Psychoanalysis and Religion: Edited by Joseph H. Smith and Susan Handelman. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1990. Pp. 243 + index.

Psychoanalysis and Religion is Volume 11 of the series on Psychiatry and the Humanities published under the auspices of the Forum on Psychiatry and the Humanities of the Washington School of Psychiatry. Joseph H. Smith, M.D., the Editor, is a psychoanalyst and the Chairman of the Forum. Susan A. Handelman is Associate Professor of English and Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland.

Smith & Handelman disclose in the Introduction that 'The idea of addressing the topic of psychoanalysis and religion originally arose in discussions with Hans Loewald' who envisioned a publication that would 'be concerned with religious and moral dimensions of psychoanalysis'. Loewald locates religion and morality in a realm that transcends a concrete individual and his society. The religious realm concerns that aspect of human experience 'which is characterized by a sense of powers—impersonal or personal—underlying and transcending the limited scope of individual and societal life …' Such powers 'are experienced as superior or all-encompassing and as beyond the full grasp of human understanding'. Loewald wished to learn 'what religion and morality as domains of human experience may contribute to understanding psychoanalysis' (ix–x). He was not able to write a chapter for the book but his ideas guided the editors in selecting the contributors.

Faithful to Loewald's intention, all the contributors