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We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest book keeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp or the cheat.
The heart of humanity is our endless desire to make sense of our own being. Psychoanalysis was founded on alleviating the suffering that comes with being human. We all agree on that. Suffering drives people into our clinical offices and moves people to fall on their knees, as pictured on the cover of Salman Akhtar's new book, Silent Virtues. Akhtar reveals, “I have found promptings to renounce a well-chiseled selfhood alluring as well as frightening. I have flirted with desires to learn more about Buddhism and Sufism, to visit sacred places of the world, and to retreat into non-worldly solitude but found such inner callings a bit scary” (p. 102).
Courageously, Akhtar has been venturing into the underpinnings of spirituality and religion by addressing human attributes such as forgiveness (2002), goodness (2009a,b), gratitude (2013a), generosity (2013b), patience (2015a), dignity (2015b), and humility (2018); his inner emotional biddings crisscross into the field of religion and spirituality. This new book, Silent Virtues, continues to consider what Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) proclaimed, “Divinity is aimed at humanity.”
One of psychoanalysis's greatest paradoxes is that the field was founded on being open to the unknown, the unconscious. When it comes to the notions of religion and spirituality, however, historically these have tended to be viewed by analysts through the lens of psychopathology. An “opiate of the masses” attitude has historically prevailed in Freudian