The Reality and the Image of God in Psychotherapy

Two interpretations are offered of the recent plea for psychotherapists to accept the reality of religious patients’ beliefs. It is argued that it is not completely satisfactory merely to accept such beliefs as phenomenologically valid, and to not accept the possibility that the objects of religious belief in fact exist. By way of case illustrations, some implications for the analysis of transference are pointed out, following the acknowledgment that human interpersonal models represent only one aspect of persons’ religious feelings and beliefs.