Freud and the Problem of God

By Hans Küng

Book Overview

In this highly acclaimed book, one of the most prominent theologians in the world offers a theological and psychoanalytic assessment of Freud's atheism and of its implications for current psychoanalytic practice.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300023502
• ISBN13: 9780300023503
• Release Date: September 1980
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Profound

This is one of the most thought provoking books I've read in a long time. Kung addresses the historical and current rift between psychiatry, psychoanalysis in particular, and theology. He takes pundits in each camp on and challenges each to reflect on some fundamental assumptions that are out-dated. My one "yes but" has to do with the possibility that even his well framed arguments are a bit out of date in that the book was published before the dot com explosion of the internet. I don't recall any specific reference to Eastern spiritual traditions that are now more commonly understood in the West.

Balanced and friendly critique of Freud

Hans Kung, a Catholic theologian, pays a tribute to Freud and his groundbreaking discoveries, such as theories of libido and human unconscious. But he questions the popular view that Freud was an atheist and did not have a place for religious ideas in the scientific movement that he originated - psychoanalysis. He fights Freud's views of religion as a complex that needs to be treated. Moreover, he argues that although Freud seems outwardly an atheist, but nevertheless his negative experiences with religion, however much they discredit for him Christianity, need not have shaken Freud's Jewish faith in God. This is good and balanced work. A must read for everyone interested in Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian psychology and spirituality.