Ana-María Rizzuto and the Psychoanalysis of Religion

David M. Goodman is associate dean for academic affairs at the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College, teaching associate at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Hospital, and a psychologist in private practice.Martha J. Reineke is professor of religion in the Department of Philosophy and World Religions at the University of Northern Iowa.

Goodman (Boston College) and Reineke (Univ. of Northern Iowa) have assembled a fine collection of essays related to the pioneering work of psychoanalyst Ana-Maria Rizzuto, whose book The Birth of the Living God (1981) transformed the way psychoanalysis approached the topic of religion. The present collection of six essays is in many ways an homage to that book's empirical and clinical interrogation of how representations of God are elaborated over the life-span. Each essay explores a different facet of Rizzuto's contribution to the psychology of religion, considering such topics as atheism, the healing factor in psychotherapy, the therapeutic use of metaphor, and the maternal matrix. A discussion by Rizzuto follows each essay, lending the collection a fresh dialogic dimension. These essays will serve as the best commentary on Rizzuto's important work to date, and will provide clinicians and scholars with material for further speculation on the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion. The interdisciplinary nature of the collection will serve as a model for future scholarship in the fields of religious studies, psychology, and psychotherapy.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction, by Martha Reineke and David GoodmanChapter 1: The Paradigm Shifting Research of Ana-María Rizzuto: Origins, Strategy, Reception, and Horizon, by John McDarghDiscussion, by Ana-María RizzutoChapter 2: Becoming a Believer, Becoming an Unbeliever. The Contribution of Ana-María Rizzuto to the Psychology of Religion in the Light of Clinical Practice, by Mario AlettiDiscussion, by Ana-María RizzutoChapter 3: The Persecuting God and the Crucified Self: The Vital Role of Metaphors in Psychotherapy, by Gry Stålsett, Arne Austad, and Leif Gunnar EngedalDiscussion, by Ana-María RizzutoChapter 4: The Healing Factor in Psychotherapy: An Encounter with Ana-María Rizzuto, by Anthony SternDiscussion, by Ana-María RizzutoChapter 5: Birth of a Living Monster: Rizzuto and the Religious Imagination, by Martha ReinekeDiscussion, by Ana-María RizzutoChapter 6: Ana-María Rizzuto and the New Atheism: Science and Religion in Light of Psychoanalysis, by Jacob WaldenmaierDiscussion, by Ana-María RizzutoConclusion, by Martha Reineke and David GoodmanAbout the Contributors