Fashioning Our Own Freuds: Psychoanalysis and Religion Open Access

Hays, Ryan (2008)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/6969z170d?locale=en
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Abstract

Was Sigmund Freud a militant atheist or an unconscious Christian or something in between? This study calls into the question the very idea that Sigmund Freud has a `true' position on religion. It illustrates the extent to which different assumptions, strategies and formations lead to strikingly different historical representations of Freud: 1) Freud as neither enemy nor ally of religion (Erich Fromm); 2) Freud as Jewish mystic (David Bakan); 3) Freud as reconciler of psychoanalysis and religion (Ana-Maria Rizzuto); 4) Freud as militant atheist (Peter Gay); and 5) Freud as unconscious Christian (Paul Vitz). My thesis is that we do not find Freud in history as much as we fashion a Freud with history. What is more, the Freuds we fashion inevitably bear the impress of our own beliefs and biases. In the end, I seek to expose these types of historical representations of Freud and religion for the Rorschach test they are: they tell us more about our selves and our interpretive communities than they ever will about Sigmund Freud's `position' on religion.

Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................1

Chapter One: Freud as Neither Enemy nor Ally of Religion.......................13

Chapter Two: Freud as Jewish Mystic............................................................49

Chapter Three: Freud as Reconciler of Psychoanalysis and Religion.......73

Chapter Four: Freud as Militant Atheist...........................................................111

Chapter Five: Freud as Unconscious Christian...........................................139

Chapter Six: Fashioning Our Own Freuds..................................................164

Conclusion.................................................................................182

Bibliography...............................................................................187

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