OCST09 The Christian Spiritual Life in the Light of Psychoanalysis

Professor JEAN-BAPTISTE MARIE LECUIT 

 

Goals
Better understand the relationship between the spiritual life and the psychic life

Content
This course proposes a study of the links between the Christian spiritual life and the psyche as conceived by Freudian psychoanalysis. Between the two opposing tendencies to reduce the spiritual to the psychic, or to separate them, their articulation will be highlighted. This will allow a better understanding of realities such as the desire for God, the transformation required by progress in union with him, the mystical life and its possible “phenomena”, the psychic roots of sin, or spiritual guidance.

Method
Zoom live sessions, personal study

Criteria for evaluation
Written paper (4-6 pages)

Time distribution
12 hours in class, personal readings, preparation of the written paper

Essential bibliography

  • Domínguez Morano, Carlos, Belief after Freud. Religious Faith through the crucible of Psychoanalysis, New York, Routledge, 2018 (Creer después de Freud, Madrid, San Pablo, 1998).
  • Lecuit, Jean-Baptiste, L’anthropologie théologique à la lumière de la psychanalyse. La contribution majeure d’Antoine Vergote, Cogitatio Fidei, 259, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 2007.
  • Meissner, William W., Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience, New Haven-Londres, Yale University Press, 1984.
  • Vergote, Antoon, Psychoanalysis, Phenomenological Anthropology and Religion, Leuven, Leuven University Press – Amsterdam-Atlanta, Rodopi, 1998.
  • Vergote, Antoon, Guilt and desire. Religious Attitudes and Their Pathological Derivations, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1987.