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There can be few psychotherapists unaware of the greater interest in religion and the spiritual life these days. Never before have so many books on the subject been published and actually read. The demand for retreats, pastoral counsellors and workshops on spirituality has grown steadily over the last decade. There seems to be a real hunger for more knowledge and understanding of these issues, a need which institutionalised religion, in the East or West, is meeting only to a limited extent. For many, it is a pilgrimage they continue mostly on their own.
Since so many people are asking questions about the meaning of life and their personal response, it is quite likely that a significant proportion of them will also seek some form of counselling or psychotherapy. So how do their spiritual concerns affect their choices of psychotherapists, the developments and endings of their therapies? And how do the psychotherapists respond to such patients? Is there a respect for spirituality on a par with sex and gender, race and culture, physical health and intellectual or artistic attainments?
It seems that the taboo on the religious and spiritual, set up by psychoanalysis, is beginning to shift. Papers on these issues are being published in the most reputable journals and for some time now Karnac has stocked books on the subject. But it is still an area filled with the greatest anxiety, prejudice and ignorance for many psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. The old arguments about illusions, psychosis, immaturity, deviancy, obsessional preoccupations, wish-fulfilments, splitting and childish projections do not hold the truth when set alongside a healthy, well-informed life of faith and practice. The psychoanalytic world in general has not caught up with the cutting-edge of modern spirituality in any of the world religions. Of course, there are exceptions among the psychoanalytically trained and it is thanks to them that this taboo is beginning to lift. Jungians have always respecte