The patient who believes and the analyst who does not (1).

Full Abstract

A patient's religious beliefs and practices challenge the clinical experience and self-knowledge of the analyst owing to a great complexity of factors, and often take the form of the analyst's resistances and countertransference reactions to spiritual and religious issues. The analyst's feelings about the patient's encounters with religion and other forms of healing experiences may result in impasses and communication breakdown for a variety of reasons. These reasons include the analyst's own unresolved issues around her role as a psychoanalyst-which incorporates in some way psychoanalysis's views of religious belief-and these old conflicts may be irritated by the religious themes expressed by the patient. Vignettes from the treatments of two patients provide examples of the analyst's countertransference conflicts, particularly envy in the case of a therapist who is an atheist.

Author information

Author/s: Lijtmaer, Ruth M (RM);

Affiliation: The Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of New Jersey, Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey, USA. ruth.lijtmaer(-atsign-)verizon.net

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Case Reports; Journal Article

Journal: The journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry (J Am Acad Psychoanal Dyn Psychiatry), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-; vol 37 (issue 1) : pp 99-110

Dates: Created 2009/04/14; Completed 2009/06/19;

PMID: 19364262, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 6/19/2009, IMS Date: 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article
(including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.

See 100+ related articles.

See a large map of 100+ related articles.