Psychoanalysis and spirituality-catastrophic change and becoming "o".

A man with an undiagnosed physical illness entered psychoanalytic psychotherapy after two years of unsuccessful medical treatment. The therapy involved religious experiences that attuned patient and analyst, and the patient's fights with doctors, family, and the analyst were seen as a transcendence of his troubled life, mustering courage to live with illness and loss. He used a godlike fantasy figure, considered a vivid good internal object. The therapeutic work included catastrophic change, hope, and disappointment, and the patient learned to live with adversity and return to a normal life as possible. The psychotherapy remains ongoing.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article considers the relationship between post-Kleinian psychoanalysis and spiritual experience in the healing process of a physically ill man undergoing medical care for an unknown disorder. He entered psychoanalytic psychotherapy after two years of being ill and after numerous medical interventions had failed. The psychotherapy involved certain religious experiences in the patient and the analyst that attuned them to one another. It also involved his fighting with doctors, family, and analyst. The fights were considered a transcendence of his troubling life, a mustering of courage and strength to live with illness and loss, and his use of a godlike fantasy figure, which could also be considered as a vivid good internal object. The therapeutic work was punctuated by numerous instances of catastrophic change, hope, and disappointment and by his not knowing about why his body acted as it has and why important people treated him as they had. He learned to know, in the sense that Bion used the term, to live with adversity, and return to as normal a life as is possible. The psychotherapy is a work in progress.