| Drawing on historical, cross-cultural and clinical data, Psychotherapy and the Sacred explores the complex relations between psychotherapy and human religious experience. The author examines the factors contributing to the loss of the sacred in the western assumptive world and considers the efforts of Rudolph Otto, Gerhardus Van der Leeuw, and Mircea Eliade to retrieve a sense of the sacred. He discusses the manifestation of the sacred in transformative ritual and considers four examples of sacred therapeutics in traditional and pre-modern societies. He also presents a case from his own practice in which he utilizes religious resources in treating psychosis. In the final portion of the volume, the author draws on the theoretical work of Alfred North Whitehead to reinterpret the work of Carl Jung in order to develop an interpretation which affirms the sui generis character of religious experience. (CSSR Press) |
