Christ and Freud (RLE Freud) A Study of Religious Experience and Observance [Hardcover]

Originally published in 1959, this book is primarily concerned with the question of psychiatric factors in religion, and, conversely, with that of religious factors in psychiatry. It rejects the Freudian theory that religion is a form of obsessional neurosis. Though this latter hypothesis may explain many of the phenomena of religious observance, it cannot explain the reality of religious experience. Dr Guirdham believes that orthodox Christianity is a perversion of the psychologically irrefutable teaching of Christ and that its conception of God as a supreme being endowed with supreme power, its teaching on the resurrection, and its contamination with a sense of guilt, are especially conducive to psychiatric disorder. He shows how theology may actually be inimical to religious experience and how faith differs from belief and is a response of the whole man. The book explains also the psychological origins of clericalism and demonstrates the role played by the latter in stifling religious experience.

Preface by Lawrence Durrell.  Introduction.  Part 1: Christ and Freud  1. The Religious Aspects of Psychiatric Illness  2. Some Psychiatric Mechanisms in Religious Observance  3. Criticism of the Psycho-Analytical Interpretation of Religion  4. Sexual Symbolism in Religion  5. Further Criticisms of the Freudian Concept of Religion  6. The Phenomena of Mysticism  7. The Distinction between Mysticism and Psychiatric Disease  8. Art and Psychiatric Disorder  9. Freudian Theory and Other World Religions  10. Neurosis and the Conception of a Personal God  11. The Persistence of Judaism in Christianity  12. Evaluation of Freud  13. Religion without Power  14. Summary of the Fallacies in the Psychoanalytic Explanation of Religion  Part 2: Christianity and Neurosis  1. The SpelS5