The Spiritual/Psychological Dilemma

Abstract

The issue is truth. What does life, reality itself, confirm again and again as reliable, confirmable, veridical? This, I believe, is the heart of the spiritual/ psychological dilemma. 'Psyche,' 'soul,' 'spirit' all have similar etymological and historical roots. Early on, they were synonymous. Then, history, the emergence of secularity and of science, split the meanings apart so that differences and enmities were exacerbated and functionally and linguistically differentiated. The scientific community opted for 'psyche' as containing its referential domain. The religious community found itself embracing 'spirit' as its special territory. Naturally, some scholars were alert to similarities, commonalties and mutual interests, but over the centuries the gap widened. As secular psychiatry focused intensely on pathology in the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, enmities and radically different worldviews developed. Depth psychologists and psychiatrists began to see the inimical influence of many religious institutions and dogmas on patients, notably exaggerated guilt, self-hatred, authoritarian hegemony and, not infrequently, the often unconscious stimulation of psychotic and neurotic fantasy. They also crystallized opposition to psychological myopia in religious leaders and were vocal about the regressive dependencies religion often induced. They openly opposed the infantilizing influences of religious teaching and practice. The religious community, convinced of its historic role as a caring and healing force in human life, often became defensive, critical of scientific psychiatry and humanism in general, and used every opportunity to expose the theological insufficiencies dominating secular world views. Ad hominem attacks on Freud and psychological claims were frequent and widespread. At the same time there developed a real ambivalence about truth claims. Evidence grew that the secular psychological community had much to teach about human behavior, including some of its insights into the part that religion might play in pathology. Some clergy began to submit themselves to personal analysis. Conversation and mutual