Subj : PSYCHOANALYSIS
To   : Bob Eyer
From : Frank Masingill
Date : Tue Oct 24 2000 02:18 am

 BE> BE: -Therefore it is essential to genuine psychoanalytic
 BE> therapy -that the patient knows absolutely nothing about the
 BE> analyst's -beliefs, attitudes or feelings. - -The problem with
 BE> religious confessionals is that the "patient" -DOES know what
 BE> the priest wants to hear.  And that is what he -tells him.
 BE> The task of releasing pent-up psychic energy -causing mental
 BE> blocks, neuroses, etc, is thus short-circuited -and defeated.
 BE> - -This may be a way of achieving some kind of salvation; but
 BE> it -is not a way of mending diseases of the mind.

 BE> > Having never experienced the religious confessional OR the
 BE> > expensive process of psychiatric sessions, I must assume
 BE> > that you have made an extensive comparative study of both
 BE> > and, therefore, read your conclusions of the study with
 BE> > great interest.  Did you REALLY just make up stuff and tell
 BE> > the priest what you thought he should hear?  Surely this is
 BE> > not just drawn from the stories and jokes priests tell each
 BE> > other for amusement and out of a sense of boredom?  I DO
 BE> > suspect that in the evangelistic denominations there are
 BE> > "professional confessors." I know for a fact that there are
 BE> > people who, like Martin Luther, are so concerned with
 BE> > whether or not they're really "saved" that they go down for
 BE> > "re-confession" over and over again.

 BE> I've never personally experienced confession to a priest (I've
 BE> never been a Catholic, and never have experienced any kind of
 BE> religious observance in my upbringing or adult life).  But I
 BE> have undergone two years of psychoanalytic therapy when I was
 BE> in the last two years of high school.  I can speak from some
 BE> personal experience about the benefits of Freudian therapy,
 BE> and about what Freudian therapy is all about.

 BE> My remarks about the psychological disadvantages of religious
 BE> confession (as compared with Freudian therapy) are based in
 BE> part on knowledge of a very simple fact about the confession
 BE> process: No one seeks confession who does not already know
 BE> what are the attitudes of the Church supporting confession
 BE> toward good and evil.

 BE> This simple fact is bound to undermine the psychological
 BE> effectiveness of confession, since the parishioner necessarily
 BE> approaches the priest for confession, for the purpose of
 BE> achieving salvation.  He therefore must tell those stories
 BE> which fit in with that goal--according to the ideology of the
 BE> Church on matters of good and evil.

 BE> This is not the goal of releasing the psychic potential energy
 BE> of the unconscious, and therefore cannot play the role of
 BE> alleviating mental blocks, neuroses, and so on.

        WRT your "extensive comparative studies" I did, indeed,
assume far too much, I fear.  Perhaps you had some of the
conclusions already at hand BEFORE your investigation of the facts.

Frank

--- PPoint 2.07
 * Origin: Maybe in 5000 years (1:396/45.12)

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