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Volume 61, Number 3
July-September 1997
“Beliefs”
The papers in this issue, all on the theme of belief, date from a conference held in Barcelona in 1996, yet they have an uncanny relevance to our current concerns, given the resurgence of religion in this country, as well as our struggle with religious fanaticism and religious intolerance. Many recent controversies—for example, the motto “In God We Trust” on our coins, the intense religious fervor of some of our elected leaders in spite of the constitutional difficulties they are creating, the splitting of self and other into antagonistic poles in the “for-us-or-against-us” stance with which some want to meet the Islamic jihad that now apparently targets us—can begin to be placed in perspective, to some degree, by a deeper understanding of belief and belief systems and the role they play in the human psyche.
Michèle Bertrand and Pierre Chauvel present an overview of the psychoanalytic concerns about belief and belief systems. The perspectives opened up by Freud and by Winnicott, though essential, leave unanswered many questions about a metapsychological approach to belief. Among these questions is the definition of belief, as well as the relationship between belief and illusion and what changes an illusion into a belief. Beliefs infiltrate psychic functioning and may come to dominate it entirely. A true belief is an organizing force for the believer, one that is very different from an opinion, reasonable certitude, or simple beliefs such as “I think that it's going to rain.” Science and rationalism