ABSTRACT

A rare and unusual consideration of the spiritual dimensions of sanity from a psychoanalytic perspective, this transcription of a series of seven lectures delivered at the Tavistock Clinic capture the spontaneity and immediacy of the interplay between one of the world's most eminent psychoanalysts and an audience of his peers. The author of the established psychoanalytic classics Emotion and Spirit, Narcissism: A New Theory; and The Analytic Experience here brings his characteristic insight and innovation to the question of how the traditional Freudian view of religious belief as neurotic or illusory can be reconciled with a way of taking up psychoanalytic work without abandoning the spiritual dimension to life.

chapter |2 pages

Introductory remarks

chapter One|22 pages

An ontology for sanity

chapter Two|15 pages

Freedom and survival

chapter Three|20 pages

A pattern of madness

chapter Five|25 pages

God and the worm

chapter Six|13 pages

Trauma and attachment

chapter |4 pages

Closing remarks