Ancient Religious Wisdom, Spirituality and Psychoanalysis - Hardcover

by Paul Marcus (Author)

This volume presents a rationale for a spiritually animated psychoanalysis. Classic world religious literature is analyzed in depth showing how Ecclesiastes, St. Augustine's Confessions, The Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and others can enhance psychoanalysis. Marcus argues that psychoanalysis is a theory and profession in crisis, partly due to its alienation from the spiritual and moral philosophies contained in ancient religious wisdom. This volume presents the spiritual as a core dimension of the psyche, and the quest for self-transcendence--meeting the glory of the Infinite--as a quest inherent in the human condition.

Of special interest to those studying psychoanalysis, psychology, and religious studies, this volume may also intrigue those studying the philosophy of religion.

Author Biography

PAUL MARCUS is Supervising and Training Analyst for the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. He is author of Autonomy in the Extreme Situation: Bruno Bettelheim, the Nazi Concentration Camps and the Mass Society (Praeger, 1999).