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New Books in the
Integration Library
Randall Lehmann Sorenson (2004) Minding Spirituality. Hillsdale, NJ:
The Analytic Press, 191 pages (including references)
ISBN 0-88163-344-5,
hardcover, $39.95
Reviewed by H. Newton Malony,
Used here by permission of the editors of
Perspectives on Science and Religion
This book was a strenuous pleasure to read – only in part because it was
authored by a former student in whom I take great pride. More to the point, in
a number of ways, the volume will take its place as a seminal contribution to
the ongoing dialogue concerning psychotherapy and the religious quest. This
volume is a testimony to the truth that the issues of why and how “religion”
shall be dealt with by psychoanalysts (read ALL counselors) are but themselves
indices of broader cultural history and change.
Sorenson is a graduate school professor in a
doctoral program that combines theological study with clinical psychological
training. He is a practicing psychoanalyst. His experience and reflection
are broad and deep. While his intentional focus is psychoanalytic theory and
treatment, the insights he brings to the issues are worthy of broader
application. The book title Mindfulness was not chosen casually. Early
in the book he suggests a helpful three-fold model for the corpus to follow. He
recommends (1) being mindful (bothered, aware) of spirituality, (2) being
mindful of the gap in counseling where counselors subtly communicate
spirituality often , and (3) being good store-minders who care for and cultivate
spirituality. These are the implicit guides for much that follows.
In some ways, the book reads like a
compilation of articles written by Sorenson on various religion/psychoanalysis
topics that have fascinated him and his students through the years. Chapters
deal with changes in psychoanalytic theory and the implications of these changes
for the treatment of religious experience; the ways that psychoanalytic journals
have dealt with religion; the historical development of psychoanalytic
institutes, and the history of the relationship between science and religion.
Four issues Sorenson
considers are worthy of more extensive comment: changes in conceptions of God
during psychoanalysis, the question of whether psychoanalysis and religion are
in the same business, the false presumption that the Enlightenment was spawned
by anti-religious motivations, and the persistence of the religious quest.
In an effort to better understand the forces
impacting understandings of God among counselors and clients, the book includes
reports of a series of well-designed, quasi-empirical studies undertaken by
Sorenson and his students. Contrary to prediction, God concepts brought to
therapy did not seem to influence after therapy concepts as much as the
interaction during the therapeutic process. Further, therapists’ own God
concepts were deeply influenced by the therapeutic relationship. These results
lent credence to a contructivist epistemology that does not mesh with Freud’s
understanding of the analyst as an “archeologist” who discovers truth.
Sorenson’s research is a noteworthy example of how empirical and theoretical
research can be combined in clinical research.
In an intriguing discussion, Sorenson deals
with the issue of whether psychotherapists and pastors are competitors – those
who deal in the same business. This is not a new issue. A stream of articles
in the last two decades have considered the question of “scholarly distance” as
a predictor of rivalry among branches of science. This concept was used to
explain why natural scientists tended to be more religious than
social/behavioral scientists. Sorenson, however, discusses the issue from a
different perspective – love. He contends that both the great religions and
psychoanalysis purpose to cure human ills through love and are, thereby,
engaged in a similar endeavor.
Sorenson’s discussions reflect the type of
intellectual pursuit that goes beyond easy acceptance of popular truth. In his
treatment of the rise of science in the Enlightenment – a discussion that has
been widely considered to be based on anti-religious secularism - Sorenson joins
a number of contemporary writers in noting that exploration in science has been,
and continues to be, motivated often by the desire to better understand the
creation of a monotheistic God.
Finally, Sorenson is unapologetic in his
contention that the religious quest remains part of what it means to be human.
This is, in part, his basis for asserting that psychoanalysts would do well to
become acquainted with the well informed, post-modern, hermeneutical reflection
going on in theological seminaries. Contrary to some thinking “secularism” is
not obliterating religion.
This book is not an easy read – nor was it
intended to be so. However, if one wades through some of the analytic
discussions and keeps translating the insights into those that apply both to
counselors and scientists of all stripes, I predict that the experience will be
more than rewarding. It will be exhilarating.
H. Newton Malony, Ph.D., Senior Professor
Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary
180 North Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101
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