144 - Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Religion: Transference and Transcendence

Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Religion: Transference and Transcendence
By James W. Jones
New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991. 144 pp. $16.95.

This text, written by James Jones, Professor of Religion at Rutgers University and a clinical psychologist, seeks to demonstrate the value of taking religious experience seriously in the practice of psychoanalysis. In his first two chapters, Jones offers a review of the literature of some of the newer psychoanalytic theories and of psychoanalytic studies of religion. He uses a revised, relational definition of transference, culled from these works, in order to demonstrate, through four case studies, the positive impact that good psychoanalysis has on a patient's understanding of and relationship to God. In the last chapter, Jones powerfully describes the positive resources available to people through their experiences of the sacred and suggests that working with clients' religious experiences can significantly help their overall mental health.

Much of the value in this text comes from the informative summaries of psychoanalytic theories of personality, psychologies of religion, and theologies of relationship. With the exception of the last chapter, the creative and clinical insights are often tentative and stop just short of inviting the reader into new ways of thinking about both psychology and religion. Despite these shortcomings, this book will prove to be helpful reading for anyone interested in either psychoanalysis or in a psycho-analytic study of religion.

Christie C. Neuger
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, N.J.