Introduction to Special Issue on Spirituality

Spirituality and psychoanalysis have long been an odd couple that could not be seen in public together. This was in no small measure because of the legacy of Freud's devout atheism, on one hand, and religion's fear that the psychoanalytic man would replace God. As time progressed, however, feelers seem to have extended from both sides towards one another in an effort to establish bridges. Perhaps today we can be justified in saying that spiritual man is but the other side of curious-about-the-self man, each seeking transcendence in his own way but realizing at last how close one is to the other.

There is an attempt in this issue to bring psychoanalysts and clergymen together to help establish those bridges from varying points of view. The Reverend Rodney Bomford, honorary Canon of Southwark and vicar at St. Giles' church, Camberwell (Church of England), who is also a mathematician and a member of the International Bi-Logic Society (in honor of Ignacio Matte Blanco, the distinguished psychoanalyst and mathematician), comments on the mathematics of the internal world and its intimate connection with man's conception of God. Joseph Bobrow, a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst and Buddhist, discusses the parallels between psychoanalysis and Buddhistic thought. Gerald Gargiulo, psychoanalyst and former Jesuit monk, discusses the interface between psychoanalysis and spirituality from intimate experiences from both disciplines. Mortimer Ostow, a psychoanalyst and authority on Jewish mysticism, presents notes on the psychodynamics of spirituality. Neville Symington, a psychoanalyst with a background in religion (Church of England), discusses the spirituality of natural religion. Rita Schulman, psychoanalyst, discusses aspects of the paradox that religion presents clinically with patients. James Grotstein, psychoanalyst, discusses the parallel tracks that religion and psychoanalysis have taken in the approach to the sacred.