RU Religion Course Syllabus/New Testament

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

840:420 STUDIES IN RELIGION AND PSYCHOLOGY --- PSYCHOANALYSIS AND RELIGION IN AMERICA

Spring 2002

James W. Jones

Office: Loree 132
Office Hours: M 11-12:00, W 10:00-12:00 & by appointment
Phone: 932-9623 [Please use this phone number and not email to contact Dr. Jones]

Purpose: This course will review the early history of psychoanalysis in America. We will chart the changes that take place in psychoanalytic theorizing as the field moves further from its European roots. We will pay special attention to the interest in religion on the part of many of the first generation of analysts in America and situate the early dialogue between psychoanalysis and theology in its historical context and address as well as the ongoing interest in psychoanalysis and Buddhism.

Requirements: This class will be conducted as a seminar and so it is expected that students will have done the reading and will come to each class prepared to participate. Class participation will be a major part of the final grade. To facilitate discussion, students are required to hand in two, brief (4-5 page) critical reviews of readings before the two weeks devoted entirely to discussion. They are due by the start of class on 2/27 and 3/27. No extensions will be given. In addition, an essay of 8-10 pages is due by noon, one week after the last day of class, on 5/13/02, on the following topic: “Drawing on the relevant figures from this course, discuss some of the implicit assumptions about human nature and human understanding found in American psychoanalysis. How do these assumptions both open up and limit the dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion?” No extensions will be given.

Readings:

Four books are required for this course and are at New Jersey Books::

Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth

Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion

Rollo May, The Discovery of Being

J.W. Jones, Religion and Psychology in Transition: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and

Theology

All other material is in a packet of readings available from New Jersey books.

COURSE OUTLINE

1/23 - Introduction

1. Psychoanalysis comes to America (week of 1/28)

2. The Cultural Interpersonal School: Karen Horney (week of 2/4)

Readings:

Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth

Paul Tillich, “Karen Horney: A funeral address”

Background:

B. Paris, Karen Horney

M Westkott, The Feminist Legacy of Karen Horney

3. The Cultural Interpersonal School: Erich Fromm (week of 2/11)

Readings:

Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion

Background:

Pastoral Psychology issue of Sept. 1955 devoted to Erich Fromm including Paul Tillich’s

review of “Erich Fromm’s The Sane Society” and Erich Fromm “Are we sane?”

D. Browning, Generative Man

C. Thompson, Psychoanalysis: Evolution and Development

D. Stern, C, Mann, S. Kantor, G. Schlesinger, Pioneers of Interpersonal Psychoanalysis

P. Mullahy, Oedipus Myth and Complex

4. Psychoanalysis and Buddhism in the 40’s and 50’s (2/18)

Readings:

E. Fromm, T.D. Suzuki, R. DeMartino, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis,

“Psychoanalysis and Buddhism” by Erich Fromm

Background:

A. Molino, The Couch and the Tree

M. Mestkott, “Karen Horney’s Encounter with Zen, “ in Jacobs & Capps, Religion, Society and Psychoanalysis

5. Existential Psychoanalysis (week of 2/25; brief critical review of

Horney, Fromm, or May due at the start of class 2/27)

Reading:

R. May, The Discovery of Being.

Background:

R. May, E. Angel, H. Ellenberger, Existence

6. Discussion Week: American Psychoanalysis (week of 3/ 4)

7. Psychoanalysis and Theology in the 40’s and 50’s (week of 3/11)

Readings:

Paul Tillich, “The impact of pastoral psychology on theological thought,” from H.

Hofmann, The Ministry and Mental Health [was first published in Pastoral

Psychology, 1960, 11:101 and later published as a pamphlet under the title “The

impact of psychotherapy on theological thought”]

Paul Tillich, “Existentialism, psychotherapy, and the nature of man,” and “Symposium:

Human nature can change” in , S. Doniger (ed.) The Nature of Man in Theological

and Psychological Perspective,

Background:

P. Tillich, Theology of Culture

H. Tillich, From Time to Time

R. May, Paulus

8. The Cultural Theological Critique of Psychoanalysis in the 50’s

(week of 3/25; brief critical review of Tillich or Niebuhr due start of class

3/27; no class week of 3/18)

Readings:

R. Niebuhr, The self and the dramas of history, chapters 12, 16, 18.

S. Doniger (ed.), The Nature of Man in Theological and Psychological Perspective,

“Carl Rogers and others ‘Niebuhr on the nature of man,’”

Background:

P. Rieff, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist

P. Rieff, The Triumph of the Therapeutic

9. Discussion Week: Theology and Psychoanalysis in the 40’s (week of

4/1)

9. American Psychoanalysis Today: Inter-personal, Relational, Self-

Psychological (week of 4/8)

Readings:

J. W. Jones, “The Relational Self: Contemporary Psychoanalysis Reconsiders Religion”

from the Journal of The American Academy of Religion, 1991, 59(4).

J. W. Jones, Religion and Psychology in Transition, chapters 2 & 3.

J. McDargh, “God, mother and me: An object relational perspective on religious

material” from Pastoral Psychology, 1986, 34(4)

Background:

J. W. Jones, Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Religion

Black & Mitchell, Freud and Beyond

Jacobs & Capps, Religion, Society and Psychoanalysis

J. McDargh, Object Relations Theory and the Study of Religion

M. Finn & J. Gartner, Object Relations Theory and Religion

10. Psychoanalysis and Buddhism Today (week of 4/15)

Readings:

J. Rubin, Psychotherapy and Buddhism, chapters 3, 4, 10

Mark Finn “Transitional Space and Tibetan Buddhism: The object relations of

meditation,” from M. Finn & J. Gartner, Object Relations Theory and Religion

Background:

M Epstein, Thoughts Without a Thinker

A. Molino, The Couch and the Tree

11. Psychoanalysis and Theology Today (week of 4/22)

Reading:

J.W. Jones, Religion and Psychology in Transition: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and

Theology, chapters 4, 5, 7, conclusion.

Background:

Jacobs & Capps, Religion, Society and Psychoanalysis

J. W. Jones & N. Goldenberg, “Transforming Psychoanalysis: Feminism and Religion” in

Pastoral Psychology, 1992, 40(6).

J.W. Jones “Religion and Psychology in Transition: How it came to be written,” and

“Response to Critics,” with commentary by D. Jonte-Pace & B. Miller-McLemore,

Pastoral Psychology, 47(3,), 1999.

12. Summary: Looking Backward and Forward (4/29)

5/6 – Last day of class

5//13 – final essays due by noon today. Please remember: no extensions.

This page was revised 1 July 2001