“The Relational Unconscious, the Enchanted Interior, and the Return of the Repressed”

Safran, Jeremy D. “The Relational Unconscious, the Enchanted Interior, and the Return of the Repressed.” Contemporary Psychoanalysis 42 (3): 393–412. 2006.

Safran reviews recent works of academic psychology in the area of unconscious and subjective, as opposed to rational, ways of knowing. In America, he claims that trust in inner and unconscious ways of finding meaning in life, versus sensory experience, has its roots in Great Awakening religious movements. He notes that “American culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was a hot-house for religious innovation and experimentation” (402). The appeal of inner truth flourished in Methodist and Baptist forms as well as in Mormonism, Christian Science, and Seventh-day Adventists—all of which “emphasized the potential for access to the divine through inner experience” (394). The author examined Mesmer and Quimby, mind cure movements, and Transcendentalism as models of an “interiorized sense of spirituality” (404). No in-depth arguments are made regarding Christian Science, and it is mentioned almost in passing, suggesting merely that it is an example of an American theological and psychological trust in personal and individual revelation over reason. Safran’s work is included in the bibliography to provide further cultural background during the inception of Christian Science.

ISSN: 0010-7530

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2006.10747112