Seeing God in Our Birth Experiences: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry Into Pre and Perinatal Religious Development

233 Pages·2020·1.942 MB·English

by  Helen Holmes

Seeing God in Our Birth
Experiences
There has been a recent surge in the examination of the evolutionary roots
of religious belief, all trying to identify where the human desire to seek
the supernatural and the divine comes from. This book adds a new and
innovative perspective to this line of thought by being the first to link prenatal
and perinatal experiences to the origins of these unconscious underpinnings
of our shared images of God.
The book poses a groundbreaking paradigm by thinking about our earliest
images of God, whether theist or atheist, within a psychoanalytic framework,
comparing and contrasting the thought of Freud and that of Rizzuto.
It looks at the issue of images of God from a diversity of psychological
perspectives, including attachment theory, developmental theory and
biopsychosocial perspectives. This analysis leads to the conclusion that in
parallel to postnatal findings, uterine and birth experiences can predispose
individuals to form God representations later in life, through underpinning
affective and environmental factors.
This is a bold study of the development of one of humanity’s most
fundamental aspects. Thus, it will be of great interest to scholars of the
psychology of religion, psychology, psychoanalysis, religious studies and
early infant development.
Helen Holmes is a clinical and academic supervisor, having written and
taught courses at top universities, alongside developing a new approach to
self-harm cessation and suicide amongst adolescents. Helen is a group and
individual therapist on a psychosis unit at Maudsley Hospital, alongside
working in private practice with children, young people, families, couples
and adults.
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Seeing God in Our Birth Experiences
A Psychoanalytic Inquiry Into Pre and Perinatal Religious Development
Helen Holmes
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
religion/series/SE0669
Seeing God in Our Birth
Experiences
A Psychoanalytic Inquiry Into Pre and
Perinatal Religious Development
Helen Holmes
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2020 Helen Holmes
The right of Helen Holmes to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-22144-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-27349-0 (ebk)
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Contents
ContentsContents
Dedication vii
Acknowledgements viii
Preface x
Introduction 1
1 Rizzuto and Freud: parental origins of images of God 12
2 Klein and Bion: the intrauterine in relation
to images of God 78
3 The not knowing position in relation to prenatal and
perinatal life 144
4 The perinatal origins of images of God 164
5 Epigenesis, attachment and God representations 174
6 The question of prenatal and perinatal underpinnings
of God images 179
7 Prenatal religious affect 186
Conclusions 192
Bibliography 197
Index 215

This book is dedicated to:
DedicationDedication
My dear parents and two brothers.
Acknowledgements
AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements
This book reflects my lifetime curiosity in relation to the intricate, weaving
vicissitudes of human dynamics, particularly the parent–infant relationship.
Thank you to the copy editors at Routledge, for working diligently to bring
this book into fruition. My appreciation is moreover due to my mother and
father, MBE, who carefully read through drafts of this book, helping shape
its contents.
Looking back, my curiosity and my learning have been enhanced through
observation, thinking about and reflecting on prenatal and perinatal devel-
opment and inspired by philosophy and depth psychology, taught at Heyth-
rop College, University of London. I am indebted to my tutors, the Jesuit
Dr. Brendan Callaghan, feminist Dr. Kathleen O’Connor, Reverend John
McDade, Reverend. Gerard Hughes and Dr. Janice Thomas who to this day
ignitein me a deep interest in depth psychology and philosophy of mind and
whom remain inspiring philosophers, psychologists and teachers in my life.
My interest in early life developed in adulthood through psychoanalytic
infant and young child observation at the Anna Freud Centre, UCL and
Tavistock Clinic in London – transforming my life in myriad ways and
remaining central to my clinical learning and in relation to enhancing my
analytic stance.
Mainly through the influential thinking of the Institute of Psychoanalysis
in London, I trained psychoanalytically, enabling me to work effectively
with people in complex situations, trying to help some of the most vulner-
able people in our communities: under-fives and their parents, children and
adolescents, family groups and adults. In particular, I am grateful to Ms.
Shelagh O’Gorman and Margaret for their informed supervision and sup-
port of my under-fives work for many years at the St Pancras play group and
Nursery, Camden.
Thanks are due to Reverend James and Mary Robinson for their assis-
tance in setting up our Muslim and non-Muslim women’s dialogue group
in Hampstead, following the 7/7 bombings in Russell Square. Additionally,
gratitude is due to Dr. Judith Issroff for her support.
It was the generosity of members of the Association of Prenatal and Peri-
natal Psychology and Health, US, who initially edited and published my
Acknowledgements ix
work on prenatal and perinatal psychoanalytic development, which led to
the writing of this book; also, my thanks go to Dr. Thomas Verny and Dr.
Billy Lyman for the opportunities.
Dr. Stanislav Grof, a psychiatrist and Freudian psychoanalyst, deserves
my appreciation for sharing his pioneering and controversial clinical work
with me and a group of 200 others, in relation to perinatal experiences,
whilst located on the deserts and mountains in the US. Dr. Anthony Rob-
erts, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, moreover deserves a huge
thank-you for his invaluable advice over several years.
My thanks are due to members of the psychoanalytic community in Lon-
don and internationally, who have inspired my valuing of psychoanalysis as
the most enriching and challenging psychology around: for their support,
insight, analytic input, opportunities, mentoring and supervision. I have
managed to work intensively for many years, with patients with a diagnosis
of the schizophrenias and psychoses. I must thank Professor Robert Hin-
shelwood for his consistent supervisory encouragement and guidance with
this work. Additional thanks to Mr. Clive Mariner and Ms. Jane Rushton
for their support.
I am also deeply grateful for the clinical learning opportunities opened
up to me, at the Royal Free Hospital in relation to adolescent and elderly
eating disorders and through the staff at South London and Maudsley NHS
Foundation Trust, self-harm outpatients service and psychotherapy depart-
ment at Maudsley Hospital. My gratitude is due specifically to: Mrs. Judith
Lask, Dr. Emanuelle Peters, Mr. Jack Nathan (who, sadly, died October
2019), Dr. Duncan Mclean, Mrs. Penelope Doue, Mrs. Anna Callinan and
Mrs. Carmen Garcia.
Further thanks are due to the staff at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychol-
ogy and Neuroscience, Kings College London, for their support whilst I
have been supervising my research project on adolescent self-harm cessation
and suicidality, to postgraduate students.
Thank you to all the hard-working ward staff on the inpatient psychosis
unit, at Maudsley Hospital, where I work as a group and individual thera-
pist; to all the participants and the patients for the privilege in sharing their
experiences with me, held by me with deep respect.
Warm thanks go to all of the infants, children, young people, parents and
adults with whom I work, past and present. Importantly, to my family and
friends, thank you.