GETTING TO THE HEART OF LIFE: PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Psychoanalysis is commonly considered a procedure for investigating the mind, a treatment method, and a general theory of mind. This article suggests that psychoanalysis can also satisfy criteria for another, less conventional, framing. Engaging with analysts' accounts, I demonstrate that psychoanalysis is a practice that deals with the most profound questions of life, creates shifts in the way reality is perceived, and even enables unconditional love to arise in the hearts of its practitioners. It can thus be deemed a mode of spiritual practice. Thanks to the recent "spiritual turn" in society, the spirituality inherent in psychoanalysis is now being acknowledged more openly. Yet the argument here is that psychoanalysis was always spiritual in essence, and it is only that today we are able to recognize this.