Customer Reviews

Psychoanalysis and Religion (The Terry Lectures Series)

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Another great book by a great mind. Although, this volume is not his masterpiece work, it is definitely worth reading. Fromm taps into the core issues of religion, and addresses the schizm that exists within the bureaucracy of organized religion. One side is pulling toward a patriarchal, authoritarian, fear and guilt orientation, while the other is geared toward self-realization, as well as the promotion of human ideals. He does not agree with Freud on many issues, and he warns about the limits of psychoanalysis as a tool in the search for man's higher spiritual self. Although psychoanalysis is not trendy any longer, it remains the core and the glue that holds the subjective field of psychology together.

Fromm rigidly adheres to his version of the humanist position here by claiming that the mystics of all faiths have been imbued with the glow of man's powers--powers of heart, mind, spirit--rather than God's, God being a symbol of those same powers, awaiting unfoldment.

From a theistic/mystical perspective, however, this is a side-effect, and if taken for the Source of the experience brings on a tremendous inflation of the ego. No mystic really thinks, as Fromm does, that man is the measure of all things. Fromm is best when he sticks to human psychology--THE SANE SOCIETY, ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM, THE ART OF LOVING are worth buying.

Read this a while ago and recently took it with me on a plane to read again. Such a smart book. Ironically though, this book points to some sort of spiritual truth rather than negate it. It's not that Fromm seeks to do this so much, but he lifts a lid off the "system" and it's falsity which paves the way to a higher mysterious truth that is buried in most "mass organizations governed by a religious bureaucracy" as he puts it. It's strange that this book does this. It's a very wise approach to the problem that most great religions have created. It's an honest in depth look at it all rather than the usual way some people respond to religion these days which is to disregard them with superficial reasons rather than to dig deep into the psychology behind it all. When going beyond that psychology, the discovery is there must be more, but we never get it right in our man made systems which are often developed from fear and the need to control rather than faith which is an embracing of mystery that we will never fully have all the answers for.

I had trouble rating this. The biggest failing is that Fromm really has only a layman's grasp of what religion is and consequently makes dumb statements like "secular religion". He confuses Weltanschauung with religion and they are not necessarily the same thing. He also makes some fairly trite comparisons with religion and psychoanalysis. The bulk of the book is a commercial for his particular brand of humanistic Neofreudianism viz. classical Freudianism. It is not his best book.

In a time of psychopharmacological drugs, cognitive science, and behavioral psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis is not at center stage anymore, as it was in the early to mid twentieth century. Written over a half a century ago, it is readily apparent in this book that the author has been considerably influenced by Freud's ideas, no doubt because of the time and context in which the author lived. It is also clear that the author is one who is not ready to remove himself totally from the influence of religion when formulating criteria for human psychological and emotional health. And interestingly, he describes Freud as being one who also takes this view, in spite of Freud's militant atheism. After expressing disappointment that "academic" psychology has been attempting to imitate the natural sciences emphasis on quantitative and empirical methods, he asserts that psychology must be concerned with matters of the "soul", the latter being the "higher" human powers of love, reason, conscience, and values. Freud he says, via his method of psychoanalysis which uses dreams, fantasies, and free associations, concentrates on the soul. Therefore the author makes it clear that a scientific approach to psychology, where case studies and data and statistical analysis are essential, is to be rejected.
This attitude is consistently applied throughout this book, as the author does not attempt to justify his beliefs with any historical evidence or patient case histories. Instead, readers are asked to believe that their life is not based on a "solid foundation", and that anxiety, uneasiness, and confusion are currently (at least at that time) permanent facets of their existence. But the author does not advise the reader to return to religion, but to "live love and think truth". If a person cannot do this on their own, they should seek the assistance of a psychoanalyst. Psychoanalysis and religion thus have an intersection, in that they both seek to cleanse and restore the individual's soul.

The author devotes and entire chapter to correcting the view that Freud is "against" religion and his contemporary, Carl Jung is "for" religion. This discussion serves also to set up the groundwork for his own thinking developed later in the book. Both Freud and Jung were deeply religious, he argued, for they were concerned with the true requirements of the soul, that they were indeed "physicians of the soul" as the author calls it. But the author clearly distinguishes between "humanistic" religion and "authoritarian" religion. Jung and Freud are in the former category, and assist in giving the individual genuine psychological health. The latter however, the author argues, results, and is a symptom of, severe emotional and psychological maladjustment, and its consequence is a lack of love and respect for the individual. His thinking on these issues is interesting, but it lacks support from an empirical point of view. The author never quotes case studies as to how certain individuals were helped by the psychoanalytic theories that he expouses. Such studies would help to decide whether in fact the approach advocated by the author does in fact result in a more adjusted and fully functional individual, and such an individual would be better off than what traditional, authoritarian religion would be able to contribute. Such studies though would require scientific analysis, and the author will have no part of this.

The most disconcerting part of the book is that the author continually takes the position that he speaks for everyone in the society he is analyzing. "We cling to the belief that we are happy" he says in one paragraph, and in another, where he discusses the situation of children, he proclaims that "we are as helpless as they are", and that "we do not know the answer because we even have forgotten to ask the question. We pretend that our life is based upon a solid foundation and ignore the shadows of uneasiness, anxiety, and confusion which never leave us." Does the author himself feel this way? Does every reader feel this way? The author seems very confident that he speaks for everyone, but he eschews statistical sampling, so why are readers supposed to believe his sweeping generalizations? Did it ever occur to the author that the technological society in which we find ourselves is itself the product of happy, productive individuals? Innovation at the current grand scale is not done by dysfunctional, maladjusted "freaks of the universe". Such a society is a product of the ingenuity of many individuals, confident in themselves and the future.