Reading Notes on the Beginning Phase of the Treatment of a Religious Patient

Abstract

Mark Somerstein's (2006) presentation of his deliberations regarding the dual focus of clinical and religious dimensions of a self-limiting male Roman Catholic patient are critically assessed. Somerstein, of Jewish faith, struggles to find a parallel avenue that would enable both his own faith and the patient's faith to be brought into the treatment process without unduly overloading the clinical dialogue. The present writer examines the implications of driving a sharp dichotomy between “religious” and “clinical” dimensions, insisting that the tendency to divide the two results from listening to religious material and metaphors at face value. At the deepest level, referred to as the latent theology, this split disappears. The author offers recommendations about the conditions that are required in order for countertransference in such cases to be effectively linked to the inner dynamics of the patient.