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Emotion and Spirit
| 1 | SINCE the days of Freud, psy- | Emotion | ||||||||
| choanalysts and churchmen have | “smother” rather than “illuminate” | |||||||||
| been pitted against one another, | conscience. | |||||||||
| fighting to prove that they have | 8 | Dr Symington’s biography | ||||||||
| the cure for the ills of the soul. | mirrors a move in some sections | |||||||||
| But now a man who should know | of society away from the Church | |||||||||
| - a former Catholic priest turned | and into the arms of therapists. | |||||||||
| analyst - says it is time for them | 9 | He grew up “in the bosom of | ||||||||
| to patch up their differences and | Catholicism” and was sent to | |||||||||
| form an alliance. It is the only way | Ampleforth, the Catholic board- | |||||||||
| for them both to survive into the | ing school in Yorkshire, where he | |||||||||
| 21st century, he says. | was taught French literature by | |||||||||
| 2 | Neville Symington, a member | 6 | In his book Emotion and | Cardinal Basil Hume. At 21, he | ||||||
| of the British Psychoanalytical | Spirit: Questioning the Claims of | enrolled in a seminary and then | ||||||||
| Society and one of its leading | Psychoanalysis and Religion, to be | became a curate in east London. | ||||||||
| thinkers, maintains that both | reprinted by Karnac Books in | 10 | But in 1968, at the age of 31, | |||||||
| religion and psychoanalysis are | March, Dr Symington argues that | his life changed. “I realised the | ||||||||
| failing, but for opposite reasons. | religious faith and therapy must | irrelevance of Catholic practice to | ||||||||
| 3 | “Psychoanalysis is largely | learn from each other. Few | people’s real lives,” he said, | |||||||
| failing to heal those with sick | psychoanalysts have turned their | recalling his departure from the | ||||||||
| minds because it is devoid of | attention to religion - Freud was | Church. The 2nd Vatican Coun- | ||||||||
| those core values which have | an atheist - but in the past | cil’s ruling on contraception was a | ||||||||
| been central to all the great |  | deciding factor, he added. | ||||||||
| religious traditions,” he said. | 11 | He decided to train as a psy- | ||||||||
| “Traditional religions fail in the | choanalyst and has practised ever | |||||||||
| world today because they apply | since. He sees psychoanalysis as | |||||||||
| their values in a realm which is | “a spirituality-in-the-world” and | |||||||||
| irrelevant to the modern world.” | the field for mystical union with | |||||||||
| 4 | He continued: “I think we’ve | “the Ultimate” as being within the | ||||||||
| come to the end of the era where | closest emotional bonds. Religion | |||||||||
| revealed religion can provide the | and psychoanalysis have a joint | |||||||||
| necessary guidance for people | goal: “The conversion or trans- | |||||||||
| living in the contemporary world. | formation of actions which are | |||||||||
| It’s a question of formulating an | destructive into actions which are | |||||||||
| emergence of a new religious | constructive.” | |||||||||
| value system that could marry up | 12 | Instead of prayer, psycho- | ||||||||
| with psychoanalysis.” In order to | analysis has interpretation, but | |||||||||
| do so, both had to relinquish | while confession concerns “things | |||||||||
| “excess baggage”: the creeds, | that the penitent knows about”, | |||||||||
| dogma, rituals and theories which | 18 months he has noticed a | psychoanalysis deals with “those | ||||||||
| only obscure the deeper values | growing interest in spirituality | things of which the patient is | ||||||||
| they are trying to express. | among psychoanalytic circles. | unaware”. | ||||||||
| Dr Symington, 61, who emi- | “There’s some realisation that | 13 | Much of what Dr Symington | |||||||
| grated to Australia 12 years ago, | there is something missing,” he | says echoes New Labour’s emp- | ||||||||
| was in London last week as a | said. | hasis on personal responsibility. | ||||||||
| guest speaker at the BPS. He is on | 7 | Freud founded a movement | Tony Blair has been attempting to | |||||||
| a mission to stimulate a dialogue | which replaced a puritanical | reinstate the values of religion | ||||||||
| between thinkers from traditional | perspective with “one of under- | into public life. It appears that Dr | ||||||||
| religions and the psychotherapeutic | standing, of empathy, the neutral | Symington is trying to do the | ||||||||
| 5 | movement. The conver- | stance, one of acceptance”. But in | same for therapy. | |||||||
| sation would, he admits, be “uncomfortable”. | so doing, “the baby has been | |||||||||
| He only has to | thrown out with the bath water”, | ‘The Independent on Sunday’, | ||||||||
| mention the word “moral” to a | Dr Symington said. Psycho- | January 25, 1998 | ||||||||
| psychoanalyst and he is interpreted | analysts, who regarded the indi- | |||||||||
| as meaning “moralistic”; | vidual’s own feeling as “the only | |||||||||
| “virtue” is instantly translated as | index of action”, were liable to | |||||||||
| “hypocrisy”. | ||||||||||