ABSTRACT
Ron Britton is one of a growing number of psychoanalysts who have turned to the concept of the self in order to explore certain types of clinical phenomena that cannot be described in other terms, including the structural terms of id, ego, and superego. With the elegance and depth that we have come to associate with his widely respected contributions over the years, Ron Britton has spoken on a psychoanalytic understanding of idolatry and fundamentalism. In his view, although it is accepted that some aspects of spiritual experience might be found in repression, hatred, idolatry or fundamentalism, when this occurs psychoanalysts might understand it as a perversion of what they might also wish to convey when they think of spirituality. In the struggle in the consulting room, each of people must grapple with these malign states hour in and hour out, and it is fundamental to our work that we seek to understand and face these.
