ABSTRACT
The discipline of anthropology, having opened the author's mind to new ways of thinking about the unknown in others, had led him to question what some might be prepared to accept on authority. One of the responsibilities of being a psychoanalyst is to offer patients a safe and neutral space within which they can bring, and explore, whatever is their concern of the moment. And this may at times include some discussion of a patient's religious belief. It is all too easy for psychoanalysts, like others, to think that they know best. In Christian devotion, Good Friday leads inevitably to the Christian Easter. And every terrible experience can be reduced, even limited in its significance, by the assurance of that Easter message. Some people are particularly struck by the power of the analytic process that can develop between a patient and the analyst, and the sense of unconscious wisdom that can sometimes seem to inform this.
