ABSTRACT

Judaism without the affirmation of some version of the traditional biblical view of God, Torah and covenant is but a socially constructed ethnic religion. Psychoanalysis is concerned with everything in human thought, behaviour and experience—nothing less. Religion is important in all societies, not excluding—however much one may object to religion—the esoteric forms that often pervade scientific societies. Psychoanalysis can and must attempt to delineate the role, mechanism, theoretical tools and assumptions through which an idea of God may be approached, and states of psychical reality that are appropriate to or equivalent to the apprehension of what is known as the truth of God, or true self, or true being or "real presence". The theory of cognitive dissonance allows for each of the world's religions to be used as the disconfirming other while affirming its own beliefs. Both belief and atheism can be repressed. Psychoanalysis sometimes leads to renunciation of faith with clear understanding.