The relationship between psychoanalysis and religion has a fraught history. Freud was famously hostile to religion, positioning psychoanalysis as an alternative to its consolations. Ironically, his creation came to mirror and rival religion, or, in Ann Pellegrini's phrasing, carry a "queer structure of religious feeling."
Many of us come to psychoanalysis and quietly rediscover echoes of religious life both in our work with patients, and in the make-up of our communities and institutes. For analysts and patients alike, religion is often treated as the central "problem" or primary trauma of a treatment. Yet religion, even for former believers, shapes the texture of who we are still becoming. Gender, sexuality, and affective experience all bear the mark of past and present belief. How might we reckon with these tensions?
This five-week seminar offers fresh ways to think about religious identity in the consulting room. We will place a particular emphasis on countertransference, and our personal relationships to religion. To do that, we will reach alongside psychoanalysis into other bodies of theory and performance and visual art. The syllabus includes readings and ideas from Freud, Erich Fromm, José Esteban Muñoz, Ann Pellegrini, Jean Laplanche, and Michael Warner, alongside the work of artists Taylor Mac and Jesse Darling.
Readings provided by instructor, some supplemental films may involve small rental costs.
Dates and Time:
1 1/2-hour class meets weekly on Wednesdays from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
April 7, 2027
April 14, 2027
April 21, 2027
April 28, 2027
May 5, 2027
Location: Zoom
Two sliding scale slots available. Contact the instructor for details.