Introduction

In psychoanalysis, S. Freud never appeared to consider the prenatal and perinatal process as affecting personality development and was clearly influential of the neurological opinion of his day. Freud’s lifelong interest in religion, shown through his writings, made a huge contribution to our understanding of religion in relation to the father, though recently, the mother’s input in the religious development of the child has been more comprehensively recognised. Psychological perspectives in religious development include many competing theories, the most influential articulated in psychoanalytic theory, learning theory, humanistic theory, cognitive theory and moral developmental theory. Kleinian thinking and the emphasis on phantasy is helpful in considering how innate and early development, such as life in the womb, develops. The affective dimension of religious experience will be explored – an unexamined area of psychoanalytic practice.