demand that signifiers and symbolic truths be met on a level where they can develop their power of transformation. Faith can be linked to an unconscious phantasm; in that case it will change as the latter is worked through or dissolved by the therapy. Radical atheism and fundamentalist faith both make it impossible for holy texts (as well as all other texts or spoken words) to reach the subject and question his former perception ofthe world.

Keywords Psychotherapeutic technique; Psychoanalysis; Religion; Atheism; Fundamentalism; Cultism; Fantasy

Author Biography

Dieter Sträuli

Dr. Dieter Sträuli, geb. 1948, ist Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Psychologischen Institut der Universität Zürich und Präsident der Fachstelle für Sektenfragen infoSekta Zürich. Er hat eine psychoanalytische Ausbildung und gibt Kurse an psychoanalytischen Ausbildungsinstitutionen.

Korrespondenz: Allgemeine Psychologie (Kognition), Psychologisches Institut, Universität Zürich,

Binzmühlestrasse 14/Box 22,
8050 Zürich, Schweiz

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Published

2008-04-01

How to Cite

Sträuli, D. (2008). "A gentle and quiet whisper”: psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and religion. Psychotherapie-Wissenschaft, (2), 74–80. Retrieved from https://psychotherapie-wissenschaft.info/article/view/91

Issue

No. 2 (2008): Psychotherapie Forum 16/2 (veröffentlicht bei Springer Wien New York)

Section

Special Issue

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