ABSTRACT
The message that lies at the heart of mature religion is that constructive emotional action is what gives meaning to our lives. In constructive emotional action the freedom of the other is respected as well as the reality of my own self. It is love that respects the freedom and reality of the other. Therefore, although he does not know it, when a patient wants to be relieved of his mental suffering, he desires to put value where it had not existed before. Placing this value as the goal of emotional action is a spiritual act. It is not recognized as a spiritual act either by traditional religion or by psychoanalysis. This action, although extremely simple, lies at the heart of all close emotional relations, and traditional religions do not have knowledge of it. Psychoanalysis does have knowledge of those states of mind that generate destructive emotional action, but has been fearful to name the constructive desire.
