Ten lectures on psychotherapy and spirituality

Description

This volume is a much-needed exploration of contemporary theories on psychotherapy and spirituality, moving away from the more traditional, non-spiritual aspects of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It consists of a dialogue between the opposing sides that mirrors the early communication regarding spirituality between Freud and Jung, and opens up doors for continuing collaboration between psychoanalysis as a pure science and the spiritual and religious dimensions within. This inspiring collection of papers grew from the lectures held in 2002 at the London Centre of Psychotherapy. In the time of increased interest in the more scientific schools of psychoanalysis, such as neuropsychoanalysis, there is also a surge of interest in spirituality within psychoanalysis, as demonstrated by the great interest in these lectures. "The foregoing developments, now widely discussed in the psychoanalytic literature, influenced my approach in organising these lectures. If within the bastions of "hard" science inner experience has become a legitimate topic of discussion; if even the major figures in the world of physics -- Einstein, Heisenberg, Pauli, and Bohm - could publicly acknowledge a spiritual perspective, perhaps the time was ripe to attempt a modest resumption of the aborted collaboration between Freud and Jung?" -- Nathan Field from the IntroductionContributors: Karen Armstrong, Bernardine Bishop, David M. Black, Ronald Britton, Patrick Casement, Adrian Dickinson, Nathan Field, Rosemary Gordon, Josephine Klein, Chris MacKenna, David Mayers, Tom McDonnell, Donald Meltzer, Steven Mendoza, Andrew Samuels, Jennifer Silverstone, Hester Solomon, Kenneth Wright