AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: Soul on the Couch: Spirituality, Religion, and Morality in Contemporary Psychoanalysis (Relational Perspectives Book Series, 7) by Charles Spezzano, Gerald J. Gargiulo ISBN: 0-88163-406-9 Publisher: Analytic Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Review of Soul on the Couch
Comment: An excellent review of recent psychoanalytic thinking about religion and religious subjectivity, most of it coming from the object-relations schools of thought. The authors are uniformly creative and courageous in their thinking about the interface of spirituality. religion, and therapy. The only thing I dislike about this book is the over-reliance of certain authors on current "postmodern" psychoanalytic views and the thoughtless, trendy relativism that undergirds this worldview. (However, to be fair, this dislike is more a negative commentary on postmodern thinking than on the quality of the contents of this volume itself.)

Rating: 4
Summary: From the office of the mind to the garden of the soul
Comment: Modern psychotherapeutic practitioners are often hesitant to traverse the boundary between consulting room and church or temple, as the case may be. Delicate myths and beliefs are often at odds with the highly structured theoretical underpinnings of psychotherpay and psychoanalysis. Freud himself detested religion, although the rumor is that his loathing came from his experience of being hauled off as a child to Catholic Mass, which he found terrifying, by his nursemaid.

Consequently, many therapists avoid addressing, understanding or integrating patients' spiritual practices within the context of the therapy. Practitioners may feel that this space is sacred and ought not to be fair territory for therapy's examination. Also, a patient's spiritual beliefs may be at odds with therapeutic ideas. For example, an immigrant patient believes she is possessed by an evil spirit, in contrast to her therapist who may understand the possession as a psychotic episode.

In this book a variety of therapists explore the relationship between therapy,religion, and "soulfulness", coming to their own understanding of how these diverse mental orientations may not only exist together, but complement and enrich each other.

Especially provocative are Kevin Fateaux's exploration of creativity and soulfulness, and Joseph Bobrow's elegant and empathic treatise on the interplay of Zen Buddhism and psychotherapy. May all patients be blessed with such creative and fluid thinkers as the contributors of this book.