The conversation among religion, psychiatry, and neuroscience has changed how religion is understood and how that understanding affects its relationship with psychiatry. This review covers the history and phenomenology of religious experience, neuroscientific explanations of religious experience, the benefits of religious beliefs and practices, and the evolutionary basis of those benefits. It also examines how neuroscience and evolutionary theory account for the claim that religious experience connects to a transcendent reality. The authors conclude with a summary and unresolved questions.
Loewald's theory of ego development provides a psychoanalytic framework for understanding religious experiences that enrich the ego, rather than merely defending against anxiety. In his view, development involves a dynamic interplay between ego and reality, where internalization and integration build resilient structures. A dialectical tension between separation and reunion drives growth. Loewald's focus on the synthetic, not defensive, functions of the ego allows him to characterize sublimation as a genuine appropriation of experience, opening a path to see non-defensive religious experiences psychoanalytically. The author applies this lens to Freud's views on religion, extreme religious fundamentalism, and the dynamics of mature faith.