Desire in psychoanalysis and religion:

Graham Bull

doi:10.9791/ajpanz.2001.13

Graham Bull

DOI: https://doi.org/10.9791/ajpanz.2001.13

Abstract

Is religion the death of desire and desire the death of religion, or is there some desire that is authentically religious? Lacanian psychoanalysis has a strong ethic of desire. By using the Lacanian concept of desire and applying it to Buddhist ideas on desire and Christian ideas on desire as seen in St John of the Cross, this study attempts to show that the concept of desire has a central place in religious discourse.

The cause of suffering is desire. The way to remove suffering is to remove desire. (Bahm: 1958: 20-21)

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind....You must love your neighbour as yourself. (Matthew: 22:37)

Have you acted in conformity with your desire? (Lacan: 1992: 311)

Author Biography

Graham Bull

As recorded in 2001.

Graham Bull trained as a psychoanalyst at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research (London) and as an intercultural therapist at University College London. Before that he studied phenomenological and existential aspects of psychoanalysis at the Philadelphia Association (London), and anthropology and philosophy at Victoria University, Wellington. He now works privately as a psychoanalyst in Wellington and is also involved in anthropological research into therapeutic aspects of Chinese religious systems.

Desire in psychoanalysis and religion

A Lacanian approach

Abstract

Author Biography