Psychoanalysis and Religion

‘Was Sigmund Freud’s animosity toward religion just a personal whim, like his fondness for cigars; or was it a commitment to the “scientific naturalism” that is, or should be, essential to psychoanalysis as a discipline? Tamas Pataki, a philosopher well-informed about psychoanalysis, offers a full-throated defense of the latter view, in the process delivering trenchant critiques of representatives of what he argues is a regrettable resurgence of religious thinking in some contemporary psychoanalytic circles. Many analytic superstars, including Winnicott and Bion, take some hard hits. This unapologetic book will surely provoke both plaudits and pushback’.

Robert A. Paul, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emory University, Director of the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute and author of Our Two Track Minds: Rehabilitating Freud on Culture.

‘This book is a delight. Rarely have I enjoyed myself so much reading a work of non-fiction. Erudite with a dry wit, Pataki wears his extensive learning lightly and provides a real service in cutting through conceptual muddle in difficult and obscure texts with an admirable clarity of interpretation and exposition. While he is not shy to excoriate psychoanalysts where they show plain disregard for the facts established by other disciplines, he is equally always ready to acknowledge insight and highlight truth where he finds it. Highly recommended’.

Michael Lacewing, Senior Head of Department and Head of Psychology at Christ’s Hospital School, and formerly Honorary Reader in the Psychoanalysis Unit at University College London, Vice Principal at Heythrop College, University of London, and joint editor with R. Gipps of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis.

‘This book offers a rigorous and intellectually uncompromising examination of the growing spiritualization of psychoanalysis. With clarity and philosophical precision, Pataki defends explanatory discipline against metaphysical inflation. This is a timely and important intervention for scholars of religion, culture and psychoanalytic theory’.

Tair Caspi, PhD, Senior Clinical Psychologist in private practice, faculty member in the advanced program for psychoanalytic psychotherapy at Tel Aviv University, previously lectured in the doctoral program in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies at Bar-Ilan University and author of Metaphors in Psychoanalysis and co-editor of The Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Philosophy.