Unconscious Phenomena Research Articles

Differences and similarities in instant countertransference towards patients with suicidal ideation and personality disorders

BackgroundPrevious findings showed that suicidal patients elicit mostly negative countertransference such as distress, hopelessness, feelings of inadequacy, and apprehension, and that a concurrent personality disorder is associated with more feelings of entrapment and mistreatment, among other adverse reactions. No studies were however conducted on instant countertransference (iCT), i.e., after a single encounter, for example in an emergency setting. We aimed to evaluate the impact of suicidal ideations, self-harm and presence of personality disorders on instant Countertransference (iCT). MethodsCaregivers rated their iCT with two validated and standardized questionnaires after a first emergency or outpatient consultation. Suicidal ideation, self-harm and personality disorders were tested as predictors for iCT in a multivariate and multilevel analysis. ResultsThirty caregivers rated their iCT towards 321 patients. Personality disorders and suicidal ideation, but neither recent nor past history of self-harm, predicted iCT. Common iCT included tension, lack of self-confidence and feeling of being tied. iCT specifically associated with suicidal ideation included distress, lack of hope, confusion, and sense that the patient's life had little worth. In contrast, iCT towards patients with personality disorders suggested tension in the therapeutic relationship (low affiliation with patient, anger, disappointment, devaluation). LimitationsCaregiver's characteristics were not considered in the analysis. Furthermore, while countertransference also includes unconscious phenomena, only conscious iCT was assessed. ConclusionsPatients with suicidal ideation and personality disorders elicit common but also specific negative iCT. Mental health institutions need to devote specific resources (such as clinical supervision and training) to help caregivers manage their iCT.

Semiotic realms: Codes, language, mind. A psychoanalytic perspective

Exploring continuity from organic codes and natural signals to cultural sign and symbol systems, this paper is undergirded conceptually by a semiotic tree depicting an ascending hierarchy of semiotic forms. Originating in underground roots from a medley of organic codes, the human use of codified meanings surfaces in the trunk, (in Latin Caudex or Codex), our simplest semiotic instrument. Ascending branches represent natural and man-made signals, and indicative and denotative signs, rising to more complex fully symbolic abstract forms in various sign systems. Each level corresponds to a different mental organization, determining the quality and nature of subjective experience and knowledge, epistemology and information being closely tied to semiotic and semantic factors.The psychoanalytic method focuses on unconscious phenomena descending interpretively below the limen of linguistic consciousness generating a semantic field that exposes multiple levels and kinds of meanings. This positions us optimally to observe different semiotic organizations, a multi-coded spectrum of human enacted and mediated meanings that is best systemized along developmental lines (Aragno, 1997/,2016). Freud’s decoding the grammar of dreams enables the linguistic interpretation of condensed and displaced pictographic representations of a deeply unconscious ‘Primary Process’ semantic bridging biological and psychological processes that are ongoing throughout life. A multilayered model of mind reframes theoretical understanding around epigenetic and morphological principles that are applicable to phylogenetic and ontogenetic development. From this revised meta-theoretical base, this paper illustrates how language absorbs and often serves deep unconscious functions, as well as, conversely, elevating abstract cognition and conscious articulation.A bio-semiotic multiple-code model of mind is based on progressive stages in the development of symbolization, a cerebral faculty unique to our species, distinguishing us from all other animals, without which we could neither speak nor conceive of “Mind” at all. Conscious ‘mind’ emerges through a signifying act, assigning a name to a ‘person’ or ‘thing’ that can be represented within, in its absence. This simple concept has far reaching cognitive/psychological consequences impacting on all aspects of experience and knowledge.

Unconscious Motives and Actions - Agency, Freedom and Responsibility.

According to many criteria, agency, intentionality, responsibility and freedom of decision, require conscious decisions. Freud already assumed that many of our decisions are influenced by dynamically unconscious motives or that we even perform unconscious actions based on completely unconscious considerations. Such actions might not be intentional, and perhaps not even actions in the narrow sense, we would not be responsible for them and freedom of decision would be missing. Recent psychological and neurophysiological research has added to this a number of phenomena (the “new unconscious”) in which behavior is completely unconscious or in which the decision or its execution is influenced by unconscious factors: priming, automatic behavior, habitualized behavior, actions based on plain unconscious deliberations, intrusion of information from the dorsal pathway, etc. However, since this makes up the largest part of the behavior which is generally regarded as action, intentionality, yet agency, responsibility and even compatibilist freedom of decision for the largest part of our behavior may be threatened. Such considerations have led to a lively debate, which, however, suffers from generalizations that lump all these unconscious phenomena together. In contrast, the aim of this article is to discuss individual unconscious influences on our behavior separately with respect to what extent they require changes in traditional conceptualizations. The first part (sections 2–4) of the article outlines the “traditions” and their elaborations: the intentional causalist concept of action, an associated empirical theory of action and standard concepts of responsibility and compatibilist freedom of decision, as well as the challenges for them. In the second part (sections 5–9), the aforementioned unconscious influences on our actions (except for automated and habitualized actions, which I discuss elsewhere) are examined: 1. unconscious priming, 2. dynamically unconscious motives, 3. dorsal pathway information influencing conscious decisions, 4. unconsciously altered execution of conscious intentions, and 5. unconscious deliberations and decisions. To what extent do these phenomena C1. require a change in the concept of action, C2. curtail intentionality or agency, C3. responsibility, and C4. freedom? The result is: The curtailments prove to be far less dramatic than they initially appear; they require more watchfulness but no conceptual change.

Manifestações inconscientes na relação líder-liderado: contribuições da teoria psicanalítica aos estudos organizacionais

Resumo Este estudo teve por objetivo compreender as manifestações inconscientes que transpassam a relação líder-liderado, nas organizações. Tais díades foram formadas por pares opositivos dependentes, quais sejam: transferência-contratransferência; projeção-introjeção; idealização-identificação - todos fenômenos construídos por Sigmund Freud como sendo da ordem do inconsciente. Na etapa teórica, partimos da historicidade da abordagem psicanalítica das organizações: a) a análise dos estudos psicanalíticos, desde o campo social ao campo organizacional (note-se que o próprio Freud diz ser o inconsciente também social); b) o centro da etapa teórica é constituído por uma leitura psicanalítica dos fenômenos da liderança; e c) a teorização sobre as três principais díades inconscientes que atuam na relação líder-liderado. Como método, utilizou-se a psicossociologia e a entrevista clínica de Lévy. A análise dos resultados inicialmente prevista nos objetivos precisou ser - por inúmeros motivos - alterada durante a elaboração do artigo, uma vez que, na relação da díade transferência-contratransferência, encontra-se uma complexidade maior do que a esperada e que não poderia ser desperdiçada nas interpretações. Uma das relações mais evidenciadas nas conclusões foi visualizada e possibilita compreender melhor a maneira pela qual a identificação é engendrada a partir da relação dual entre a projeção e a introjeção.

‘Freud's speculations in ethnology’: A reflection on anthropology's encounter with psychoanalysis

Translation of summaryIn the early 20th century, many analysts – Freud and Ernest Jones in particular – were confident that cultural anthropologists would demonstrate the universal nature of the Oedipus complex and other unconscious phenomena. Collaboration between the two disciplines, however, was undermined by a series of controversies surrounding the relationship between psychology and culture. This paper re‐examines the three episodes that framed anthropology's early encounter with psychoanalysis, emphasizing the important works and their critical reception. Freud's Totem and Taboo began the interdisciplinary dialogue, but it was Bronislaw Malinowski's embrace of psychoanalysis – a development anticipated through a close reading of his personal diaries – that marked a turning point in relations between the two disciplines. Malinowski argued that an avuncular (rather than an Oedipal) complex existed in the Trobriand Islands. Ernest Jones’ critical dismissal of this theory alienated Malinowski from psychoanalysis and ended ethnographers’ serious exploration of Freudian thought. A subsequent ethnographic movement, ‘culture and personality,’ was erroneously seen by many anthropologists as a product of Freudian theory. When ‘culture and personality’ was abandoned, anthropologists believed that psychoanalysis had been discredited as well – a narrative that still informs the historiography of the discipline and its rejection of psychoanalytical theory.

The screen function of unconscious fantasy

ABSTRACTAlthough being a fundamental concept in psychoanalysis, fantasy is an ambiguous term. It covers a vast field of conscious and unconscious phenomena, from daydreaming, the manifest narration of the patient’s world of imagination to unconscious fantasy and primal fantasy. Further, it introduces the delicate alternatives of imaginary versus real, subject versus object and internal versus external. Following Freud’s reflections on the ambiguity of fantasy, we arrive at an idea introduced by Freud himself, but elaborated years later by Lacan. Fantasy, accordingly, is seen as a screen which both reveals and conceals. Our aim is to demonstrate, theoretical as well as clinical, how unconscious fantasy serves as a window into not only repressed wishes and conflicts, but also the most primary scenes where the subject may not even have a specific place. Simultaneously, it is the site of protection and defence, including projection and denial, but also repetition of what we will call the identical. A clinical case will be presented to illustrate our theoretical ideas and their clinical implications.

Understanding the crisis: Five core issues in contemporary psychoanalysis

The psychoanalytic movement is experiencing a serious crisis: its scientific consensus, social standing, and impact on practice in mental health have all been steadily declining over the last decades. This unfortunate process has been variously explained in terms of prevailing hedonistic social values, the political influence of drug companies, and cuts in health-related expenditures. Following a suggestion by Garza Guerrero, we rather believe that the sources of the contemporary crisis in psychoanalysis are to be searched for within its own development and current social and cultural life. Specifically, we think psychoanalysis has failed to bring the revolutionary contribution of interpersonal and intersubjective paradigms to its fuller consequences. Here, we review five core dimensions in which such failure is particularly apparent: (1) an unwitting reliance on the medical model of mental illness; (2) an ontological, concrete understanding of unconscious processes; (3) a manifest failure to fully appreciate the role of extratransference relationships in the patient’s life; (4) a naive and idealized view of the psychoanalyst’s person and role; and (5) a marginal awareness of the impact of group-level unconscious phenomena on the social life of psychoanalytic institutions.

Possible relation between psychosis and the unconscious: a review of "The Unconscious," by Freud.

This review intends to present some elements of the Freudian thinking on psychosis, focusing on the relations between psychosis and the unconscious. The unconscious phenomena which episodically cross the neurotic individual are massively and continuously shown on psychosis. The psychotic individual appears to be constantly invaded by the other, like a strange person, which bursts inside of him/her and presents itself as a threat to the process of construction of this person’s identity. But what is the relation between the unconscious and psychosis in the Freudian text? It could be hypothesized that the psychotic individual may be invaded by a pulsating unconscious which demands a symbolic mediation. This reveals the importance of associating verbal construction to medication in cases of psychosis.

The Operationalization of the Unconscious

This paper presents a brief review of some formal approaches to the modeling of unconscious phenomena. These models allow for the operationalization of the concept of psychodynamic unconscious towards a possible inclusion in the fields of Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing. In particular this paper presents the conceptualization proposed by Ignacio Matte Blanco of the functioning of conscious and unconscious thinking. In his original view the two ways of thinking are conceived as two distinct logics, “symmetrical” and “asymmetrical” logics. In this study the fundamentals of his concepts are identified and re-elaborated in a more formal way, with the aim of developing an operational and dynamic functional structure that evolves over time and that includes the affective value of objects. On this basis a computational implementation of the conscious–unconscious interaction that employs Learning Classifier Systems (LCS) is put forward.

Os processos psíquicos no interior dos grupos de trabalho: para além de Bion e Pichon-Rivière

This article aims at exploring psychic processes within work groups. Starting from the pioneering research of the British psychoanalyst Bion and the Argentinean one Pichon-Rivière, the author shows that the anxieties which exists below the surface of the task realization described by these two authors can’t be generalized as they have been mainly within training and therapy groups. Therefore his proposal of other and complementary unconscious phenomena when the task is an operational one and when the work group is part of an organization. In a last chapter, the author describes the individual psychological skills necessary to be able to contribute effectively to a group work and the possible consequences in terms of training and intervention.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL MEASURING OF COMMUNICATIVE – INFORMATIVE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SENSE OF OBJECTIVE REALITY

The purpose of the article is to introduce the anthropological aspects of the communicative and information understanding of the meaning of life; to define the anthropological measurements of communicative and information understanding of the meaning of life connected with the introduction of information and informatization: to consider the models of the development of the information society which are introduced in the developed countries of the world for the solution of the anthropological problems; to analyse the problems of the new meaning of life connected with the development of the information society, and to find the ways of their optimization. Methodology. The new anthropological measurements of socialization of a person are revealed thanks to the analysis of the cognitive structures and epistemes. These measurements consist of mastering of codes and genres of the external discourse. Scientific novelty. The author offers the thesis that the social behaviour of people is significantly defined by the possible sign systems which are created by cultures of the concrete societies that represent a new approach in understanding of the communicative and information determinants of the semantic and vital key points of the person and society. The last ones are determined by the expansion of the communicative and information space which demands the formation of the new anthropological basis of life according to which a person enters socialization and forms a new way of life. Conclusions. Anthropological measurements of communicative and information understanding of the meaning of life are reduced to the fact, that they are affected by the network culture, the new types of communication caused by the information technologies, therefore there is a new type of the person – the virtual or network ones. The formation of the personality is defined by the procedure of interpretation which allows to establish within the discursive space the semantic meanings with a particular situation and thanks to that to reach joining external structures of sociocultural life with the inner world. Thus, the personality forms new conditions for the expansion of freedom, transfer and development of the sociocultural examples of behaviour and cognition, the unconscious phenomena which influence the process of formation of the personality and his/her identity. There is a formation of a person who meets the requirements of the network society and as a result – a global identity is being formed.

Enjeux psychiques de l’entretien clinique de recherche en contexte interculturel

The interview is an intersubjective meeting in which the stakes are complex. This frequently used method in social and human sciences research brings to the foreground various mental processes. Despite its clear distinction from the therapeutic interview, due to its purpose and the origin of the request, the research interview generates for both the participant and the researcher unconscious phenomena and contributes to the epistemological reflection inherent to the clinical approach. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the mental processes mobilized in the participants and in the researcher, who belong to the same culture of origin during the research interview, may be analyzed in four dimensions: intrapsychique, intersubjective, projective and group. So as to illustrate the various mental processes that are engaged, a research conducted in clinical intercultural psychology regarding the adaptive processes and the identity strategies of Korean mothers living in France or in Quebec is used. In order to offer maximum freedom of expression to the participants, the interviews were conducted in Korean, and then translated into French. The intrapsychic dimension is illustrated by an example from the interview with a 44-year-old Korean woman met in Paris. Following the Rogerian theory (1952, 1961), we understand that the participant comes to a coherent reorganization of her own conception throughout the interview, allowing her to speak and to think about her autobiography. From the interaction between two subjectivities, the thought and the discourse are involved in the co-construction of meaning. The understanding of the intersubjective dimension is supported by the theory of Winnicott (1971), developed for the transitional space. Like the mother-child relationship in the game device, the mental permeability available to the researcher is supposed to guarantee the development of the interviewee's confidence. The example of the interview conducted with another 39-year-old Korean woman living in Paris illustrates this intersubjective dimension. The analysis of the relationship between the researcher and his object of research will argue the projective dimension. In the quoted research, the researcher is facing a situation in which the participant's problems remind him of his own questionings. The work of analysis, with hindsight and in the after fact, on the position of the researcher and his subjective implication, is necessary to avoid the possible risk of subjectivation. The group dimension has several levels: institutional, national, international or even worldwide. Thus, the intercultural aspect is particularly highlighted in an attempt to present the complexity of the process. The idea of the interculturality awareness at several levels was highlighted in particular by taking the institutional transference/counter-transference movement into consideration. The transfer mezo level revealed itself as one of the analyzers of the group dimension, such as the motivation for accepting the participation in our investigation. In other words, it requires understanding both the relationship conducted by each individual with the institution, and that conducted by two subjects met within the institution. In the current world marked by globalization, "the geohistory of the clinical encounter" (Derivois, 2010) becomes an interesting tool to understand the complexity of the encounter issues arising from the clinical consultation.

Inside the lion's den: the risks to experts entering into child protection court proceedings

This article explores how social defences can be applied to the child protection legal process, and how and why this legal process can be disturbed by uncontained anxiety resulting in professional conflict. Such organisational conflict results in a preoccupation with adult conflicts that uncannily mirror domestic violence dynamics between warring parents, and as a consequence, neglect or even a re-traumatising of the child within the child protection legal proceedings. There is an exploration of the psycho-social dynamics that can lead to both expert and expert evidence becoming contaminated in the organisational culture in operation during such proceedings and how experts risk being exploited in the ensuing battle between professionals that takes the whole process away from the primary task, which is the welfare of the child. This article concludes that institutions and discourses organise subjects including experts and that there is more in operation than unconscious phenomena. As such, there is a need for experts to hold firmly in mind the organisational and institutional contexts in which they are working. The institutions are extremely powerful and require personal management in order for experts to recognise how they and their input risk being reconstructed anew during the process. Throughout this article the identities of the family and professionals have been carefully disguised and ethics approval was granted from a recognised ethics committee.

Fechner as a pioneering theorist of unconscious cognition

Fechner remains virtually unknown for his psychological research on the unconscious. However, he was one of the most prominent theorists of unconscious cognition of the 19th century, in the context of the rise of scientific investigations on the unconscious in German psychology. In line with the models previously developed by Leibniz and Herbart, Fechner proposes an explanative system of unconscious phenomena based on a modular conception of the mind and on the idea of a functional dissociation between representational and attentional activity. For Fechner, the unconscious is a state of consciousness resulting from the isolation of representational activity from the rest of psychical life. Unconscious mental phenomena are unattended mental states that behave autonomously while remaining able to act on consciousness. This paper aims to revisit Fechner's contribution to the history of the unconscious, but also the theoretical significance of the Fechnerian unconscious vis-à-vis current research on the cognitive unconscious.

Negotiation’s Rationality Revisited: Taking into Account Emotions and Creativity

My aim in this paper is to propose a new definition of the rationality of actors that takes their emotions into account. Usually, and more often implicitly than explicitly, negotiation theories are underpinned by Simon’s definition of rationality. In Simon’s bounded rationality, actors are not entirely rational because they are constrained by their environment, i.e. have too little time and money to choose the best solution. But Simon does not mention the unconscious phenomena (often expressed through emotions) that might also constrain the choice of a solution in a problematic situation.I propose a definition of rationality that recognizes unconscious phenomena, particularly the fact that a person cannot totally master and control all his/her emotions. It is nonetheless possible to reduce anger and hatred using this definition of rationality, through the containing action of the negotiation rules and a facilitator. One of the main advantages of this proposed definition is that it makes room for creativity, which is necessary in complex negotiations.I discuss the concept of bounded emotionality proposed by feminist researchers in organizational studies. Bounded emotionality recognizes the importance of emotions in decision processes and human interactions in general - but it requires individual control of inappropriate emotions. Moreover, bounded emotionality does not seem to leave room for paradoxes and ambivalence, whose recognition is often a source of creativity.This concept of consciously and unconsciously bounded rationality is illustrated through two summarized case studies.

Psychodynamic Experience Enhances Recognition of Hidden Childhood Trauma

BackgroundExperimental psychology has only recently provided supporting evidence for Freud's and Janet's description of unconscious phenomena. Here, we aimed to assess whether specific abilities, such as personal psychodynamic experience, enhance the ability to recognize unconscious phenomena in peers – in other words, to better detect implicit knowledge related to individual self-experience.Methodology and Principal FindingsFirst, we collected 14 videos from seven healthy adults who had experienced a sibling's cancer during childhood and seven matched controls. Subjects and controls were asked to give a 5-minute spontaneous free-associating speech following specific instructions created in order to activate a buffer zone between fantasy and reality. Then, 18 raters (three psychoanalysts, six medical students, three oncologists, three cognitive behavioral therapists and three individuals with the same experience of trauma) were randomly shown the videos and asked to blindly classify them according to whether the speaker had a sibling with cancer using a Likert scale. Using a permutation test, we found a significant association between group and recognition score (ANOVA: p = .0006). Psychoanalysts were able to recognize, above chance levels, healthy adults who had experienced sibling cancer during childhood without explicit knowledge of this history (Power = 88%; p = .002). In contrast, medical students, oncologists, cognitive behavioral therapists and individuals who had the same history of a sibling's cancer were unable to do so.ConclusionThis experiment supports the view that implicit recognition of a subject's history depends on the rater's specific abilities. In the case of subjects who did have a sibling with cancer during childhood, psychoanalysts appear better able to recognize this particular history.

The dynamics of climate change: a case study in organisational learning

PurposeBased in the discipline of applied consultancy‐research, this paper seeks to present a synthesis‐review of the social dynamics underlying the stalled negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its aim is to enhance understanding of the processes involved, to offer a working agenda to the organizational learning community, and to act as a dynamic and interpretive intervention in the negotiation process.Design/methodology/approachThe methodological approach draws on a wide range of tools from the consultancy‐research domain including force‐field analysis of complex social behaviour, informal interviews, direct participation, existential reflection and process analysis, delineation of power dynamics, literature survey and psychoanalytic exploration of the irrational and unconscious factors involved.FindingsSeveral findings emerged from the consultancy research. The force‐field analysis revealed the intensity of polarisation experienced at every point of the negotiation. Economic vested interests and political dynamics blocked all possibility of effective decision making and drove irrational attacks on the validity of climate science as a way of manipulating public opinion. The influence of unconscious factors was paramount, rooted in the re‐stimulation of collective pre‐traumatic‐stress disorder, and mediated via a set of social defences against anxiety.Research limitations/implicationsSignificant limitations in the methodology concern the level of subjectivity involved. The development of working hypotheses was exposed to constant review to check for researcher‐specific projection and selectivity of significant data.Practical implicationsThe practical implications of the paper for the development and application of organizational learning are spelled out in the final section. Particular attention is drawn to the need to take account of irrational and unconscious phenomena driving social psychodynamics.Originality/valueThe paper represents profoundly original work, emanating from the author's wide‐ranging involvement in the content and process of the international climate‐change negotiations.

MATTE BLANCO AND THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL REALM OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

abstractThe author offers an introduction to the work and thinking of the Chilean psychoanalyst, Ignacio Matte Blanco (1908–1995), which can be understood as the exploration of the logical properties inherent in Freud's five characteristics of the unconscious (Freud, 1915). One consequence of these properties is that unconscious phenomena behave as if they occupy dimensions that are greater than those of conscious phenomena. These are the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. The unconscious has to be ‘unfolded’ or ‘translated’ out of this higher number of dimensions into those available for conscious representation and thought. This characteristic, together with the fact that the individual is lost in the unconscious, makes the experience terrifying and bewildering. In addition, Matte Blanco shows that the logical properties of the unconscious and those of emotion are indistinguishable, suggesting an equation between the two. Material from a patient's analysis is offered to illustrate this phenomenology and the clinical application of Matte Blanco's thinking.

Time, Space, Attention, and the Awakening of a Fundamentally New Experience: Addressing Unconscious Processes in Transactional Analysis

This article explores the author's struggle to expand his transactional analysis-based psychotherapeutic approach to include unconscious processes. In his earlier work, a primary focus on content (scripts, games, and injunctions) colluded with his clients' resistance in such a way that unconscious phenomena were avoided. Presented autobiographically, the author describes ways he began to understand and experience unconscious processes as therapist, client, and analysand.

Philosophical Issues in Psychology and Religion: An Introduction

The relationship between psychology and religion has been an issue of lively discussion over the past century. From the work of psychological pioneers like William James down to the present, this relationship has been conceptualized in different ways, and many debates have taken place about the superiority of one approach over another. The articles in this issue are intended as a contribution toward understanding the philosophical difficulties behind the attempts to relate religion with the modern field of psychology. They also suggest the possibility of a dialogical, hermeneutic approach to the task of integration. Scholars have taken a number of stances with regard to the relationship between the sciences--including psychology--and religion. In the separation approach, religion and science are seen as separate endeavors with their own domains of knowledge and practice. This view was common in the early modern period and can be seen in recent writers such as Steven J. Gould, who declares that science and religion have their own non-overlapping magisteria or subject areas (Gould, 1999). Opposed to this is the common view that sciences like psychology have common concerns with religion and thus can't be completely separated. Attempts that assume non-separation and seek to formulate a relationship between psychology and religion are the heart of the integration enterprise. Attempts at integration have taken different forms over the years. In assimilation approaches, ideas or practices from one area are imported into the other area and fit within a pre-existing framework. In the extreme case of assimilation, science and religion seek to totally explain the other based on an alternate worldview and set of practices. Examples of this latter approach would include Pascal Boyer's book Religion Explained (2001), which uses a reductive cognitive and evolutionary naturalism to demystify religion, or the work of D. T. Suzuki, who used Zen Buddhist thought to explain unconscious phenomena of interest to psychodynamic theorists (e.g. Suzuki, 1960). Some of these assimilative approaches lead to coherence models that see underlying agreement between psychology and religion. Others see a picture of conflict as popularized by some influential late 19th century and early 20th century writers (e.g., White, 1901); those holding a conflict thesis often believe implicitly or explicitly that psychological and scientific thinking will eventually replace religious thought. This against model (Carter & Narramore, 1979) is no longer seen as valid from a historical perspective (e.g., Brooke, 1991), but remains popular with writers such as Paul Churchland (1995, 1996), who tends to see religious beliefs as folk beliefs that eventually should be replaced. A century of work on the relationship between psychology and religion has produced a rich literature, but problems remain. As Richard Gorsuch (2002) has astutely noted, many systems for integration have been proposed but have had little impact on the actual integration enterprise. A lack of consensus among scholars about what integration is and how it should be done remains, despite the best efforts of many to resolve the issue. Intellectual history tells us that when intractable problems like this arise, the lack of progress is often because there are unspoken assumptions, philosophical confusions or differences at work. In this situation we need clarification and refinement of the questions we are asking, rather than definitive answers about the relationship between psychology and religion. Philosophical analysis is ideally suited to this kind of task, but little has been applied to the problem of integration, especially in the psychological literature on the topic. Especially absent has been the sort of analysis that tries to reveal unexamined, consequential assumptions and tacit values in need of critical assessment. …