Religious experience and the practice of psychology

commentary on part 4

Olga Louchakova-Schwartz

University of California Davis

pp. 331-339

in: Olga Louchakova-Schwartz (ed), The problem of religious experience, Berlin, Springer, 2019

Abstract

This concluding section to Part 4 of the book The Problem of Religious Experience: Case Studies in Phenomenology discusses the relationship between the descriptive phenomenological research of the meaning of religious experience and the practice of psychotherapy. It is shown that phenomenological findings present the essential meaning-structure of religious experience in a holistic matter: that is, in irreducible lived connections with other aspects of the mind, as well as in the transformative impact of experience on the self. Bellini's research of repentance, and Trajtelová's research of mystical identity in Part 4 are juxtaposed with psychology's attitudes to phenomenology and religious experience, suggesting that psychology represents its own finite province of meaning, which in its highly pragmatic orientation is distinct from the emancipatory finite province of meaning that is religion. Nevertheless, opening the boundaries and admitting the phenomenological clarifications of religious experience into psychology would enhance the latter's diagnostic and healing potential.