You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint is a long, cumbersome, yet fascinating book. In its ponderous way, it is a labor of love, a soul-searching meditation on the meanings of an extraordinary life. It is also, as Meissner recognizes in his Preface, an exploration of the two dominant influences in the author's life, Jesuit training and a psychoanalytic vocation. Meissner is erudite, thorough to the point of obsessiveness, deeply respectful of his subject, cautious in his uses of interpretation, yet determined to develop a psychoanalytic portrait in the face of serious questions about the limitations of this formidable enterprise. While reading this book, I was frequently tempted to treat it as a manuscript in desperate need of editing. It wants shaping of its material, condensation and more elegant grouping of its various dimensions to eliminate a great deal of repetitiveness, and a more graceful style to help it better resemble one of its models, Erikson's (1958) Young Man Luther. Meissner lacks Erikson's humanistic fluency. The language of ego psychology often clashes with the poetry of Ignatius's visions. The book flows unevenly and often uneasily from historical narrative to clinical diagnosis and speculation, from analysis of specifics to the meditation on the larger significance of its central themes.
Yet, despite these limitations, Ignatius of Loyola is filled with insight and important questions. It can be read as three intermixed books in one. It is a historical narrative, a biography embedded in the culture of Early Modern Europe. It is also a psychobiography, developing a detailed ego-psychological portrait of Ignatius's personality. Finally, it is a questioning of the relations between psychoanalysis and religion. W. W. Meissner, S.J., M.D., Jesuit