Elements of Faith: Psychoanalytic Phenomenon and Lived Experience by Potter, Brent;

Rövid leírás:

Elements of Faith explores the rich, complex terrain of faith through the lenses of psychoanalysis, existential phenomenology, and lived clinical experience. It offers both theoretical reflections and a compelling case study of a therapeutic journey in faith, identity, and transformation.

Hosszú leírás:

Elements of Faith explores the rich, complex terrain of faith through the lenses of psychoanalysis, existential phenomenology, and lived clinical experience. It offers both theoretical reflections and a compelling case study of a therapeutic journey in faith, identity, and transformation.

This book investigates the multidimensional nature of faith as an existential and psychoanalytic phenomenon. Engaging with thinkers such as Heidegger, Bion, Kierkegaard, and Hillman, Brent Potter examines faith not as static belief but as a lived, dynamic structure of human experience. Drawing upon clinical work, especially the transformative therapeutic process with a patient named Sara, the book reveals how faith surfaces in moments of crisis, longing, and relational rupture. With careful attention to the Hebraic and Greek worldviews, the author provides insight into faith’s ethical, psychological, cultural, and theological contours. It is both scholarly and intimate—bridging theory and practice, ancient insight and modern struggle.

Elements of Faith enriches both theoretical and practical dimensions of psychoanalytic inquiry, and will be of great interest to psychoanalysts looking to explore faith within their practice. It will also appeal to mental health professionals, theologians, students of psychology and religion, and general readers interested in the intersection of faith and clinical practice.

‘Brent's Christian faith has led him to make this profound, warmly readable book about psychoanalysis and its future. His study of faith, including a remarkably healing case study, takes us away from fallacious assumptions that suffering should be pathologized and salvation must be found merely through human cleverness and social engineering.’

John Gordon, Author of Healing Madness

‘This book comes alive with faith in many dimensions. It breathes, aches, suffers, cries  and opens depths of joy and renewal. It speaks of a wound that lights and gives credit to much that is devalued, including creative aspects of madness and such pages that keep giving.’

Michael Eigen, PhD,  Author of books including The Challenge of Being Human, The Psychotic Core, Contact with the Depths, Faith, and The Psychoanalytic Mystic.   

'In the face of fracture and contentious uncertainty we are easily seduced by certitude, tempted to abandon our doubt in the chimeric fortress of knowledge.  But at what cost?  In his new book Elements of Faith, Brent Potter takes us into the psychoanalytic situation, not as a contender to faith, but as a handmaid in the service of fostering our capacities to embrace mystery, meaning, and courageous openness.  Of course we need knowledge, but Potter’s invitation is to walk into the vitalizing tensions of knowing and not knowing, the already and the not yet, the world we inhabit and the world yet to be.'

Earl D. Bland, PsyD, Psy, Professor of Psychology, Licensed Psychologist/Psychoanalyst, Rosemead School of Psychology 

'In a time when we are seeing a resurgence of religion and spirituality, especially among the youth of Gen Z, Brent Potter brings a depth and clarify to the question of faith and its implications for our lives.'

Brent Dean Robbins, Ph.D., Program Director, Department of Psychology, Point Park University and Author of The Medicalized Body and Anesthetic Culture: The Cadaver, the Memorial Body, and the Recovery of Lived Experience 

Tartalomjegyzék:

Chapter 1: Echoes of An Opening

Introductory Comments                                               

Faith Fragments                                                         

Navigating the Landscape                                         

Chapter 2: Dimensions of Faith

The Essence of Faith                                                    

The Role of Sacred Texts: Anchors of Faith             

Faith & Reason: A Delicate Balance                         

Faith & Ethics: A Moral Framework                       

The Hebraic Mindset: A Necessary Counterbalance 

Storms of Meaning

Chapter 3: Faith in a Pluralistic World

Contours of Disruption: Faith Amid the They          

Faith as a Catalyst for Change                                   

Storms of Meaning                                                    

Faith & the Empirical Gaze                                       

Chapter 4: Once, There Was a Longing…

Navigating the Boundaries of Faith                           

Roots On Fire: Faith Between Tradition & Change  

Personal Belief & Collective Identity                       

The Evolution of Faith                                                

Embracing the Mystery of Faith                                

Faith, Sense, & Sensibility                                          

Chapter 5: A Clinical Case Study in Faith

Orientation to the Case Study                                      

Author’s Perspective & Bias                                     

Sara: Patient Information Summary                          

  - Background                                                           

  - Mental Health & Concerns                                   

  - Family & Relationships                                        

  - Coping & Boundaries                                            

  - Diagnostic Evaluation                                                          

  - Current Focus & Treatment Goals                        

Chapter 6: The Psychoanalytic Process

Psychoanalytic Process                                              

Rapport Building                                                          

Faith & Doubt                                                              

Goodness & the Black ‘Blah’                                    

Toward a Transformed Sense of Self                        

  - Dream 1: Confrontation with the Shadow            

  - Dream 2: Living, Loving, Legacy                           

  - Balance & Bodyhood                                            

  - Dream 3: Invisible Supports                                    

Rupture & Repair                                                        

Survival Technique, Organizing Principle                

Sara's Journey: Opening Up & Finding Rhythm       

Voice & Vulnerability                                                              

Processing Betrayal & Despair                                  

Note on Catharsis                                                        

Reorienting to World                                                    

Growth                                                                         

  - A Pattern of Functional Failures                           

  - Discovering Play & Aloneness                             

  - Improvements in Mental Health &

Self-Understanding                                        

Termination                                                                           

Chapter 7: Psychoanalysis and the Sacred

On the Horizon of Contemporary Psychoanalysis                

The Early Formation of Psychoanalysts                                   

Training for Depth in an Age of Shallowness                         

Psychoanalysis in the Age of Technological Reductionism  

The Recovery of Philosophical Depth                                   

Reawakening Mystery in Contemporary Psychoanalysis     

On Ethical Resistance and the Analyst’s Responsibility      

A Future Worth Building                                                        

Psychoanalysis as Recovering                                               

Human Being-in-the-World                                                              

The Analyst as Ethical Witness                                               

Toward a Deepening Ethic of Care In Contemporary          

Psychoanalysis                       

The Next Chapter of Psychoanalysis?                                   

Chapter 8: Holding the Tension of the Opposites, Making Room

Beyond the Couch: Evolving Psychoanalytic                       

Horizons

Dwelling with the Human: Psychoanalysis                           

 Beyond Technique

Állos & the Alientist: Estrangement, Otherness                   

Healing

Estrangement as Symbol & Signal                                        

From Alienation to Alterity               

Analyst as Alienist                                                                 

References