Seeing God in Our Birth Experiences: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry Into Pre and Perinatal Religious Development 9780367221447, 9780429273490

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Seeing God in Our Birth Experiences

There has been a recent surge in the examination of the evolutionary roots of religious belief, all trying to identify where the human desire to seek the supernatural and the divine comes from. This book adds a new and innovative perspective to this line of thought by being the first to link prenatal and perinatal experiences to the origins of these unconscious underpinnings of our shared images of God. The book poses a groundbreaking paradigm by thinking about our earliest images of God, whether theist or atheist, within a psychoanalytic framework, comparing and contrasting the thought of Freud and that of Rizzuto. It looks at the issue of images of God from a diversity of psychological perspectives, including attachment theory, developmental theory and biopsychosocial perspectives. This analysis leads to the conclusion that in parallel to postnatal findings, uterine and birth experiences can predispose individuals to form God representations later in life, through underpinning affective and environmental factors. This is a bold study of the development of one of humanity’s most fundamental aspects. Thus, it will be of great interest to scholars of the psychology of religion, psychology, psychoanalysis, religious studies and early infant development. Helen Holmes is a clinical and academic supervisor, having written and taught courses at top universities, alongside developing a new approach to self-harm cessation and suicide amongst adolescents. Helen is a group and individual therapist on a psychosis unit at Maudsley Hospital, alongside working in private practice with children, young people, families, couples and adults.

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Seeing God in Our Birth Experiences A Psychoanalytic Inquiry Into Pre and Perinatal Religious Development Helen Holmes

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Helen Holmes The right of Helen Holmes to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-22144-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-27349-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

ContentsContents

Dedicationvii Acknowledgementsviii Prefacex Introduction

1

1 Rizzuto and Freud: parental origins of images of God

12

2 Klein and Bion: the intrauterine in relation to images of God

78

3 The not knowing position in relation to prenatal and perinatal life

144

4 The perinatal origins of images of God

164

5 Epigenesis, attachment and God representations

174

6 The question of prenatal and perinatal underpinnings of God images

179

7 Prenatal religious affect

186

Conclusions

192

Bibliography197 Index215

This book is dedicated to:

DedicationDedication

My dear parents and two brothers.

Acknowledgements

AcknowledgementsAcknowledgements

This book reflects my lifetime curiosity in relation to the intricate, weaving vicissitudes of human dynamics, particularly the parent–infant relationship. Thank you to the copy editors at Routledge, for working diligently to bring this book into fruition. My appreciation is moreover due to my mother and father, MBE, who carefully read through drafts of this book, helping shape its contents. Looking back, my curiosity and my learning have been enhanced through observation, thinking about and reflecting on prenatal and perinatal development and inspired by philosophy and depth psychology, taught at Heythrop College, University of London. I am indebted to my tutors, the Jesuit Dr. Brendan Callaghan, feminist Dr. Kathleen O’Connor, Reverend John McDade, Reverend. Gerard Hughes and Dr. Janice Thomas who to this day ignitein me a deep interest in depth psychology and philosophy of mind and whom remain inspiring philosophers, psychologists and teachers in my life. My interest in early life developed in adulthood through psychoanalytic infant and young child observation at the Anna Freud Centre, UCL and Tavistock Clinic in London – transforming my life in myriad ways and remaining central to my clinical learning and in relation to enhancing my analytic stance. Mainly through the influential thinking of the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London, I trained psychoanalytically, enabling me to work effectively with people in complex situations, trying to help some of the most vulnerable people in our communities: under-fives and their parents, children and adolescents, family groups and adults. In particular, I am grateful to Ms. Shelagh O’Gorman and Margaret for their informed supervision and support of my under-fives work for many years at the St Pancras play group and Nursery, Camden. Thanks are due to Reverend James and Mary Robinson for their assistance in setting up our Muslim and non-Muslim women’s dialogue group in Hampstead, following the 7/7 bombings in Russell Square. Additionally, gratitude is due to Dr. Judith Issroff for her support. It was the generosity of members of the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, US, who initially edited and published my

Acknowledgements  ix work on prenatal and perinatal psychoanalytic development, which led to the writing of this book; also, my thanks go to Dr. Thomas Verny and Dr. Billy Lyman for the opportunities. Dr. Stanislav Grof, a psychiatrist and Freudian psychoanalyst, deserves my appreciation for sharing his pioneering and controversial clinical work with me and a group of 200 others, in relation to perinatal experiences, whilst located on the deserts and mountains in the US. Dr. Anthony Roberts, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, moreover deserves a huge thank-you for his invaluable advice over several years. My thanks are due to members of the psychoanalytic community in London and internationally, who have inspired my valuing of psychoanalysis as the most enriching and challenging psychology around: for their support, insight, analytic input, opportunities, mentoring and supervision. I have managed to work intensively for many years, with patients with a diagnosis of the schizophrenias and psychoses. I must thank Professor Robert Hinshelwood for his consistent supervisory encouragement and guidance with this work. Additional thanks to Mr. Clive Mariner and Ms. Jane Rushton for their support. I am also deeply grateful for the clinical learning opportunities opened up to me, at the Royal Free Hospital in relation to adolescent and elderly eating disorders and through the staff at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, self-harm outpatients service and psychotherapy department at Maudsley Hospital. My gratitude is due specifically to: Mrs. Judith Lask, Dr. Emanuelle Peters, Mr. Jack Nathan (who, sadly, died October 2019), Dr. Duncan Mclean, Mrs. Penelope Doue, Mrs. Anna Callinan and Mrs. Carmen Garcia. Further thanks are due to the staff at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London, for their support whilst I have been supervising my research project on adolescent self-harm cessation and suicidality, to postgraduate students. Thank you to all the hard-working ward staff on the inpatient psychosis unit, at Maudsley Hospital, where I work as a group and individual therapist; to all the participants and the patients for the privilege in sharing their experiences with me, held by me with deep respect. Warm thanks go to all of the infants, children, young people, parents and adults with whom I work, past and present. Importantly, to my family and friends, thank you.

Preface

PrefacePreface

Is there any part of the human mind which still betrays signs of an ‘embryological’ intuition, either visual or auditory? This may seem to be an academic and unimportant matter – unless we think that there may be some truth in the statement made by Freud that there is some connection between post-natal thought and emotional life, and prenatal life. To exaggerate the question for the sake of simplicity; are we to consider that the fetus thinks, feels, or sees, or hears? If so, how primitive can these thoughts, or feelings, or ideas be? (Bion, 1989, p. 42)

In the privacy of the universal living room, fascination with the unknown is demonstrated in the popularity of Convent transmitted by Channel 4 for prime time UK-TV, and on our cinema screens we are likely offered Superman Returns. One may ask, has the contemporary dethroning of the God image led to a craving for celebrity icons in a culture of image (Holmes, 2008)? Protection for the unborn child has been continuously supported from within the Catholic Church, and the question supportively asked, ‘What could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: “Thou shalt not kill” (Pope Pius XI, 1965). Yet women have been fighting to gain the legal choice of motherhood. However, does the legalising of abortion lead to irresponsible uses of its convenience and alongside it a denial of the termination of life involved? There has been a proliferation of interest in the embryo in recent years, yet the evidence may be nebulous. Despite compelling and often well-founded claims by neuroscience, it is important for our awareness to grapple with the possibilities of the underpinnings of the formation of images of God stemming from possible innate and prenatal and perinatal life. The meaning of what is innate needs to be explored and whether this is the same as genetic. We need to consider the power of emotional genetics too unless feelings can be viewed accurately in cellular terms. In short, is God or religion a genetic factor of

Preface  xi human life? Additionally, the meaning of what is understood by ‘evidence’ requires further explication. It is important to question traditional thinking that neonates are neurologically inadequate to register, code and store prenatal and perinatal experiences; to not assume that this is possible; and to be open-minded, as Anna Freud purported, about considering the nature of intelligence in the womb (Chamberlain, 1992). A review of the most notable literature on ­prenatal and perinatal material, observed in psychotherapeutic or psychoanalytic consulting rooms, reveals a range of approaches and exploration, from psychoanalytic work with ‘derivative’ material ensuing dream and transference interpretations, hypnosis, MDMA and LSD-assisted p ­ sychotherapy to rebirthing and primal therapy, all claiming to work directly with prenatal and perinatal material. Taking into account the human lifespan, prenatal and perinatal memories, desires, thoughts, feelings and so on would inevitably be part of the mix of life that would exist but may be more difficult to access. Why would prenatal and perinatal experience be more difficult to gain contact with? Perhaps it is not, and if it is, womb life is perhaps enshrouded in primitive anxieties, alongside the trauma of birth for all concerned. All perspectives raise the problem of veridicality: Are prenatal and perinatal experiences veridical? Can neonates actually register, code and store such early experiences? What, if any, is the degree of correspondence between an alleged prenatal experience and its original? Indeed, are such revivals memory, phantasy or delusion? When does human memory begin? This lattermost question is perhaps increasingly clear due to the developments in neuroimaging. Psychoanalysis has been curious about religion insofar as exploring the formation and ways of functioning in relation to internal objects, and in turn religion opens up in psychoanalysis questions on the nature of faith, doubt, conviction, culture and race, bridging these related areas of thought. In Rizzuto’s book Why Did Freud Reject God? she states that what Freud (1856–1939) did not reveal about his religious evolution emerged in his ideas of the formation and transformation of God representations and that ‘Freud’s religious theories can be read as an unintended psychobiography of his private and unwitting transformation into a “godless Jew” ’ (Rizzuto, 1998, p. 271). In Birth of the Living God, Rizzuto states that her focus of questioning is not of the existence of God but more addressing the study of ‘postulated superhuman beings’ (Rizzuto, 1979, p. 3), perhaps in relation to the superego. Rizzuto uses Winnicott’s perspective, emphasising that God can be considered only an ‘illusory transitional object’ (Rizzuto, 1979, p. 8). My interest in writing this book is about our resistances to illuminating life in the womb and through birth, to encourage more insight into this foundational developmental phase of life. When does religiosity begin? And it poses the possibility of the foetus, with all their sensitivities and established brain, whether their emotional state possibly gives rise to the formation of images and ones that may be godlike. There appears to be a great

xii  Preface deal of resistance to thinking back to issues of early development, perhaps in relation to the darkness of this time, in all senses and the confusion, pain and challenging transitional drama of birth. It appears helpful to consider images of God in the light of object-relations theory, which is a specific psychoanalytic perspective in relation to the psychology of the unconscious which, following Brendan Callaghan, SJ, in private communication generates very helpful insights into how we experience and form images of God, and how in turn these experiences and images shape and influence how we make the key decisions in our lives. It is worth making tentative small steps to explore the unknown and unexamined, and together, we can tentatively step towards the conception of new thoughts, about a phase of life which we all share in, yet so differently. Examining and raising the profile of prenatal and perinatal life seems to be becoming less taboo, with government funding increased for the next five years in perinatal mental health in the UK. In the US, prenatal and perinatal issues seem to have been discussed for many years. Psychoanalysis is increasingly interested in religion, through Freud mainly, but Klein also made notes about religion which were never pursued, now held in the Melanie Klein Archives, London. The perceived variances in prenatal and perinatal experiences may lead to their equivalent variant images of God, but why does this thought raise such doubt?

Introduction

IntroductionIntroduction

Psychologically speaking, God is a secondary object, one built upon the contributions of culture and other experiences with parental objects. The culture offers the word ‘God’ and its multitude of affective and psychic referents. (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 21)

In The Birth of the Living God, Rizzuto (1981) demonstrates the multidetermined nature of ‘the living God’ metaphor across Eastern and Western religions. For Rizzuto, the origins of God representations are diverse, and they are not the outcome of singular perspectives, as claimed by the more exclusive though important attribution or attachment theory. John Bowlby’s three-volume series Attachment and Loss (1907–1990) is an invaluable source for psychological observations, easily applicable to our understanding of the formation of our God representations. A conference at UCL, Psychoanalysis Unit (May 2019) – titled The Future of Neuroscience, Attachment and Mentalizing: from research to clinical practice – ­continues to develop our appreciation of and make links between attachment and neuroscience, with relevance for our understanding of the personality structures forming our God representations. More recent work (Brannigan et al., 2019) on the links between prenatal stress and personality difficulties demonstrates the impact of prenatal stress on one’s offspring’s propensity to develop personality difficulties, and the relevant images of God would perhaps offer more clues in relation to illuminating prenatal and perinatal growth and development. My interest, in writing this book, is in the psychoanalysis of the religious development of the foetus – in particular, the undertheorised mother–infant relationship’s influence in the formation of images of God from conception onwards. This tentative endeavour was inspired by the many observations of infants and their siblings while I was on London transport: September 7, 2019, 11 a.m. I noticed a family of four standing well back from the platform at Golders Green tube station. A handsome brown-skinned father with

2  Introduction thinning dark hair in his late 30s, tall and slim, was wearing a fashionable bright-green t-shirt tucked into faded jeans and wearing brown lace up shoes. He appeared quiet and thoughtful yet alert, standing behind a pram which was facing the track. He smiled, reaching to smooth his hand over his partner’s stomach, who was pregnant at about six months. She returned the smile: she was blond, pretty, tall, slim, authoritative, early 30s, wearing jeans, a t-shirt and sunglasses. There was clearly ease and warmth between them. Once the tube had arrived, the man pushed the chair confidently, containing a seven-month-old-looking boy, to face his mother, who sat on one of two blue fold down chairs, to the right of the tube doors. The seven-month-old boy was dressed in a mid blue t-shirt, jeans, trainers; had brown hair and was quiet and subdued; and was holding his thumb under his lower lip. The father appeared sullen; the father and son hardly held any contact throughout my time observing them. I sat behind the child, opposite his mother. Mother and father held arm contact – her left arm, his right arm horizontal, holding onto each other. The boy looked away, holding his finger near his mouth, subdued. He looked behind himself and held long eye contact with me, holding out his left hand towards me. I smiled at him. The mother tapped her fingernails on the pushchair table smiling, holding the boy’s eye contact. She stopped; the boy looked away subdued. The father appeared subdued looking ahead of himself through the opposite darkened window, the tube speeding through the tunnel. The mother spoke directly to the boy, ‘You haven’t eaten much today, not breakfast’. She turns to the man: ‘He hasn’t, has he?’ The man shakes his head. The mother holds her hand briefly on the boy’s forehead, then strokes his cheek upwards a few times. The boy remains sullen and still. ’I’ll cheer you up’. She takes a bag of apple rice cakes from a white cloth bag, looking directly at the boy. ‘You want one, yes?’ She opens the bag and takes one out, placing it carefully on the tray of the pushchair. The boy picks it up, placing it all in his mouth, widening his mouth and his mother says while laughing, ‘James you put the whole thing in your mouth; it’s too big baby for you; it’s too big, baby’. The father is still holding the mother’s arms and says softly yet distinctly, ‘Yes, James, it’s too big to put in your mouth in one go’. The mother strokes the boy’s cheek again, while he munches on the rice cake then swallows it easily. The boy turns to me, head down, smiling broadly and opens his mouth laughing silently. Again, the mother takes out another rice cake and says ’I’ll give you half this time; it is too big, baby, to put in your mouth all at once’. James picks up the half rice cake and puts it in his mouth. His parents both laugh, his mother squealing, ‘You put it all in your mouth again, but even that’s too big for you, baby’. The father says while laughing, ‘It’s too big for you, baby’. The boy turns towards me grinning, holding his head down and holding direct eye contact with me for ten or so seconds. His mother asks lightly and gently, ’How about

Introduction  3 some milk, baby. Do you want some milk?’ The father laughs briefly and quietly. The boy immediately waves his arms rapidly up and down, smiling, as the mother shakes a small bottle of milk and hands it to the boy. . . . It was my stop and I exited the tube, moved and sad to go. Subsequently, I had been thinking about how the growing baby in utero would be feeling, how the mother was managing her own feelings, those of her unborn baby, her son’s, partner’s, and amid the son and father appearing to mirror one another’s sullenness and sense of exclusion, yet tolerating it silently. The father was clearly happy to have another child on the way, shared by the mother. It is interesting to theorise about how our God images can be traced to early parental relationships and whether there is any evidence for prenatal and perinatal underpinnings contributing to the formation of our images of God in a psychoanalytic paradigm focusing on the unconscious (Holmes, 2008). A psychodynamic framework would appear different, in my opinion – images of God understood psychodynamically can be traced, moreover, to the preconscious and conscious layers of the psyche. Freud’s lifelong interest in religion, shown through his writings (1856– 1939), made a huge contribution to our understanding of religion in relation to the father, though recently, the mother’s input in the religious development of the child has been more comprehensively recognised. It is fortunate to have the grounding work of feminist projects: critical, inclusive and analytical research in the psychology and psychoanalysis of religion. The mother–infant relationship has gained more attention by re-examining women’s psychological active agency in religious life and practice, according to Diane Jonte-Pace, and genderised images of God have been addressed (Jonte-Pace, 1997, p. 64). In psychoanalysis, Freud (1927–1959) never appeared to consider the prenatal and perinatal process as affecting personality development and was clearly influential of the neurological opinion of his day. This opinion was mainly that children lack physiological maturity to appreciate meaningful experiences, until the age of two or three years old. Since the birth experience would seem to be the first experience of heightened anxiety for most, there would be a connection between the birth experience and later anxiety – birth to be considered the prototype of anxiety. At this time, birth was considered unremarkable in its effect on psychological life, alongside Freud, who thought that there was no mental activity at this early stage of life, and therefore, prenatal and perinatal material was considered, in psychoanalysis, to be understood in terms of phantasy, rather than memory, a view held firmly by many today, as discussed by Chamberlain (1983). The historical controversies between Freud and Rank are arguably personally political ones, yet alongside Rank, Winnicott and Fodor dissented from Freud’s opinion. Was Freud right to stand his ground in relation to Rank, finding less significance in the birth process, for understanding human

4  Introduction growth and personality development? The interest here is to pose the possibility, further enriching our reflections on prenatal connections through an exploration of images of God. It is conceivable that many may reject the whole issue of meaning being possible in relation to prenatal and perinatal life. The perinatal process and its impact can be rejected due to a perceived inability to differentiate current experience as linked with birth material. Prenatal life is easy to dismiss as unobservable and therefore unanalysable or insignificant, due to the undeveloped organs at this phase of life. However, groundbreaking work has progressively illuminated this prior era of darkness, whereby the foetus could not be observed, therefore supporting the resistance to thinking that this period of life was unworthy of attention. The first nine or so months in utero are rarely acknowledged when referring to human age, which is an interesting observation in itself. Perhaps the dark, depressing unknown, which the womb presents, is uninviting or not encouraged in dialogue between mother and child, perhaps due to wanting to forget the painful experience of giving birth for many mothers, especially in past generations, where many mothers may have been abandoned throughout pregnancy and birth. On the other hand, pregnancy can be a particularly risky time when domestic violence can erupt, with discontents in terms of role adjustments and possible pre-oedipal jealousies, as described by Freud (Freud, 1900). These are not usually considered in relation to prenatal life, where the parental dynamic with the foetus is perhaps especially powerful. In the unbearably helpless situation of the foetus witnessing, yet protected by the veil of the maternal skin, scenes of distressing domestic violence, the foetus observer may manage such anxieties of de-existing during fights and worse by conjuring up protective, reassuring images, as humans frequently do outside of the womb. For example, a mother recounted how when her father was away during World War Two, she was advised by her mother to soothe her longing for her father to return to the family home by imagining a father in heaven, which she was told was God, and to pray to God in the absence of her father. One is perhaps reminded of Brendan Callaghan’s description of the giant teddy bear in the sky representing the transitional object of the absent parent in a God image, presumably one of a benign, loving figure. Although there has been a paucity of psychoanalytic theory in relation to prenatal psychic experience, currently there have been no attempts to collate and synthesise the existing literature in disparate areas of psychoanalysis and other psychology-related disciplines. Turner has attempted a systematic psychoanalytic exploration of the emotional life of the foetus, which supports the paradigm describing the possibility of the prenatal and perinatal disposition to experience images of God (Turner, 2010). It is worthwhile to reflect upon ones capacity or wish to connect with such primitive, seemingly unrepresentable and inconceivable aspects of the self and the accompanying unrepressed unconscious, as described by

Introduction  5 Bergstein (2013). An encouraging and one can argue revolutionary voice, in relation to this precarious issue of prenatal and perinatal existence, leaving many understandably stuck for words, is that of Bion’s expression of the caesura (1976). In 1926, Freud first coined the phrase ‘caesura of birth’, which was then developed by Bion to discuss the possible continuity from prenatal to postnatal life. The aetiology of postnatal developmental changes in the timings or rate of events and interruptions, alongside the possible linked narcissistic errors, might be associated with ‘anarchic prenatal sensory registrations’ and turbulent movement from foetal to postnatal life, enabling the building of a theory of trauma, as posed by Golse (2016). However, there are five central issues relating to psychoanalytic perspectives on the prenatal and perinatal. First, it can be asked, what is meant by re-experiencing or reliving prenatal and perinatal experiences? How has significance attributed or meaning made sense of such experiences due to the subjective nature of purported prenatal and perinatal experiences? Second, are such experiences veridical? Can neonates actually register, code and store prenatal and perinatal experiences? What, if any, is the degree of correspondence between an alleged prenatal or perinatal experience and the original experience? Are such ‘re-experiences’ memory, phantasy or delusion? When does human memory begin? Third, is it beneficial to re-experience prenatal and perinatal experiences? Is it harmful? If so, when, for whom, under which circumstances and in which ways? This speaks to a problem of outcome evaluation. Fourth, do prenatal and perinatal experiences have a general and enduring effect on human personality development and therefore on the formation of images of God? Are prenatal and perinatal experiences universally traumatic? Does a traumatic birth have lasting ill-effects? This issue addresses the psychological reactivity to the prenatal and perinatal experiences and subsequently how they influence the formation of God representations. Fifth, if prenatal and perinatal experiences are more complicated than phantasy, then how do they occur? Are these remembered experiences simple extensions of memory? Are there particular laws controlling the recollection of prenatal and perinatal experiences? One may wonder why the recall of prenatal and perinatal experiences are so rare. What is the relationship between prenatal and perinatal experiences and other psychic experiences? This last point seeks to investigate the problem of the mechanism by which purported prenatal and perinatal experiences operate in relation to images of God. Psychological perspectives in religious development include many competing theories, the most influential articulated in psychoanalytic theory (Rizzuto, Freud, Bion and Jung), learning theory (behavioural), humanistic theory (Erikson and Allport), cognitive theory (Piaget, Fowler, Oser and Gmunder) and moral developmental theory (Gilligan and Kohlberg). This discussion compares some of these theories, with an especial interest in the psychoanalytic, alongside recognising the crucial significance of attachment

6  Introduction and attribution theory to our comprehension of the formation of God representations, encompassing ‘subjective psychodynamics but also complex social, cultural and intergenerational phenomena’ (Rizzuto, 1991, p. 47). Importantly, the formation of images of God possibly stemming from prenatal and perinatal development can be thought about in relation to the structure of the personality in psychoanalytic theory (McLean, 2019). Advances in neuroscience have brought the religious unconscious more into awareness, bridging an important divide between science and religion. How has neuroscience brought the religious unconscious further into awareness? First, it is important to acknowledge how religious beliefs have a profound and pervasive impact on physical and psychical health, alongside diet choices, mating preferences and financial habits. Arguably, the twenty-first century has given birth, or given new life, to different scientific perspectives on religion that stem from sources rich in anthropology, cognitive theories and neuroscience, in relation to multifaceted aspects of religious experiences and ways of living. Neuroscientific understandings of religious experience can tend to be overly focused on theistic manifestations of religion, mostly commonly discussed in Western societies. What is lacking is, perhaps, a more detailed understanding of the complexity of religious phenomena before concluding about its questionable functions, as posed by McNamara and colleagues (2010). Taking into account Sue Gerhardt’s (2004) findings, among others, new understandings of how love is expressed through sensitive physical holding show that such behaviour can reportedly profoundly affect the way that brain connections are formed in early infancy. Thinking then about the development of the brain stem for the growing foetus in the womb would lead one to conclude that a similarly holding experience would greatly benefit how the brain becomes wired, including adverse impingements on foetal development, whether through physical intoxicants such as tobacco, alcohol and other drugs or the less tangible emotional impacts, through the felt threat from domestic violence or sexual assaults. Kleinian thinking and the emphasis on phantasy is helpful in considering how innate and early development, such as life in the womb, develops. There has been a recent shift in emphasis, acknowledging the impact of environment on mental life; from the Kleinian perspective, the environmental influence is increasingly understood as the environment in the mind. It is helpful to consider the influences affecting the internal mind environment in relation to the formation of images of God and how much of those that manifest in adult life have traces from early development stemming back to life in the womb. For some, this idea can be easily dismissed. Our lives are likely to be at their most vulnerable and therefore most impressionable in the first trimester, when cells are first forming. It is an ongoing issue of resistance, perhaps, to being able or willing to contemplate the hours, days and weeks before birth as possibly manifesting oedipal relations. Of course, where there are twins or more in utero, the oedipal configuration is further

Introduction  7 complicated, just as where there is a death in utero, alongside in relation to the formation of images of God. Gladly, there are growing numbers of researchers able to investigate further, and it is just as important to think about the development of prenatal psychic life, which this book encourages. This hypothesis postulates that the origins of God representations can be traced to early perhaps innate parental influences and that uterine and birth experiences impacting on our personality development possibly predisposes the individual to form God images later in life. The origins of our God representations are traced, at least, to early parental influences, as advocated in the differing perspectives of Rizzuto and Freud. It is considered viable that Rizzuto’s redress of postnatal, maternal influences on our God representations can be pursued further back in our developmental life history, with parallels in the prenatal developmental factors relating to the mother–­foetus dyad in relation to the formation of our God representations. Thinking about the psychical life in the womb for the foetus and their relations with mother, both internally and externally, alongside relations with the external father or caregiver, gives rise to early oedipal configurations perhaps not yet thought about. Klein’s (1946) formulation of conflicting feelings, in the paranoid-­schizoid and depressive positions, helps to illuminate how the former, earlier p ­ sychical position in human development can be used to trace emotional and psychological experience in relation to the formation of images of God. Klein characterises the paranoid-schizoid position, with reference to part–object relationships. In relation to understanding the creation of images of God, part objects can be understood as a function of the defence mechanism of splitting that takes place in phantasy. Thus, a bridge is formed between prenatal psychological existence and later mental life in relation to images of God. From Vatican II emerged The Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World; Gaudium et Spes. Article 51 states ‘Therefore, from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care, while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes’. The 1869 thinking of Pope Pius IX continues to influence current Roman Catholic thinking on the ethical status of a human being. While David Alton has opposed stem cell research, it is the Mary Warnock report of 1984 that has decisive influence on allowing embryonic research to go ahead. It is clear that from genetic inheritance alone that the person is distinct from conception, and with an emphasis on the Annunciation where the Divine Logos becomes human, human potentiality starts from this point, at conception. The necessity of highlighting the importance of prenatal and perinatal life in psychoanalysis is illuminated by Allen, Lewinsohn, and Seeley (1998), who were concerned with the relations between a variety of prenatal and perinatal incidents and the risk for psychopathology in relation to heredity. They investigated maternal experiences, health and use of substances through pregnancy, complications from obstetrics, practices of feeding and

8  Introduction infant mental health during the first year of life post-birth. Allen and colleagues (1998) conducted a study of diagnoses of offspring; the data were collated through structured interviews of 379 adolescents on two occasions. There was an association recognised between a range of prenatal and perinatal aspects and adolescent psychopathology. For example, depression was linked with not having been breast fed and emotional problems in the mother during pregnancy, and anxiety was found to be associated with illness and fever in the first year of life, alongside a history of stillbirth and miscarriage. Behaviour disorders deemed disruptive were linked with inadequate maternal emotional health during the pregnancy, whereas the risk for substance misuse was found to be associated with substance use during pregnancy. There is a global proliferation of scientific and therapeutic interest in foetal life suggesting that cellular embryonic experiences have a lasting impact over the lifespan. If this is the case, then uterine experiences can colour the formation of our images of God. It is deemed important to grapple with the prenatal and perinatal research available, mainly within the framework of the psychoanalytic thinkers: Rizzuto, Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Erikson, Bowlby and others, in order to explore the possible impact of prenatal life on the religious development of the individual in relation to their parents and images of God. In 1983 and again in 1996, Raymond Paloutzian observed that of all the topics examined by current psychoanalysts of religion; the most neglected, disputed and open for theoretical treatment was that of religious development across the lifespan. A systematic examination of theories of religious development across the lifespan is needed. To elucidate the patterns of religious development across the lifespan, theorists select significant factors thought to affect religious development and facts, from individual case histories, and organise them in a particular theory-based way to account for or explain the observed patterns. Theorists need to claim a particular relevance for their conceptualisations. For example, Rizzuto (1991) proposes that psychoanalysis occupies a unique position in the systematic study of religious development. Its methods permit access to the subjective, individual aspects of the development of belief and of the relationship to the divinity, as well as the critical moments of their developmental reorganisation. Arguing for the relevance of Erikson’s approach, Zock (1990) maintains that because Erikson considers religion ‘to be a human potential or capacity, oriented towards human fulfilment, the question of the function of religion in the whole of individual and societal development comes into view in a meaningful way’ (Zock, 1990, p. 226). On the other hand, Fowler (1991) gives priority to faith development and conceives of faith as a universal dynamic quality of human meaning making

Introduction  9 in ‘each individual’s centre of values, images of power, and master stories. Faith develops in stages towards a point of maximal individuation of the self and corresponding minimisation of the personal ego as the standpoint from which evaluations are made’. Alternately, Oser and Gmunder (1991) emphasise that ‘religious judgement is the way o which an individual reconstructs his or her experience from the point of view of a personal relationship with an Ultimate (God)’. For them, religious development is especially concerned with the age-related meaning-making qualities of this reconstruction. To a certain extent, Rizzuto and Freud agreed with each other in tracing the origins of God representations to early oedipal relations. Freud understood God, in the vein of ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ (Ricoeur, 1970, p. 32), from an historical and deterministic perspective, tracing psychic phenomena to their rationalistic and biological roots and origins as ‘an exalted father’. Throughout his life, Freud was interested in writing about the origins and unconscious aspects of religion. This fact is often missed by those who consider that Freud’s postulations about religion bringing groups of people together and in relation to being an illusion equate to a lack of interest, which evidently is not the case. Freud’s differing perspectives on religion run throughout his works; however, they are most explicitly expressed in Totem and Taboo (1912), Future of an Illusion (1927) and Civilisations and Its Discontents (1930). Alternately, Rizzuto’s deconstructionist interpretation is grounded in early object relations (especially Winnicott) and is more inclusive of other experiences, especially recognising the role of the mother in our configurations of God. Rizzuto stated that the personal God of our private considerations predates the God of organised religion, ‘when the child forms in the first five years of life the basic self and object representations that are to colour his or her entire life experience’ (Rizzuto, 1991, p. 49). It is therefore, according to Rizzuto, our parental relationships that influence the formation of our God representations in diverse ways. Through a firm academic and therapeutic commitment to shedding light on the prenatal stages of religious development, the following question will be addressed: Is there any evidence to support how our God representations can be understood in prenatal and perinatal terms? Rizzuto indicates that a child is ready to understand religion at the age of six, and yet she is also right that a child cannot conceivably arrive at church without preformed dispositions towards a godhead, perhaps predating birth (Rizzuto, 1991, p. 49). John Rowan wrote that ‘it appears quite unarguable now that consciousness does begin to develop in the womb’ and that ‘it is extraordinary that with all the research which has now been done in neuroscience, books are still appearing which do not recognise . . . that birth is not only experienced, but can also have a great effect upon the adult’ (Rowan, 2005, p. 62). However, as stated earlier, the main focus of this exposition is that there are links between the psychoanalytic life of the foetus in the womb and the formation of images of God. To understand prenatal links

10  Introduction with God representations, it is necessary to explore the personality development underlying our God representations, as McLean (2019) has suggested. Freud considered God representations to be based on illusion – defensive wish fulfilment – and delusion – belief based on wish fulfilment counter to reality (Callaghan, 2003, p. 24). Rizzuto, in contrast, posits creative aspects to illusion. It is important to differentiate between God representations in their solipsist and cultural contexts, as personal and social constructs and the objective reality that conceivably exists as ultimate truth, as God. Plato’s forms offer examples of the ideal, but our God representations appear disconnected from the true essence of God. In this way, what follows is not concerned with whether God exists but with whether prenatal life can be possibly linked with the formation of imagery that is psychoanalytically linked with God. Freud’s consideration of prenatal and perinatal experience appears linked to his interest in anxiety. The issue of anxiety ‘is a nodal point, linking up all kinds of most important questions – a riddle of which the solutions must cast a flood of light upon our whole mental life’ (Freud: 1920/1935, p. 401). Freud recognised the significance of birth, since it is ‘the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety’ (Strachey, 1959, p. 10). Freud acknowledged the connection between anxiety and birth but thought that it should not be ascribed to ‘undue stress’. Theimportance of birth to psychical development is highlighted through the instincts of sexuality and aggression, through a phylogenetically inherited predisposition to anxiety, which influences the formation of images of God. Such a disposition to anxiety which is, perhaps, transgenerationally and intergenerationally transmitted, is inescapably and thoroughly ingrained in the human mind, via many generations and by castration and the Oedipus complex, subsuming the most peripheral experiences of birth. Freud emphasised that anxiety breaking through is not necessarily a reproduction of the perinatal situation in the psyche: ‘there is no place for the abreaction of the birth trauma’ (Freud, 1927/1959, p. 64). Brendan Callaghan, clinical psychologist, Jesuit priest and former principal of Heythrop College, University of London, in his article Do Teddy Bears Make Good Spiritual Directors? offers John McDargh’s summary of Rizzuto’s research findings of God images, grouped under three headings (Callaghan, 2003, p. 26). John McDargh (1997, pp. 181–199) summarises Rizzuto: 1 ‘No one coming to awareness in a society where the symbol ‘God’ has any cultural currency is without a conscious or unconscious object representation of God’. 2 ‘The object representations of God are not simply derived from the child’s experience of the historical father, and once fashioned, they do not remain static and unchanging. Rather, they are available for further

Introduction  11 elaboration, revision, refashioning, or rejection in ways related to the function they are called upon to serve at any given moment’. 3 ‘It is important to distinguish the more preconscious, imaginal, primary process dimensions of an individual’s “God” from the more public, secondary process, conceptual elaborations of “God” ’. There are two prominent strands to this exposition. First, it is important to trace the postnatal origins of God representations to early parental influences, mainly through the work of Rizzuto, Freud and Klein. Second, the possibility of there being prenatal dispositions to the formation of God representations will be explored. Rizzuto’s singular reference to birth in her book demonstrates her recognition of the overriding influence of relationship in the formation of our God representations. John Bowlby’s theory of attachment and separation through the relationship of the birth process is crucial to our unfolding understanding of configurations of God over our lifespan. The affective dimension of religious experience will be explored – an unexamined area of psychoanalytic practice. Erikson’s developmental application of epigenetic psychosocial phases of development, brings into focus his bipolar perspective of basic characteristics of personality structure – especially trust versus mistrust in the mother– infant relationship, with parallel implications for foetal development, which is discussed in relation to the formation of God representations. It is claimed that the psychosocial stages illuminated by Erik Erikson are a useful enabling approach for discovering prenatal and childhood injuries that affect the psychical development of images of God. The first four psychosocial stages – trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt and industry versus inferiority – are explored to demonstrate how Erikson’s model of human development may be valuable to our understanding of how adversity can have an influence on our images of God.

1 Rizzuto and Freud

Rizzuto and FreudRizzuto and Freud

Parental origins of images of God

‘The evidence shows first of all that God is represented as a complex unity holding the two parental dimensions in tension. Although, in Christian language, God is addressed as father, God is, just as well, a maternal figure in virtue of his immediate, available, and welcoming presence’. (Vergote & Tamayo, 1981, p. 207)

With reference to the Oxford English Dictionary (c.f. online listing) representation means ‘presence, bearing, air’, ‘an image, likeness or reproduction’, ‘appearance, impression on the sight’ or ‘action or act of exhibiting in some visible image or form’. Using the same source, God refers to ‘a superhuman person (regarded as masculine) who is worshipped as having power over nature and the fortunes of mankind: a deity’. To make into a god is to deify, to worship as a god. The specific Christian and monotheistic sense of ‘God’ is ‘The One object of supreme adoration; The Creator and Ruler of the Universe’. In summary, representation ‘refers to anything which stands for, or represents, something else . . . the ideas we form of the world around us, the mental images we construct’ (Fraser & Burchell, 2001, p. 272). When considering the Latin etymology of the word religion, being religare, meaning to bind together, one can make allusions not only to the foetus binding its mind and body together biologically but also to the additional social connections made with the voices of the family outside, if not siblings in utero, such as twins, triplets and so on. Therefore, from the earliest phases of life, the foetus is becoming connected with social life, and its religious development has begun, since there is no society devoid of a form of religion; even where atheism may predominate, this is considered a position within a religious framework of language. Tamminen (1991) considered the complex issue of defining religiousness and religious development in terms of separating out the concepts religious and development as having many meanings, influenced by the perspective from which these terms are thought about, whether from the viewpoint of the psychological, sociological, sociopsychological or theological.

Rizzuto and Freud  13 The most natural perspective is that of the religious developmental psychology, including psychoanalytic inquiry. Some studies use attitudinal theory as the reference point to define the arena of religiousness, in relation to the cognitive, affective, conative and behavioural. However, in relation to the foetus, it is relevant to consider the possible depth of religious experience at this early phase of life, which is not analysable through the attitudinal perspective. Religious experience can be viewed as the depth level of life or questioning in relation to the essential meaning of life, ‘one’s ultimate personal concern’ (Tillich, 1963, 1984). Richard Hunt and Morton King consider all behaviour to be an expression of religiousness, since an individual’s religious perspective is communicated through behaviour, in terms of their prioritisation of the most fundamental questions (Hunt & King, 1971). However, such a wide definition would appear to include everything, no longer distinguishing religiosity from the non-religious (Elkind, 1971). However, it is commonly held that all human thought and action is political, and therefore, the same can be said of human thought and action in relation to religion, covering the personal, social, political and belief dimensions of life. When focusing on the question of the possibility of the foetus being able to conjure up images of God in utero, or the disposition to do so, there are the parallels in a definition of religiousness to those of recognised developmental human needs. For example, Tamminen (1991) considered that an adequate definition of religiousness would be in relation to a More or less conscious dependency on a deity/God and the t­ ranscendent. This dependency or commitment is evident in one’s personality – experiences, beliefs and thinking – and motivates one’s devotional practice and moral behaviour and other activity. (Tamminen, 1991, p. 2) Glock and Stark collated different aspects of religiousness on the basis of the experiential dimension of religious experience, including feelings and experiences associated with a deity or God, often expressed as longing for faith, the meaning of life or consciousness of the divine reality or as trust and faith. The ideological aspect of this model links with a commitment to religious beliefs, while the intellectual trajectory is linked with religious knowledge. Glock and Stark’s ritualistic dimension concerns religious practices, including private devotion and public celebration at church, for example. Finally, the consequential dimension of this model is interested in the way that the other aspects influence the individual’s everyday life (Glock & Stark, 1965). Although there is a clear argument distinguishing humanness from that which is religious and arguments against reducing religiosity to psychology, faith can be considered as trust. Furthermore, where Allport (1950, 1966) indicates intrinsic religiousness, it is implied that faith is internalised, permeating one’s entire life, just as psychoanalysis recognises how infants and

14  Rizzuto and Freud children have internalised their object relations. Surely such a process of internalisation, possibly starting in utero, is akin to the start of internalising the parental couple. Tamminen (1991) defined religious development: we understand quantitative and qualitative changes that occur with age in an individual’s or a group’s religiousness, religious commitment, the different aspects of religiousness and the interrelations between and emphasis given to these aspects. (Tamminen, 1991, p. 6) Surely, through a religious developmental lens, religiosity starts in utero, and if not, when is it proposed to start? Perhaps the question is one of the emergence of consciousness. Western psychoanalysis does not as yet have a single perspective from which to view the human person and development across the lifespan. Many competing and informative theories of developmental psychology prevail, namely psychoanalytic theory, learning theory, humanistic theory and cognitive theory (Berger, 1988). Additionally, Kohlberg formulated stages of moral development. In terms of religious development in relation to applications of human development, we can distinguish attempts to apply existing theories of human development to those of religious development throughout the lifespan, including the foetal phase, by the extent to which theorists emphasise the emotional: the psychoanalytic and analytic theories of Freud, Jung and Rizzuto; social-contextual theories, such as the neo-psychoanalytic and humanistic theories of Erikson and Allport; ­ ­cognitive-behavioural/moral theories, such as the structural-­developmental stage-based theories of Fowler and Oser and Gmunder; and combinations and extensions of these. An informative overview of these applications can be found in the papers of Reich (1992) and Watts, Nye, and Savage (2002). To elucidate the patterns of religious development across the lifespan, theorists have selected significant factors and facts from individual case histories and organised them in a particular theory-based way that accounts for or explains the observed patterns. Theorists tend to claim a particular relevance for their conceptualisations. For example, Rizzuto (1991) proposes that psychoanalysis occupies a unique position in the systematic study of religious development. Its methods permit access to the subjective, individual aspects of the development of belief and of the relationship to the divinity, as well as the critical moments of their developmental organisation. On the other hand, arguing for the relevance of Erikson’s approach, Zock (1990) maintains that because Erikson considers religion ‘to be a human

Rizzuto and Freud  15 potential or capacity, oriented towards human fulfilment, the question of the function of religion in the whole of individual and societal development comes into view’ in a meaningful way (Zock, 1990, p. 226). Fowler, on the other hand, gives priority to faith development and conceives of faith as a universal, dynamic quality of human meaning making ‘in terms of each individual’s centre of values, images of power and master stories. Faith develops in stages towards a point of maximal individuation of the self and corresponding minimisation of the personal ego as the standpoint from which evaluations are made’ (Fowler, 1991). Oser and Gmunder (1991) emphasise that ‘religious judgement is the way in which an individual reconstructs his or her experience from the point of view of a personal relationship with an Ultimate (God)’. Religious development, therefore, is especially concerned with the age-related, meaning-making qualities of this reconstruction. Alongside such theories, Rodney Bomford wrote about God and the unconscious, which summarises his book The Symmetry of God, proposing that the concepts of God in the Christian tradition and in relation to the unconscious in Freudian terms are similar. Specifically, mystics may be viewed as explorers of the unconscious into consciousness. Matte Blanco’s perspective of the logic of the unconscious supports this. At times, theology is considered to turn to philosophy in relation to ‘models’ of God, and using the unconscious opens discussion between the psychological and spiritual understanding of humanity. The language of faith may be more accessible than that of traditional Christian narratives (Bomford, 2002). It is fascinating to consider the possible origins of our images of God stemming from parental representations and the history of our knowledge of these, in wider relation to how these have been, possibly, transgenerationally and socially constructed, alongside intergenerational and internal impacts. In Augustine’s philosophy of mind (Gerard O’Daly, 1987), there are only two subjects of philosophical enquiry, namely God and the soul: knowledge of God is knowledge of the creator of humankind – his ‘source’, where knowledge of his soul is self-knowledge. Human knowing itself will also know its source and ‘looking towards the Good it will know itself’ (5.6, 5.17). We can also look to the Book of Genesis, which is the biblical doctrine of humankind’s creation in God’s image. Similarly, Plotinus considered that the human mind and soul, although not identifiable with the One, are ‘divine’ extensions of the hypostases, with which in some way they create continuity. Augustine states clearly that he thinks that there is no continuity existent between God as ‘other’, in relation to being immutable and transcendent and the transience and changeability of human nature and even that of human reason (Confusius, 7.16). This poses a rational understanding of God, which could not possibly be more than partial (Confusius, 13.12), one that is achieved by relevant, directed self-knowledge, which conceives

16  Rizzuto and Freud of God as within, where the mind will transcend self-knowledge, in terms of gaining even such incomplete understanding of the divine. For Augustine, there appears to be no dichotomy between the search for self-knowledge and knowledge of God, which does differentiate between understanding the human soul to contemplate divine substance. There are differences between Augustine and other fourth-century Christian Platonist thinkers, such as Marius Victorinus (O’Daly, 1987, p. 2), which may explain the consubstantiality of the three divine figures of the Trinity, through its image of the ternary structure of the human soul, through its being, life and understanding. Victorinus was interested in the soul, in relation to an ontological reality: an image of divine substance and therefore of the structure of being. Augustine identified ternary schemes, which were analogous to the divine Trinity of which the soul is the image in the soul. Augustine’s schemes are psychological, for example in relation to the existence, knowledge, will, mind, knowledge, love, memory, understanding and will, which is not translated into ontological or metaphysical terms. O’Daly accounts for Augustine’s questions as being traditional in terms of Greek and Roman philosophy: What is the soul’s origin or source? Is soul a material substance? What are embodied souls? Is God a necessity, or is our will responsible for our souls’ embodiment? What is the nature of the symbiosis of body and soul, and what are the consequences for the latter? Is soul mortal or immortal? What is its relation to God? What is the soul’s destiny after its apparent separation from the body at death (Beata, VI; Ord, 2.17; Quantan, 1)? What do we know about the soul’s pre-existence and reincarnation (Ser, 240.4f; Civ, 18.41)? The soul is considered, in Augustine’s view, a created substance, not a part of divine substance, which is immaterial and immortal but not immutable. It is not embodied in consequence of any sins committed in a previous existence. On other questions, Augustine is more hesitant, in relation to whether souls are created individually, as each new life comes into existence, or are created in advance and become implanted at the appropriate moment by God or conceived of our parent’s souls as our bodies are conceived. Furthermore, Augustine considered that the soul is about the coherence of its faculties of memory, understanding and will and that cooperation is characteristic of all human behaviour. These human faculties are pertinent to both psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, which are two different theoretical paradigms: the former thinks about an emotional event in detail and greater depth, whereas the latter seems to be more experiential in terms of emotional engagement. Both helping approaches differ from other paradigms, in relation to the therapist being required to facilitate the use of their own self and identity in terms of emotional reactions, to reflect on possible understandings of the patient’s emotional position. It can further be argued that psychoanalysis and religion appear mutually incompatible paradigms yet are often considered from

Rizzuto and Freud  17 those within each organisation as similar in relation to their respective structure of beliefs. In relation to metaphors of religious development, according to Hermans, Kempen, and van Loon (1992), the essence of metaphor is that interpretative patterns from one domain of experience are projected into another domain of experience. Conceived in such a way, metaphor is not merely a linguistic mode of expression; it is one of the chief cognitive structures producing coherent and ordered experiences. (Hermans et al., 1992) Having surveyed past and recent literature on religious development across the lifespan, including the prenatal phase, further questions are raised in terms of ‘ways of being religious’ and ‘religious development’ beyond the modern paradigm, by examining an application of Popper’s root metaphor theory to this domain of human development and experience. This may be achieved by exploring how different religious orientations can be seen to be a function of the ways people integrate cognitive, affective and volitional processes in their religious development, which impacts the foetus. Other areas of interest here are the identification of values and assumptions underlying theories and concepts in religious development and the application of theories across different domains, such as in relation to intrauterine life. In terms of metaphors of human development, Pepper’s root metaphor theory offers us an understanding of the different worldviews or philosophical and psychological frames of reference that people use when reflecting different assumptions concerning the nature of psychological phenomena and the process of change. In relation to metaphors of religious development, there are considerations of the epistemological and affective bases that ground a consideration of ‘different ways of being religious’ that may be relevant to foetal life and the fundamental analogical or metaphoric reasoning associated with these processes and styles. It has previously been discussed how the foetus is starting to be socialised in the womb and is able to hear sounds internal and external to the womb. Included in this influence is the religious life of an individual which may be oriented around the ensemble of beliefs, customs, rituals, ceremonies, devotions and prayers, which commonly express and integrate local culture and religious symbolism. This adaptation of culture and religious expression may be designated a folk religion, since those who are characterised by this religious style ground their actions and root their lives in the past, in their own traditions and in what is familiar, as denoted by Vergote (1982). Psychoanalysis and the more traditional counterpart of religion both meet the human need for comfort, encouragement and compassion, alongside

18  Rizzuto and Freud meaning, certainty and security. Freud did not consider psychoanalysis a Weltanschauung (Freud, 1933, p. 158) and was further unwilling to position himself as a prophet: I have not the courage to rise up before my fellow-men as a prophet, and I bow to their reproach that I can offer them no consolation: for at bottom that is what they are all demanding – the wildest revolutionaries no less passionately than the most virtuous believers. (Freud, 1930, p. 145) On the one hand, Freud was willing to diagnose religious belief, and on the other, he illuminated possibilities for understanding belief in religion. In Totem and Taboo, he writes that ‘the beginnings of religion, morals, society and art converge in the Oedipus complex’ (Freud, 1912–13, p. 156), and it is clear that psychoanalysis needs to explore further back to the prepre-Oedipus complex, as defined by Freud and then Klein respectively – to its earlier manifestation in utero, when the foetus can hear and possibly sense their parents, and in coitus, when is excluded from their sight and direct touch. At this point in foetal development, one can imagine the primitive mental states, and as Peter Torney writes, it gradually begins to build a primitive picture of its experience, and these images become attached to what must be deeply felt bodily states and desires. . . . the infant has no such linguistic capacity to map out its experience, just an ever-increasing range of images conveyed through the senses that become attached to its bodily feelings states. (Torney cited in Ekins & Freeman, 1994, pp. 146–147) From a Freudian perspective, Torney explicates that the foetus’s bodily functions, such as feeding and evacuating, are interwoven into the foetus’s symbolic worldview and discussed in terms of the oral, anal and pre-oedipal attachments. Torney considers that the foetus’s physical experiences, including close contact with a primary carer and its absence and how the foetus manages such intense states, will have wide-ranging influences on personality. Such states build up ‘an internal representational world that is as intense as it is chaotic, involving an attempted synthesis of extreme physical states with crude imagery’; Torney reflects that this is ‘a form of primitive symbolism, where the desire to preserve and retain pleasurable imagery has its bodily prototype in oral incorporation, and the desire to escape from or to expel unpleasurable imagery has its bodily prototype in anal expulsion’ (Torney, cited in Ekins & Freeman, 1994, p. 147). It can be argued that such primitive bodily based mental states form the foundation of the human capacity to think and symbolise. This author argues that the foetal phase of development indicates the pre-pre-oedipal in this way and not the pre-oedipal stage of development.

Rizzuto and Freud  19 Such a development of the foetus-infant-child’s internal world of primitive preverbal imagery continues to interact with the ever-increasing social world, which presumably becomes much more vivid and palpable after birth, where sight and direct touch enter the equation. These experiences are moulded and domesticated by the social acceptance in the cultural world, when moral sensibility is established and developed in the foetal-infant-child’s mind. It seems clear that the longings for the mother and annihilatory urges towards the member of the opposite gender conceivably begin in utero. Torney does not reach far enough back in his explorations but progresses the psychoanalytic examination of infantile aspects of religious development by courageously stating that it is preferable to speak of ‘a God shorn of our infantile projections than to worship some composite figure that owes more to our unconscious motivations than to revelation’ (Torney, cited in Ekins & Freeman, 1994, p. 168). It is further poignant to recognise the impact of foetal life in relation to organisational dynamics, a subject of much interest in psychoanalysis. When thinking about the religious life of an individual, this may also be oriented around the conviction that specific historical forms and structures are vehicles for the purposes of God in the world. These people devote energy and religious exercise to preserving those sacred forms. Since authority is vested in sacralised structures, their religious life may be designated a religion of authority. Those who are characterised by this religious style affiliate with institutions that they assume carry the weight of God’s presence and are loyal to authorised power, as articulated by Crapps (1986a). In relation to religious symbolism and metaphor, Crapps alternately (1986) poses a further expression of metaphors of religious development, conveyed through ‘the religion of becoming; the way of affirmation’. Psychologically and in this religious style, the religion of becoming emerges out of the ashes of religion of authority. Attention becomes focused on reality behind forms, both old and new. Being religious becomes a pilgrimage in which process itself is the agenda. This is the stuff out of which religion of becoming is constructed. Religion is here built upon the conviction that the good life is being continuously called into being. It affirms the processes of history and the significant role that people have in bringing divine purposes to pass. Foetal life is born through and into a religious process of becoming – in contrast to that of authoritarianism. Additionally, Crapps (1986b) portrays the religion of spontaneity: this life-style centres on self-transcending experiences. Since its goal is to not move beyond the self, which is confined to time and space, the way may appropriately be thought of and understood in broad terms as a way of mysticism. This perspective appears different from that of the object-relations school and yet may be akin to a spiritual outlook, yet not one where the structure of the self is considered in relation to personality and associated imagery. A main link between foetal and religious development is arguably that of human growth, through faith in a continuity of being, associated with belief

20  Rizzuto and Freud in future life. James Day (1993) wrote from a constructionist, structuralist and narrative perspective, highlighting the performance aspects of religious language. He considered that to understand belief, we need to study language and relational aspects. Although religious language is one way of communicating belief, surely the more cognitive aspects are based on a wish to survive, stemming way back in human development to life in the womb. It can be argued that there are predispositions of attachment of the foetus to the mother and consummate the child’s earliest experiences of their mother, as a prenatal start. From the child’s experiences, these lay the foundations of primitive relations and of elemental development of affect, where there is no reasoning but where there are distinct bodily affects and emotional impact. At this stage, it is possible for an image of God to evolve and be more relevant later on in life, with its outcomes in psychopathology, with deficits shown in images of God that can change. David Black (1962) considers ‘The God I want’ and how religious believers can, as fundamentalists may, he claims, feel threatened when having their religious worldviews challenged. This would surely be relevant to those who hold fundamentalist beliefs, alongside other religious beliefs, but would be more extremely invested in by the former. Presumably, such believers who have structured their emotional, social and cognitive world in line with particular forms of narratives and aphorisms would be potentially unsettled by then having these questioned. However, there is a particular quality to structures imbibed in the personality, where questions cannot any longer be asked, possibly leading to an altered view, through growth and development. On the other hand, reflecting on the possible historical pain at issue, leading to such belief structures may assist in further understanding the possibility, or not, of putting religious beliefs into words. Challenging religious views inevitably challenges the personal and possibly infantile, requiring careful, sensitive and skilled handling, not always possible in everyday life and outside psychoanalytic training. One can imagine and gain a sense of the degree of vulnerability involved, which may be threatening in relation to the ‘nameless dread’, or psychotic like horrors and terrors, which Bion attributed to the uncontained baby (Bion, 1967). It would need careful thought and skill, in a safe and secure analysis or psychotherapy, to work through such possible infantile feelings, which could be understood in terms of an involving repudiation of reality; or as Freud provocatively and perhaps courageously stated, religious beliefs are ‘fairy tales’ (Freud, 1927). Furthermore, David Black, (1962, p. 3) considered then that we are entering a ‘new age’ of religious thought made possible by the confluence of different religious and scientific traditions which can now, for the first time, meet with an attitude of mutual respect. So disturbing is this development that we are tempted to retreat from it into an idealisation of familiar things: religious people into religious fundamentalism,

Rizzuto and Freud  21 non- religious people into scientism. . . . Psychoanalysis at its inception very much tended to make itself part of the latter movement. Perhaps what can be thought about more is the possible moving backwards in relation to human development towards prenatal influences on religious movements, which ultimately reflect changing human needs. It is worth considering and interesting to think about alternate theories, through the psychoanalytic-prenatal lens, such as steady-state theory, put forward by scientists Bondi, Gold and Hoyle in relation to the big-bang theory that is relevant within the realm of cosmology. The theory understands the universe is constantly expanding but maintains a consistently average density, where matter is being constantly reorganised, to form new galaxies. A steady-state universe lacks having any start or end in time, and from any point within it, a view on the larger scale. Lemaitre and Gamow posed the big-bang theory, where the universe was considered to have a definite start point. All such theories are beliefs, to help contain anxiety about the uncertainty of humanity and the universe, so much of which is still unexplained. From an infantile perspective, uncertainty include the terrifying experiences identified by Bion and oceanic feelings, as recognised by Freud. As adults, we need to manage our own infantile anxieties, especially those conceivably present, in anticipation of birth that we have needed to repress. In this way, theories relating to explaining the universe can be born, alongside ranging images of God and religious ideas. Images of God would appear to be cross-cultural, but what does this mean? Raimon Panikkar (1981) portrayed a comparison of different religions with different languages, where one can express true sentiments in one language which cannot be expressed in another language, such as in translating languages. Perhaps interpreting images of God from East to West is not easy, as conveyed by Thich Nhat Hanh (1995, pp. 150–151), and how would we understand these in prenatal terms? There is an emphasis here that concepts may be misleading; through putting to one side the notion of God, Buddhists may draw a closer connection to the reality of that from which it derives than those who continue to use it. However, in relation to psychoanalysis, the object-relations school considers the construct of the self in terms of ego strength, whereas Lacanian and Buddhist theories pose that the ‘self’ is a construct without meaning. In relation to psychoanalysis and religion, Black has postulated that the major contribution which psychoanalysis has expanded and enriched our understanding of religion, is the insight into and meaning making of ‘internal objects’, which he describes well as the imagined figures to which we are always unconsciously relating and which derive by a deepening process of introjection and projection, stemming from our earliest experiences, including harkening back to the womb (Black, 1993). In psychoanalysis, one’s ‘psychic reality’ makes reference to the effectiveness in our lives, of these ‘internal objects’ which can hold great power, just as those relating to our

22  Rizzuto and Freud external reality. Religious figures too can be represented by ‘internal objects’ (which by no means belittles their influence), such as God, Holy Spirit, Jesus or the Buddha – just as their influence can be experienced as an ‘external object’. Internal and external objects, in relation to their psychoanalytic formulation in terms of images of God, can be considered in terms of why it may be that; for example, God is considered an internal reality, as opposed to having a more external significance. In relation to patients who may have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, voices may be heard with reference to an external source rather than from within the patient’s own mind and whether this scenario can be considered in terms of Bion’s notion of containment (Bion, 1962). Edelman (1992) made a Darwinian account of the developmental brain structure, in the way that there are responses to particular signals, including the reactions of significant figures, such as mother, father, siblings and others. This picture offers a way to imagine how internal objects can become imbibed internally and why we don’t allow them to change, not without a great deal of persuasion from the conscious mind (Black, 1996). Blaise Pascal, in the seventeenth century, adopted a religion of incarnation, before the psychological watershed of Western thinking, represented by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Before Kant’s influence, it had been prevalent that intelligent thinkers would be convinced that statements in relation to the world, including those with reference to religion, could be considered straightforward assertions about objective reality. Kant’s thoughts were based on observations that the nature of experience depends on the nature of the experiencing subject and that humans can have experiences only in accordance with particular ‘categories’. According to Kant, experiences must fit into the continuum of space and time, participate in the network of cause and effect, be of a certain intensity and so on. Therefore, Kant removed the possibility of knowing reality, since he thought that we can know reality only through the distorting filters of our subjective faculties. On the other hand, Meissner suggested that the great religions are unlike psychoanalysis in that they provide an account of the God object, which supports its existence beyond what he considers the frail realm of contingent personal experience (Meissner, 1992a, pp. 15–16). Furthermore, Meissner considers that Christianity communicates the value of people and personal relationships with an emotional response, which Buddhism cannot achieve. Additionally, Meissner thinks that Judaism affirms and helps form the world’s realm of desire, as no other religion does. He adds that each great religion now is not so much one language as a whole family of languages, some of them bearing an odd resemblance to members of quite different families: The question we face now, with our new religious understanding, is whether we will have a comparable capacity to choose ‘God’, either in positive or negative form, or prefer to remain shoppers in the

Rizzuto and Freud  23 post-modern supermarket of abundant seductive beliefs without an ultimate coherent vision to give structure to our values. (Meissner, 1992b, p. 17) Meissner’s further contribution was a five-stage developmental outline of faith, which was based generally on Kohut’s account of narcissism. In what follows, it will be relevant to considering images of God and their possible religious developmental origins prenatally to turn to look at in whose image these may be made.

Images of whom? When considering the religious development of images of God, presumably stemming from the earliest phases of prenatal existence, one may understandably wonder in the light of inherent human restlessness, alongside Casement, whether this is so because humans are created in the image of God, in whom some claim to have found their rest, where this belief is held, or whether it is so because humans worry in a world that holds no meaning for them. One may ask, are images of God the result of seeking for meaning in the lack of conception of a greater reality, which somehow seems to offer to satisfy it, or are they the result of life appearing unbearable, without medication to lessen the turmoil (Casement, 1964, p. 29)? Perhaps there is a human need for a safe haven, whatever this may mean a place in their mind where there is a felt presence of a caring presence and one who makes judgements and offers a sense of redemption, the emotional places named heaven and hell. There is no reason why the prenatal being would not experience such realms of dark, light and shadow; perhaps at this stage the sensitivity of receptiveness in the womb gives call to these states, then being named as if in the external world. Casement argues that it is inevitable that we need to face the raw truth involved with the possibility that the God we may worship may indeed not be this God at all. Additionally, there may not exist a God at all and that it is possible that we may have therefore created or so coloured our image of ‘him’ through the quality of our desires and needs, bringing our image of God down to our own level. Furthermore, Casement states that faith involves knowing that which it can never know, and therefore, we must be aware of the cunning of the need to believe (Casement, 1964, p. 29). Through examining beliefs about religious imagery, one can analyse more and learn further about human nature in this representational and meaningful form. Feuerbach recognises the uncertainty of the idea that we are made in the image of God, as proclaimed within Christianity, or are born from our need to believe that we may even have created God in our own image. Moreover, Antoine de Saint Exupery, in Wind, Sand and Stars, writes that truth is not that which can be demonstrated by an air of logic. If orange trees are hardy and rich in fruit in this bit of soil and not that, then this bit

24  Rizzuto and Freud of soil is what truth is for orange trees. If a particular religion, culture, scale of values, or one form of activity rather than another brings self-fulfilment to a man, it releases the prince within him unknown to himself and that scale of values, that culture, that form of activity reflects his truth. Perhaps, the difference for the prenatal being is the lack of choice in being able to formulate such feelings into thoughts and to check their reality against other perspectives, in the context of the environment of the womb. However, if we claim that the foetus can dream, then Bion would agree that the foetus can process the alpha function (Bion, 1962). Thinking about the possibility of images of deities or a deity originating from a prenatal phase of life may not appear logical to some, despite brain development evidence demonstrating memory being intact for the foetus in the womb. There are many reasons for resistances to thinking about early development, perhaps because for many, thinking about prenatal and perinatal experience is exposing, depressing or dark and unknown, therefore creating anxieties which are at best uncomfortable or overwhelming. This is perhaps understandable in the light of lacking medical and psychological support for mothers. There is therefore something to be said for staying within a comfort zone in relation to thinking about the possibility of prenatal origins of images of God. But it is intuitive to turn one’s mind to the prenatal and perinatal phases of development in relation to Bion’s notion that ‘Homeric psychology indicates a stage of mental development in which the distinction between man and god is ill defined; in the individual psyche, little distinction between ego and superego is recognised’ (Bion, 1970, p. 75). In contrast, Popper argued for error and refutation in more reliable trains of thought; according to Casement (1963), in The Paradox of Unity, personal truth does not necessarily accede to the rules of logic. Casement’s words remind us of the paired experiences of, for example the seen, concealed; powerful, powerless; and thought known, unthought unknown. Additionally, the womb is often considered a warming, benign and nourishing environment, within which the human foetus can grow and develop; the mother like the analyst cannot be seen but can be heard. This image could tend to be rather idealised, for myriad reasons and circumstances. Winnicott (1965) discusses the maturational processes and the facilitating environment and portrays the process between the analyst and patient, involving the analyst finding themselves subtly but powerfully drawn to failing their patients, in ways that can be understood as re-enacting a significant ‘environmental failure’ in a patient’s life. This hopefully results in the patient bringing into the relationship with the analyst-mother those feelings which are associated with early trauma, creating a new opportunity to work through the trauma in the analysis: ‘So in the end we succeed by failing – failing the patient’s way’ (Winnicott, 1965, p. 258). These observations lead us back to the question of the possible origins of images of God and its subsequent refinements. If we accept the definition of religion posed by Ana-Maria Rizzuto (1981) as ‘an institution consisting

Rizzuto and Freud  25 of culturally patterned interactions with culturally postulated superhuman beings’ (Spiro, 1966, p. 96), we can imagine for the infant in utero that hearing her parents talking would inevitably be accompanied by an imagined parent before birth, just as children and adults experience at later stages of life. The intrauterine and interuterine experiences determine the content of the images of godlike figures, which are created as dreaded or hopeful imagos on the basis of parental contact, if not by sight. The presence of Godimagos in all humans, despite whether they believe in God or other deities or not, perhaps demonstrates that from our earliest development, such images of God would exist (neuroscience). The experiences in terms of object relationships may well influence one’s images of God and would vary depending on a plethora of circumstances in relation to parents, across the range from benign to terrifying. Such images of God would inform a psychoanalytic exploration of the patient’s developing sense of self and personality. Images of God stemming from human prenatal existence would reflect the personality type of the parent in reality and the corresponding parental representation. It is conceivable, for example, that a mother or father with antisocial personality traits promoting exploitation, manipulation or the violation of the rights of others may a lack concern, regret or remorse in relation to other’s distress and behave irresponsibly, showing disregard for normal social behaviour and having difficulties in sustaining long-term relationships would generate a frightening image in the foetus’s mind, perhaps leading to the reversal into its opposite, such as to a loving, kind image of God as an emotionally laden saving representation, assisting the infant to survive psychically. This point turns our interest to the fascinating area of images of God in relation to personality development.

Images of God and personality development In relation to images of God and personality types, Crocq (2013) investigated the key historical milestones through studying normal and abnormal personality, from the time of antiquity through to the twentieth century. Crocq focused on the interaction between dimensional and typological perspectives, which was a central issue during the preparation for the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Theories of personality can be traced back to the pre-Socratic humoral theories in relation to Greek medicine. First, Pinel and following him, Esquirol and Prichard, are acknowledged as having written the initial descriptors of abnormal personalities in textbooks of psychiatry. From the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, complex systems of normal and abnormal personality, linked to a certain degree to types and dimensions, were created by a succession of European psychologists, namely Ribot, Heymans, and Lazursky. Emil Kraepelin and Kurt Schneider advocated for classifications of abnormal personality types. At the same time, psychoanalysts emphasised the importance

26  Rizzuto and Freud of considering early life experiences in relation to personality development. Towards the mid twentieth century, statistical methods were applied to the scientific validation of personality dimensions, with pioneers such as Cattell anticipating the five-factor model (Crocq, 2013). In terms of more negative emotional influences prenatally, possibly leading to particular images of God, Brannigan et al. (2019) investigated, through a longitudinal birth cohort study, the role of prenatal stress as a pathway to personality disorder. Several research studies have documented the links between prenatal stress and the subsequent development of psychotic, anxiety and depressive disorders. However, there are no current studies which have investigated the potential associations with personality disorders. The aims of the study by Brannigan et al. (2019) were to investigate the possible associations in relation to the exposure to prenatal stress and the development of personality disorder in their offspring, which could alternately be determined through a psychoanalytic exploration of the patient’s images of God. The method employed in the study by Brannigan et al. (2019) employed a subsample (N = 3626) of a large Finnish birth cohort, using logistic regression models to determine the associations between self-reported maternal stress during pregnancy, which was collated every month during antenatal clinic appointments, and personality disorder in their offspring. Familial and outcome data were obtained through the linking of data from the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register and the Finnish Population Register. The results demonstrated that compared with unexposed children, those exposed to any amount of maternal stress during the period of gestation were three times more likely to develop a personality disorder. The children exposed to moderate amounts of stress were three times more likely to develop a personality disorder and children exposed to severe stress were seven times more likely of developing a personality disorder. Such associations remained after adjusting for parental psychiatric history, comorbid psychiatric diagnoses, prenatal smoking and antenatal depression. Brannigan et al. (2019) concluded that exposure to stress in the gestation period increases the likelihood of the development of a personality disorder in the offspring, independent of other psychiatric disorders. These results indicate that the assessment of maternal stress and well-being throughout pregnancy may be helpful in terms of identifying infants at higher risk of developing personality disorder and therefore highlight the importance of prenatal health for positive maternal mental health during pregnancy. On the other hand, a notable psychological phenomenon was recognised by Freud, in his The Interpretation of Dreams, where images and feelings could be unconsciously turned into their opposite, similar to dream symbolism.

Reversing images of God into their opposite It seems that in the history of the social psychology of religious development, including the prenatal and perinatal phase, theories emphasise the

Rizzuto and Freud  27 emotional lives of individuals and theories which examine the processes of thinking. Some theorists indicate that the key to human social behaviour can be uncovered by exposing underlying irrational urges and emotional states, which is taken up through psychoanalytic approaches. Others, of a more cognitive-behavioural perspective, take a different view: the central issues in social psychology, with reference to religion, are shown by studying the way that people consider the world, as suggested by Howitt et al. (1996, p. 99). As previously discussed, emotions play an important role both in our personal experience and psychological capacities and in our relationships with other people and wider society, as discussed by Fraser and Burchell (2001, p. 71). It is therefore relevant to consider the emotions and their social and religious significance, perhaps in relation to attachment theory as applied to the area of religious significance and the development of the parent–foetus relationship. Investigations into religious identity in a historical context must consider different models of the self and identity, in terms of the personal, social and religious, in particular to explore social identity and cultural theories and their relevance to understanding religious identity and its significance. It is interesting to reflect on the view of human beings as self-contained unitary individuals who carry their unique identities deep inside themselves, ‘like pearls hidden in their shells’. This is a view arguably ingrained in the Western tradition of thinking. This vision is one enshrined in ‘the idea of the person as a monad – that is, solitary individual divided from other human beings by deep walls and barriers; a self-contained being whose social bonds are not primary in its existence but only of secondary importance’ (Burkitt, 1991, p. 1). Such an understanding of humans as monads is a central problem of the social sciences, one dividing society and the individual, which raises the following question: What is the relationship between the foetus and society? In relation to social, cultural and religious identity, social identity theory and the implications of current thinking in the area of cultural psychology and values research provide a backdrop to a further discussion of the development and importance of understanding religious development. Further questions arise from these views in relation to the social influences in groups, in terms of group cohesiveness and socialisation, group structures and motivations for joining groups, which need to be considered in relation to prenatal life, when the foetus can hear and sense others, if not in the womb, such as family members, the first social group. It is worth considering further which factors are associated with intra-group conflict, from prenatal existence and the causes of upheavals and splits in wider society, which largely determine who we are and the lives that we live (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002). It is pertinent to then evaluate how the foetus in differing religious and cultural family groups is considered, especially in relation to gender. It is a highly sensitive area to consider the nature and dimensions of religious prejudice and its relationship to discrimination and the actual and potential termination of prenatal life based on sexism, racism, disability and

28  Rizzuto and Freud gender preference. The relationship between religious belief and prejudice is a vexing issue because it has long been observed that different aspects of religiousness may relate to prejudice not only to varying degrees but also in opposite directions. Allport writes that The role of religion is paradoxical. It makes prejudice and it unmakes prejudice. While the creeds of the great religions are universalistic, all stressing brotherhood, the practice of these creeds is frequently divisive and brutal. The sublimity of religious ideals is offset by the horrors of persecution in the name of these same ideals. Churchgoers are more prejudiced than the average; they are also less prejudiced than the average. (Allport, 1954, p. 444) In relation to considering the possible religious nature of the parent–­foetus relationship, studies in the 1940s and 1950s indicated that, in general, churchgoers are more racially and ethnically prejudicial than those who do not attend at church, as reported by Allport and Kramer (1946). These studies also established a generally consistent correlation between orthodox religious commitment and a relatively defensive, constructed personality – labelled authoritarianism (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & ­Sanford, 1950). Additional research through the 1960s and 1970s appeared to show that the more religious people were, the more prejudiced they were likely to be (Glock & Stark, 1965; Gorsuch & Aleshire, 1974). Allport called this finding a grand paradox because racial prejudice is so contrary to clear religious teaching on compassion, humanitarianism and love for other people. Why is it, he asked, that the very people who are presumably receiving the religious teaching about love for others are at the same time the most intolerant regarding race? This was also not the attitude of most of those researching this topic. They were perplexed by the relationship and wanted to explore it more deeply in order to discover why it existed and whether it held for all religious people. Almost 25 years later, Bob Altemeyer and Bruce Hunsberger in Canada carried out research of the relationships between prejudice, authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism. Altemeyer and Hunsberger (1992) and Hunsberger (1996) introduced the concept of authoritarianism and examined anew the relationships between religious orientation and racial attitudes and behaviour. Where the original conceptualisation of the authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1950) was cast in psychoanalytic terms, extreme authoritarianism was associated with a weak ego and high levels of repressed aggression with a need to submit to authority. Altemeyer (1988) developed a new tool to measure right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), which enabled him to assess whether people who subscribe to RWA have social and political attitudes that differ from those of others. His more recent conceptualisation of RWA syndrome is that it contains three elements: authoritarian

Rizzuto and Freud  29 submission to established leaders; authoritarian aggression perceived as sanctioned by authorities; and conventionalism, as a high degree of adherence to societal rules. This is all relevant to the parents and family of the child in utero and the environment into which they are tentatively born. Furthermore, taking their lead from the work of Altemeyer and Hunsberger, Laythe, Finkel, Bringle and Kirkpatrick (Laythe, Finkel, & Kirkpatrick, 2001; Finkel, Bringle, & Kirkpatrick, 2002) addressed in the US some methodological issues in order to clarify the precise contribution of the different variables involved with prejudice; these American researchers explored further the empirical relationships between religious fundamentalism and prejudice (racism and homosexual prejudice). Their conclusions can be considered in the light of Allport and others and that of the Canadian researchers, Altemeyer and Hunsberger, to ponder possible applications. A poignant issue being addressed here is the extent of possible prejudice impacting on the foetus, whether to terminate life completely or to overlook their needs, to treat differently due to religious attitude, gender of the foetus, culture or circumstances surrounding conception. Moreover, the parental relationship can often be fraught, especially through pregnancy, as attachments are forced to alter with the conception of a child. It is necessary, therefore, to consider child protection issues involved with the nature and dimensions of prejudice and its relationship to discrimination and that between religion and prejudice. Clearly, the relationship between religious belief and foetal prejudice is a vexing issue, as stated by Allport (1954). In regard to child protection from possible religious violence, altruism and prosocial behaviour and their effects can be considered together with the ways that they have been investigated by psychoanalytic thinkers on religion. It is further considered pertinent to explore the nature of aggression and violence in religious families and the relevance of different levels of explanations by psychoanalysts. There appear to be two contrasting domains: altruism and aggression, or being religious and being altruistic. First, it is worth considering the relationship of religion to caring attitudes and behaviour. Whether altruism exists is a further point in mind, since Hobbes contended quite accurately, it is purported, that humans act in their own self-interest, whether the appearance is in the other’s interest or not; there will always be gain from acts of apparent altruism, according to the formal definition. In relation to individuals and institutional aggression in relation to the foetus, it seems that we are continually reminded of the aggression and violence that surrounds us in contemporary society. However, what of the relationship between aggression, violence and religion, including religious institutions? Hogg and Vaughan (2002) provide a reasonable introduction to biological and social theories of aggression and to personal, situational and institutional expressions of aggression. Capps (1992) addresses the continuing issue of religion and child abuse, alongside that of religion and violence towards women (Bottoms, Shaver, Goodman, & Qin, 1995).

30  Rizzuto and Freud Although this exposition is focused on the possible images conjured up by the foetus during their existence in utero, it should also recognise social representations and the ways and contexts in which the meanings of behaviour are understood. Additionally, it would be important to consider the social representations of gender and culture and their importance in the religious domain. In the view of social psychologists, such as Henri Tajfel and Serge Moscovici, ‘we derive our identities, and our scripts for acting in any situation, from our lasting affiliations with groups and from the continuing social representations by those groups of their life-events’ (Smith & Bond, 1993). This point is relevant to reflecting on what is passed on to the foetus in utero, without thought about this. On the other hand, turning to consider the emotional processing involved with parent–foetus relationships and the consequent possible images of God as an idealised object, potentially traceable to this early phase of life, an understanding of this precarious life phase in self-images projected onto images of God is the process of reversal into the opposite. This psychic process denotes the transformation of, for example, an idea, a representation, a logical figure, a dream image, a symptom, an affect, or similar into its opposite. The reversal into its opposite influences the fate of instincts, particularly through the transformation of love into hate, which was more explicitly described in Freud’s discussion of the notion of reversal. Such a process of reversal was first described by Freud in relation to dream images, used to create disguises which enable the translation of latent thoughts into more-acceptable thoughts, crossing the censorship barrier. Freud described a plethora of examples of reversal into its opposite in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Reversal into its opposite can influence characteristics of objects or people; therefore, for example, in a dream, a small object may appear large or someone whose wealth one envies appears poor. In Freud’s dream ‘Non Vixit’, with his intense gaze, he melts the person whose blue eyes are growing paler. This could be understood as the expression of a reversal into its opposite in relation to the fear that he had experienced, when younger, through Brücke’s gaze of ‘terrible blue eyes’ (Freud, 1900, p. 422). Freud offers a detailed analysis of a fascinating example of reversal into the opposite in his case of ‘The Wolf Man’s Dream’ (Freud, 1918b), whereby, the frightening immobility of the wolves was the reversal of a violent movement, namely his parents’ coitus. In attempting a thorough understanding of prenatal and perinatal images of God, and the role of metaphor, symbol and analogy in the development of religious language and relationship between the foetus and parent, reversals of dream images would apply to one’s images of God in waking life too. An example is of the protagonists’ roles, such as the hare chasing after the hunter or the dreamer punishing his father. It seems that particular logical relationships may also be expressed through reversals into their opposite images. The notion of contradiction, for example, might progress in a

Rizzuto and Freud  31 dream to a condensation, whereby opposites become blended into a portrayal conveyed in a sense of absurdity. In relation to changing imagos of God, potentially traceable to prenatal and perinatal existence, a temporal reversal of dream scenes is strikingly interesting, where the consequences of the incident or the conclusion of a sequence of a line of reasoning is the beginning of the dream and where the premises of the reasoning or the cause of the scene is apparent at the end. However, reversal into opposite not only influences representations or the relationships between representations but can further be relevant to affects: ‘There is yet another way in which the dream-work can deal with affects in the dream-thoughts. . . . It can turn them into their opposite’ (Freud, 1900, p. 471). Therefore, a depressive feeling of self-derogation can inspire a dream or image of brilliant success, or in contrast, a feeling of triumph may evoke a dream recalling a humiliating failure. A further illustration of Freud’s observation of a wish being masked is in his depiction of the dream of the ‘uncle with the yellow beard’. In this dream, Freud’s ‘warm dream feeling of affection [for his friend R.] in the dream’ disguised the wish that R. be a ‘simpleton’ (Freud, 1900, pp. 140– 141), R. being a possible rival for promotion to professorship. The process in relation to the analysis of these transformations is invaluable for comprehending the dreamwork and arguably images of God, where hidden wishes are transformed into their opposites. Freud argues in The Interpretation of Dreams (Freud, 1900) that the [R]eversal [Umkehrung], or turning a thing into its opposite [Verwandlung ins Gegenteil], is one of the means of representation most favoured by the dream-work and one which is capable of employment in the most diverse directions. . . . [R]eversal is of quite special use as a help to censorship. (Freud, 1900, p. 327) In relation to this statement, it can be inferred that in this objective as a process to evade suppression via censorship, clearly reversal emerges beyond the purposes of the dreamwork. Similarly, myths contain these aspects; for example, stories including birth, through emergence from water, are represented at times by rising from the waves, such as in the birth of Venus or, in a different way, in a scene where the hero enters the water, as portrayed in the story of Moses. This show of opposites can be discerned in particular linguistic expressions which, depending on their context, may expound opposite meanings. Therefore, in Latin the word sacer denotes both ‘holy’ and ‘damned’; likewise, the German word Boden indicates that which is highest alongside that which is lowest in a house. According to Freud in The Antithetical Meaning of Primal Words (Freud, 1910a), in which he depicted the more recently contested authority of the linguist Karl Abel, this aspect arose frequently in ‘primitive languages’ which

32  Rizzuto and Freud were considered inadequately differentiated and therefore often used as condensations. As formulated by Freud, in the eleventh lecture of the Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (Freud, 1916–1917a [1915–1917]), Freud clearly contrasted such a play of linguistic opposites with their function in the dreamwork. However, this idea is not restricted to merely the semantic level. Additionally, figures of speech are subjected to this mechanism; for example, the clear illustration of negation demonstrates this, as discussed in Freud’s paper ‘Negation’ (Freud, 1925), where thoughts expressed in inverse formation, followed by a projection which creates the possibility to attribute it to someone else. For example, ‘You ask who this person in the dream can be. It’s not my father.’ We interpret this as ‘So it is his father’ [Freud, 1925, p. 235]). The formation of symptoms regularly employs this mechanism. The person experiencing hysteria who is replicating sexual assault rips her dress with one hand and draws it close around her body with the other; the fantasy whereby she holds her sexual partner against herself becomes translated through her hands clasped behind her back. Coitus itself is expressed via hyperextension in a circular arc in Some General Remarks on Hysterical Attacks (Freud, 1909 [1908]). Perhaps, in similar illustrations, the person with hysteria enacts an idea or image of an action – in other words, a fantasy, according to one of the accepted meanings of the idea. The same action reversal is observed in dreams which focus on a certain idea or image. This reversal into the opposite is particularly prevalent, involving reversal of affect, incorporating a similar process to cases described as turning [a]round. The language is not specific, and Freud used the term reversal in Instincts and their Vicissitudes (Freud, 1915c) to designate both processes: the turning around of activity into passivity and the reversal into its opposite of the ‘contents’ of the love/hate conflict. Moreover, making a distinction between the two notions clarifies the meaning of turning around in relation to (1) expressions of drives as affects (e.g. love into hate, or the reverse); (2) aims of drives (the active aim ‘turning around’ into a passive aim); and (3) the objects of drives. These categories apply to the entire landscape of the pair of sadism and masochism. The idea of reversal into its opposite can be used, evident from the preceding, when formal dimensions of transformations affecting representational contents are being addressed. However, notions can be subsumed into the wider category of pairs of opposites that is often present in Freud’s work, culminating in his second instincts theory with the conflicting pair of Eros and the death instinct. These insights are best understood in the context of foetal development, to which we can now turn.

Foetal development It makes sense that if both healthy and unhealthy adults experience images of God, separate from any belief that they may or may not have in the

Rizzuto and Freud  33 existence of God, that adolescents and children may also be able to hold images of God in mind. Children certainly describe their personal image of God, and if one assumes that images are based on both emotional and cognitive factors, then it would not be surprising not only that the young infant can experience images of frightening and saving figures but also that there is no reason why this capacity would not be traceable to the foetus in the womb. Having said this, although images are possibly retrievable from memory cells developed early on in the body from conception, it is reasonable to assume that images can most fully be experienced because of the development of the brain stem, due to the degree of stimuli. However, this point would also support the memory traces possibly being obliterated. The nervous system of the foetus, comprising the infant’s brain and spinal cord, develops early on. There are five separate regions of the brain, with their different functions. The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, which is responsible for recollection, thinking and feeling. The cerebral cortex and its various lobes, including the frontal and temporal lobes, reside in this region. The cerebellum, on the other hand, is responsible for motor control. The brain stem can be regarded as the engine which drives several of the infant’s essential functions, which includes the heart rate, respiratory functions and blood pressure. Alongside these areas of the brain is the pituitary gland, which is a pea-shaped gland which releases hormones into the body which are responsible for growth, metabolism and more. Finally, the hypothalamus manages body temperature, hunger, sleep, thirst and emotions. In relation to thinking about prenatal and perinatal dispositions of the foetus for images of God, it is relevant to consider what is possible first in terms of foetal development. In the first trimester, the foetus is observed to start moving as early as 16 days following conception. The foetal neural plate comprises the foundation of the baby’s brain and spinal cord. The neural plate grows longer and folds onto itself until this fold develops into a groove, which in kind morphs into a tube – known as the neural tube. At approximately six to seven weeks of pregnancy, the neural tube closes, curves and grows into three sections, namely the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain. The hindbrain is situated behind the potential spinal cord. Soon, these regions grow into five different areas of the brain, namely the cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem, pituitary gland and hypothalamus. Around this time, special neural cells form and develop, moving throughout the embryo and giving rise to the growth of the beginnings of nerves. The foetus’s nervous system is made up of millions of neurons, where each of these microscopic cells have tiny branches stemming from them to connect and communicate with each other. Therein develops the foetus’s initial synapses, assisting these neurons which can communicate and create early foetal movements, such as moving into the foetal position. At around eight weeks, the foetus can move their limbs, and by the end of the first trimester, a further repertoire of motion has been developed. At this time, the foetus starts to develop their sense of touch.

34  Rizzuto and Freud By the second trimester (six months), the foetus learns to suck, swallow, blink and dream. During the growth period, the foetus’s brain is directing steady contractions of the diaphragm and chest muscles. The foetus’s first sucking and swallowing impulses are demonstrated at about 16 weeks. By 21 weeks, the foetus’s natural reflexes allow them to swallow several ounces of amniotic fluid each day. Furthermore, the swallowing indicates that the foetus is tasting. At around 18 weeks of pregnancy, the foetus can kick. At this time, the foetus’s nerves become saturated with myelin, which is a protective insulation that speeds messages between nerve cells (myelin continues to grow until the first birthday). At 24 weeks, a further developmental milestone is reached, namely that of blinking. By the end of the second trimester, the brainstem (controlling heart rate, breathing, blood pressure) is almost entirely mature, resting just above the spinal cord but below the cerebral cortex, which is the final region to mature. By this point, the foetal nervous system is developed enough to ensure that the foetus can be startled by loud noises external to the womb, possibly turning their head towards the sound of a voice. A further milestone is reached at 28 weeks, when foetal brainwave activity features sleep cycles, including REM (rapid eye movement), which is the phase when dreaming occurs. The third trimester marks the growth of the foetal brain, where rapid development takes place of neurons and wiring. The foetal brain triples in weight during the last gestational phase of around 13 weeks. At this same time, the cerebellum (motor control) develops more rapidly now than any other area of the foetal brain, alongside its surface area, increasing by 30 times during the previous 16 weeks of pregnancy. Such growth impacts most on the cerebral cortex, involved with thinking, remembering and feeling. Although this important region of the brain is growing fast during pregnancy, it mostly only begins to function properly at the time a full-term infant is born, then steadily and gradually maturing in the initial few years of life if the infant’s environment is nourishing. Within a psychoanalytic framework of thinking, it is therefore clear that the infant’s early development of the neural tube and brain stem from 16 weeks onwards would already be accommodating an enormous amount of input and processing of sounds, nourishment in the form of food, emotion and sensations. Presumably, the mind in the form of awareness and observation develops early on also, such as through being able to kick to get attention. Already, without knowing or not knowing the science of anatomical development, one can feasibly imagine the foetus engaging with a mind, where there is the start of the unconscious where dreaming occurs. Freud defined the term unconscious in relation to two separate types of psychic experience. First, thought processing links easily to consciousness, known as the preconscious, and second, those thoughts which can access consciousness with more difficulty, also referred to as the unconscious proper. Such a tension between the conscious and unconscious is of central importance in relation to consciousness being the hallmark of knowledge

Rizzuto and Freud  35 (De Masi, 2000). The Freudian model of the mind is enriched with dreamwork theory, which can be used to explore the psychodynamics of foetal images of God. If images of God are considered separate from any belief in an existent deity, or deities, it would be reasonable to consider the foetus as having phantasies in relation to the mother that they cannot see but can feel, taste and hear, alongside other figures at more of a distance. However, foetal experiences of people (objects) would be stored, nonetheless, through linking by memory traces, as unconscious representations. The contents of the foetal mind would be similar to postnatal infants in later development, in terms of observable instincts, drives and affects, which are under control by the primary process, involving condensation and displacement. Unconscious mental representations of the drives make up the phantasies, while the unconscious is understood as the reservoir of withheld wishes and primitive instincts and not just consisting of repressed wishes from a prior phase of development in utero, which have sustained fixation. Freud’s long-term interest in attempting to illuminate the mysteries and power of religion in human life came to fruition in his association of the human father in body with the Godhead, as explored by Rizzuto (1981). On the one hand, Freud has helped to define that images of God or god are the mark of our own creations from our own imaginings, made up from everyday life. On the other hand, many would argue that God’s existence is separate from human imagination; is rather the foundation of Christianity, likewise Allah in Islam; and is a deeply personal aspect of the self and identity, which is held with respect by this author. In relation to human emotional development, Freud claimed that individual’s attitudes to others had been established in the first six years of life and that The people to whom he is in this way fixed are his parents and his brothers and sisters. . . . All of his later choices of friendship and love follow upon the basis of the memory-traces left behind by these first prototypes. (Freud, 1914, p. 243) Despite Freud referring to the first six years of human emotional development after birth, already the prenatal human has developed a relationship with their caregivers, which would be physiologically and emotionally imbued. Since sight is not part of the prenatal parent–foetus relationship, presumably other particularly emotional and physiological dependencies are intensified for survival. How the parents or caregivers feel and behave will inevitably impact the foetus. If we consider images of God formed in prenatal life, the dependency of the foetus is far greater than the child of eight months after birth. Freud considered the development of the superego in relation to that of imagos, where the child’s development follows the course of increasing detachment from their parents in typical development, and the personal significance of the parents for the superego decreases. This

36  Rizzuto and Freud receding of the parents’ significance for the human superego leads to imagos which are likely linked to teachers and authorities, models and public heroes, though there is less need for these figures to be introjected by the ego, since it has become stronger. Freud continues in ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’: The last figure in the series that began with the parents is the dark power of Destiny which only the fewest among us are able to look upon as impersonal. But all who transfer the guidance of the world to Providence, God, or to God and Nature, arouse a suspicion that they still look upon these ultimate and remotest powers as a parental couple, in a mythological sense and believe themselves linked to them by libidinal ties. (Freud, 1924, p. 168) Such libidinal ties are all the more intensive in relation to the foetus–mother relationship, possibly creating powerful images in the mind of this tiny yet powerful human being who reacts and responds to the external world of their caregivers’ thoughts, feelings and actions. Freud writes about the more permanent representations from the mother attributed to the Godhead, forming the internal world of individually different object representations. Freud was quite exact in his lectures ‘An Outline of Psychoanalysis’ about how he considered the internal experience of images of God developed, claiming that it is at age five, when creation of the internal world takes place, At about that time an important change has taken place. A portion of the external world has, at least partially, been abandoned as an object and has instead, by identification, been taken into the ego and thus become an integral part of the internal world. This new psychical agency continues to carry on the functions which have hitherto been performed by the people [the abandoned objects] in the external world: it observes the ego, gives it orders, judges it and threatens t with punishments, exactly like the parents whose place it has taken. We call this agency the superego and are aware of it and its judicial functions as our conscience. (Freud, 1938, p. 205) However, when considering Freud’s claim in relation to the child at age five starting to develop an internal world, this can be contended and should be to better understand the life of the foetus. Melanie Klein posed a theory of the developing child on the basis of Freud’s psychodynamic theory. Klein considered the impact of the internalised relations (objects) with primary caregivers during the period of early infancy and their unconscious influence on the course of future relationships. In terms of object-relations ­theorists, children internalise the object itself and the whole relationship.

Rizzuto and Freud  37 Klein suggested that the infant internalises two sets of object relations: positive and negative feelings, including representations of the self, the object, and the emotion linking the two. Unlike Freud’s Oedipus complex, which he believed came to fruition between the years of three and five, incorporating wish-fulfilling phantasies in relation to the death of the same gendered parent and involving usurpation of their place in the couple, inverse forms are further considered to be central. The boy’s fears of castration by the revengeful father alongside the girl’s fears of loss of love progress to abandoning such wishes and to the development and establishment of the superego at the phallic level, as described by Freud (Spilius, Milton, Garvey, Couve, & Steiner, 2011). Moreover, Freud draws attention to an observation on the process of how the internal world of images was formed, which can be applied to those of God: It is a remarkable thing that the superego often displays a severity for which no model has been provided by the real parents, and moreover that it calls the ego to account not only for its deeds, but for its thoughts and unexecuted intentions, of which the superego seems to have knowledge. (Freud, 1938, p. 205) Rizzuto argues that the relational-representational experience with objects, which she argues begins with the parents and culminates with the child’s imagining of the divine, ends the initial cycle of the development of representations when the Oedipus conflict has been resolved. However, if we investigate further, we can easily recognise that where these early images transform through various degrees of repression, the process is not necessarily one that is representational, so it would be possible at an earlier prenatal phase of development, as exemplified by Piaget (1945), Werner and Kaplan (1963) and Horowitz (1970). Freud wrote in 1924 that the central element to the process of psychic formation is the imagos that one has left behind (Freud, 1924), which is equally possible in the prenatal phase and is arguably more likely because of the intensity of repression at this point in the life course, alongside the mix of new emotional experiences and the tentative growth spurt in utero, indicating the presence through necessity of the prenatal unconscious. The prenatal unconscious is possible to imagine if one holds onto the more tangible consideration of how the foetus is impacted by a mother who imbibes heroin or nicotine, although each being respectively a painkiller and stimulant would input different emotional arousal to the foetal images. In emotional terms, which is less tangible and therefore seemingly less convincing, it can be asserted that these non-static images perform the functions, at least partially, of establishing and maintaining psychic equilibrium, as described by Betty Joseph (1998). Klein can be thought to have contributed

38  Rizzuto and Freud at least three significant innovations to the body of knowledge of psychoanalysis, namely the notion of phantasies in the unconscious; alongside repression, the observation and formulation of the concept of splitting of the object; and later on her bringing together splitting and projection into the concept of projective identification (De Masi, 2000). As De Masi eloquently portrays, it is important to distinguish between unconscious phantasy and unconscious representation in relation to the potential prenatal and perinatal origins of images of God. The psychic representative of the drive and a mental representation, including physical perceptions, can be interpreted as object relations, alongside the relevant defences and anxieties (De Masi, 2000). Kleinian psychoanalysis understands that the unconscious is a combination of internal object relations which are perceived concretely, alongside phantasies about these relationships (Isaacs, 1952), which Freud considered could only be indirectly knowable through an analysis of, for example, tics, oral fantasies or parental intercourse. Whereas Freud thought about fantasies as satisfied instinctual impulses unable to find ways to be discharged, Klein thought that the infant is able to gain satisfaction through hallucination of the wish, alongside accompanying the relation to reality with ongoing activity relating to the phantasy. Since innate phantasies are believed to be derived from instincts, they are largely unconscious. De Masi argues that innate phantasies involve knowledge of the nipple, and the mouth represents any mental activities. This notion can be extended to the navel of the prenatal foetus, acting as the oral cavity through which nutrition, drugs and emotions would flow in from the external world. In relation to unconscious phantasy, the relationships between and importance of the good and bad mental objects become structured through the process of splitting in relation to the quality of the subject’s sensations in the body. These unconscious phantasies would be more intense for the foetus given the degree of immaturity and isolation in utero, in contrast to the amount that is being managed by the foetus in terms of input through the umbilical cord, particularly in terms of anxieties and other noxious substances which are completely out of the foetus’s control. Following these trains of thought, it appears increasingly likely to conceive of the foetus as possessing the capacity for the disposition to create images of God or ones that which would be accessible at a later phase of development. Klein clarifies the possible contents of images of God derived from prenatal life in her explication of the unconscious process of projective identification. Projective identification in relation to images of God contains the unwanted contents, including the parts of the self excluded from consciousness, projected externally and contained in an image, which may become confused with an object which is then introjected, altering the person’s perception of the object. Klein (1958) described an unconscious which is not possible to access or elaborate on but which is instead separate in split-off

Rizzuto and Freud  39 regions of the unconscious which cannot be modified, such as primitive and cruel mental facets. This content may become subsumed under deeper levels of the unconscious, perhaps with reference to the spatial cavity of the womb space where the foetus resides, potentially exposed to the most intensely maddening forces. There are major similarities between Freud’s thinking and Klein’s thinking. Like Freud, Klein considered that the Oedipus complex was central to understanding human life. However, Klein modified and extended Freud’s ideas into her new formulations of a pre-existing oedipal situation. Klein speculated that infantile preconceptions with an exciting and terrifying parental dyad would be phantasised initially as a ‘combined figure’; the maternal body containing the father’s penis and the rival babies. Such a primitive version of a couple, phantasised as being in continuous intercourse, demonstrated sadistic oral, urethral and anal characteristics, due to projections of infantile sexuality and sadism. Phantasies in relation to the maternal body are linked to Klein’s new insights into primary femininity alongside the male and female Oedipus complexes. From Klein’s way of thinking, primitive superego images develop early on, in relation to infantile sadism and not only as an outcome of the oedipal situation. The splitting feature of paranoid-schizoid functioning helps facilitate clear and oscillating divisions of the part-object parents into ideal or loved ones and denigrated or hated ones. An increasing awareness of whole objects, which may be ambivalently experienced, and the start of depressive guilt lead more so to the need to give up oedipal desires and to repairing the damaged images of internal parents, thus joining them or permitting union. For Klein, therefore, the Oedipus complex and the depressive position are closely associated. A feature of Kleinian theory is that it looks back further to the more primitive origins of states of mind. The earliest point when a transference may be understood – in other words, when initially the foetus may reasonably be considered to have started evolving an internal world and when images of God may be formed – is at around 17 weeks, when the brain is fully developed. Many claim to have had experiences which they liken to those in the womb or during the perinatal phase, and those who have researched the prenatal and perinatal, both theoretically and analytically, would vouch for a distinct quality of experience which could be described as a more regressed yet vivid, primitive state. It is necessary in an attempt at stretching the boundaries of knowledge in child psychoanalysis to look further back in relation to human development to ascertain what is possible, even if this is tentative. Klein developed Freud’s thinking about internal representations being possible at age five, by considering earlier development and the pre-oedipal phase as based on observations as early as three weeks. Now, we need to dare to investigate further back, and the growing sense is that there is every possibility that prenatal life is capable of at least the disposition to create images of God that are accessible at a later phase, perhaps more likely in a receptive and

40  Rizzuto and Freud encouraging psychoanalysis, by analysts open to this early and primitive beginning experience of life. Freud postulated the maternal representations that he considered to be permanent in relation to the Godhead, which created the unique internal world of object relationships for each individual. In the light of considering the formation of the prenatal and perinatal origins of images of God, Freud describes in An Outline of Psychoanalysis (Freud, 1938) how infants partially relinquish objects in the external world in a process of identification that takes these into their ego, becoming part of their internal world. This new psychical function observes the ego, offering instructions, and judges it and threatens it with consequences, as parents do. This agency Freud called the superego, functioning as the conscience. When considering the degree of repression which such images go through, which are arguably not only formed, as Freud writes, at the age of five years old but also thought about this differently, originating from the prenatal phase, there is a great deal more to explore through such images than may first appear in the analytic setting. Rizzuto appears to agree with Freud that images of God stem from postnatal existence, and it is time to pose the possibility, as stated previously, of images originating from a far more primitive phase, one that is prenatal. This author shares Rizzuto’s and Freud’s fascination with the origins of religious representations: The point is that the very pressure of living makes us rework, over and over again, consciously and unconsciously, the memories of those we encountered at the beginning of our days – the time of the heroic, mythic glamour, and horror to the insignificant moments as well as to the real wishes, hopes, and fears, in the exchanges with those incredible beings called parents, the image of God is concocted. (Rizzuto, 1981, p. 7) Whether one considers the origins of images of God to be from the age of five alongside Freud and Rizzuto or earlier on in relation to prenatal and perinatal origins, the introjected parental representations are projected out from the mind and become images of God of varying forms and continuities, which is re-encountered and re-evaluated over the lifespan to master the Oedipus complex. Furthermore, Geertz (1966) considered that images of God are not solely the creation of the child, and (like Winnicott [1971]) God was thought to be discovered in the family, introduced by parents or through art, social occasions, architecture or the home where God is purported to dwell. ‘Now the God of religion and the God of the child-hero’ face each other, and ‘no child arrives at the “house of God” without his pet God under his arm’ (Rizzuto, 1981, p. 8). The image of God, which every person has an idea of, may become repressed and abandoned or is ‘reshaped, refined and retouched throughout life’ (Rizzuto, 1981, p. 8). Most people in their later years revisit their

Rizzuto and Freud  41 image of God; their changing image of God acts like a secure base to return to and modify throughout life. The origins of such images of God may stem from intrauterine life leads one to wonder whether and how possible prenatal images of God may be different from those in post-birth early infancy. Particularly in relation to a possible prenatally originated image of God and the devil, on the basis of the emotions felt by the foetus which are amalgamated into a parentally based representation, an enormous amount can be imagined to be construed by exploring the process of forming such images in relation to their formative object relations. Therefore, if it is possible to imagine the prenatal origins of images of God, do psychoanalysts not take their patients far enough back in their emotional history to enable accessing such images which would likely decathect the problem at the deepest level? It is understandable that accessing prenatal and perinatal content requires skill and depends on the patient’s fragility and support. Moreover, it is pertinent to emphasise how images of God develop during the course of the lifespan, on the basis of early emotional experiences of their parents and siblings, before influences in relation to external religion, which may have influence in a secondary way, such as religious teachings, books and speaking with others who may contradict or support particular images of God. According to Freud, the image of God is present in the child’s mind before official religion can have its impact on such an image and therefore will only add to this image but not essentially contribute to its formation. This is of course most relevant to the possible prenatal and perinatal origins of such images of God. In 1901, Freud reversed a quote from Genesis: from ‘God created man in his own image’ to ‘Man created God in his’, thus modifying the notion posed originally by Xenophanes and more recently by Feuberbach, who ridiculed their contemporaries’ religious beliefs. This exploratory writing in no way intends to show the least disrespect towards those who deeply hold personal religious beliefs. In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (Freud, 1901), Freud writes that ‘It is interesting that a screen-association was provided by a sentence in which the Deity is debased to the status of a human invention’ (p. 19–20). It was this idea which Freud was to return to throughout his life, shown mainly through his prolific works Totem and Taboo (Freud, 1913), Moses and Monotheism (Freud, 1939) and other works which refer to his understanding of the formative process of the individual’s image of God. Freud continued to hold that humans create their own gods, which led to the writing of The Future of an Illusion (Freud, 1927), which explicated the self-created illusion of god through wish-fulfilling needs, such as comfort, dependency, loss and so on. Each of the foregoing needs is relevant in relation to attachment styles, as described by Bowlby (1969) in his three prolific volumes, where the proximity and therefore safety of the child are emphasised. Where attachment styles are disorganised or insecure, or where one parent is absent through

42  Rizzuto and Freud (for example) work or travel, to a certain extent, the controllable image of God can be imagined at any time, therefore compensating for and containing the needs of the foetus, child or adult in a visual, ever-present fashion. Likewise, images of God from possibly prenatal and perinatal origins arguably function to reflect early parental imagos. Freud was interested in the psychoanalytic origins of supernatural phenomena, and he made a valuable contribution in The Future of an Illusion and Civilisation and Its Discontents: I perceived ever more clearly that the events of human history, the interactions between human nature, cultural development and the precipitates of primaeval experiences (the most prominent of example of which is religion) are no more than a reflection of the dynamic conflicts between the ego, the id and the superego, which psycho-analysis studies in the individual – are the very same processes repeated upon a wider stage. In the Future of an Illusion, I expressed an essentially negative valuation of religion. Later, I found a formula which did better justice to it: while granting that its power lies in the truth which it contains, I showed that the truth was a not a material but a historical truth. (Freud, 1935, p. 72) Several of Freud’s works trace the process of the patient’s images of gods and devils, such as his two clinical case studies of Schreber (Freud, 1911) and of Christoph Haizmann (Freud, 1923), who experienced a ‘miraculous redemption from a pact with the Devil’. Additionally, in Freud’s study of Leonardo, he recounts Leonardo’s acquisition of a god through descriptions of his experiences and unconscious feelings. Similarly, in the case study of the Wolf Man, Freud elaborates the Wolf Man’s conflict with his father, where his god is carefully outlined in relation to intrapsychic and interpersonal processes of the emerging history of his patient’s childhood (Freud, 1918a). From such progressive works, Freud formulated the genetic and psychodynamic evolution of belief in gods and devils, thus laying the solid foundations for object-relations theory. Freud believed that demons and gods are ‘creations of the human mind’ (Freud, 1913) and are derived from ‘revivals and restorations of the young child’s ideas’ in relation to their father and mother (Freud, 1910a, p. 123). This latter statement paved the way for the psychoanalytic perspective of object representations, which is key to understanding object relations. Alongside Freud’s developing picture of images of God, he made central the Oedipus complex, where ‘social order, morals, and justice and religion had arisen together in the primaeval ages of mankind as reaction-formations against the Oedipus Complex’ (Freud, 1923, p. 253). Freud considered that

Rizzuto and Freud  43 the child’s image of their father emerged from the aspect of the Oedipus complex which provided the image of God: Psychoanalysis has made us familiar with the intimate connection between the father-complex and belief in God; it has shown us that a personal God is, psychologically, nothing other than an exalted father, . . . Thus we recognise that the roots of the need for religion are in the parental complex; the almighty and just God, and kindly Nature, appear to us as grand sublimations of father and mother, or rather as revivals and restorations of the young child’s ideas of them. (Freud, 1910a, p. 123) However, the limitation of placing the origins of the image of God in relation to solely the father–son dyad excludes other configurations of object relations, such as the daughter–father/mother or son–mother, alongside earlier origins of the formation of images of God, such as from the prenatal and perinatal phase. Freud emphasised the importance of inheritance, where men were considered to have made moral acquisitions which were then transmitted to women by cross-inheritance (Freud, 1923, p. 37). What has been missed but taken up later by feminist psychoanalysts was the impact of the representation of the father on the girl’s perception of her god, which Freud was not concerned with. It is fair to conclude that regarding object relations, Freud considers the formation of the image of God as the outcome of the relationship between the father and son. Additionally, he thought that the oedipal conflict sourced the idea of God; both similar processes associate with a common source, the father image: If psychoanalysis deserves any attention, then – without prejudice to any other sources or meanings of the concept of God, upon which psychoanalysis can throw no light – the paternal element in that concept must be a more important one. (Freud, 1913, p. 147) Freud’s account of the evolution of the image of God is worth tracing from his anthropological and evolutionary findings. His reconstructions draw from his considerations that ‘men originally lived in hordes, each under the domination of a single powerful, violent and jealous male’ (Freud, 1925, p. 67) and ‘one day the brothers who had been driven out came together, killed and devoured their father, and so made an end of the patriarchal horde’ (Freud, 1913, p. 141). Moreover, Freud describes how ‘the totem meal . . . would thus be a repetition of and a commemoration of this memorable and criminal deed, which was the beginning of so many things – of social organisation, of moral restrictions and of religion’ (Freud, 1913,

44  Rizzuto and Freud p. 142). In 1915, Freud considered how ‘the primal crime of mankind must have been a patricide, the killing of the primal father of the primitive human horde, whose mnemic image was later transfigured into a deity’ (p. 293). The mnemic image became transmitted with reference to dual assumptions. Freud postulated, first, a collective mind, with similar processes as those in the individual mind (Freud, 1913, p. 157), and second, psychic tendencies ‘which, however, need to be given some sort of impetus in the life of the individual before they can be roused into actual operation’ (Freud, 1913, p. 158). Furthermore, Freud describes the changes during the evolution of the image of God for the human race: It became repressed and represented by the totem animal, whereby ‘the totem may be the first form of father-surrogate’ (Freud, 1913, p. 148). At this time, there may have been political supremacy by women and acknowledgement of the maternal deities (Freud, 1921, p. 135). Freud cleverly accounts for how the repressed image makes a return and is reconfigured into a paternalistic image of God: Thus, while the totem may be the first form of father-surrogate, the god will be a later one, in which the father has regained his human shape. A new creation such as this, derived from what constitutes the root of every form of religion – a longing for the father – might occur if in the process of time some fundamental change had taken place in man’s relation to the father, and, perhaps, too, in his relation to animals. (Freud, 1913, p. 148) By 1921, Freud had formulated that the lie of the heroic myth culminates in the deification of the hero. Perhaps the deified hero may have been earlier than the Father God and may have been a precursor to the return of the primal father as a deity. The series of gods, then, would run chronologically: Mother GoddessHero-Father God. But it is only with the elevation of the never-forgotten primal father that the deity acquired the features that we still recognise in him to-day. (Freud, 1921, p. 137) Therefore, Freud poses the hero as an intermediate figure between human and God, which is worth considering in relation to the possible prenatal and perinatal formation of images of God experienced transgenerationally from the primal father, as Freud lays out. A further reflection continues in relation to whether a connection, conscious or unconscious, includes that of the embryo. It seems that there is no apparent reason why not, raising more, important questions about what may be stored transgenerationally and intergenerationally in terms of the developing mnemic image of the

Rizzuto and Freud  45 primal father or mother and the ensuing image of God. By 1939, Freud had already contemplated the following: When Moses brought the people the idea of a single god, it was not a novelty but signified the revival of an experience in the primaeval ages of the human family which had long vanished from men’s conscious memory. (Freud, 1939, p. 129) It therefore may be worth considering where such emotional memories disappear to. Overall, Freud remained convinced of the oedipal origins of the Western image of God (Freud, 1939). Freud’s speculations lead to the father being the source of both the image of God and the image of the devil (Freud, 1923, p. 86). The image of God, according to Freud, was based on the primaeval father of the primal horde and the object representation of the child’s real father. Freud held that both the primaeval and real father influence the formation of the two object representations of God and the devil, making a claim to a dual process, first involving the historical fact of the two brothers who killed and devoured their violent and jealous father, who by devouring him achieved identification with the father and acquired a certain degree of his strength (Freud, 1913). Although Freud’s perspective was gender limited in his writings, one can easily apply his view of the origins of images of God to daughters, for example, identifying with the maternal parent in relation to their image of God. Clearly, it would be important to further explore the varying identifications expressed in LGBTQI+ groupings. Furthermore, Freud writes about the gradual cultural and historical process in which the image of the inherited primal father in human form remained latent up until external circumstances occurred, allowing the latent image to become actualised and transmogrified into the actual image of God. The three main features of this transformation were an inherited object representation, which was not described by Freud throughout his writings; the latent feature of that object representation, which did not wholly manifest itself; and powerful external events reactivating the latency of the object representation, which Freud located in Moses’s time, where ‘a rapture of devotion to God was thus the first reaction to the return of the great father (Freud, 1939, pp. 133–134). In relation to the devil, Freud referred to the individual’s unconscious drives and self-image as the origin of the image of the devil (Breuer & Freud, 1893–95). The psychic mechanism of splitting was considered to form the devil image – splitting of ambivalent paternal (and maternal) representations – and splitting manifests in the good/bad self-image. Although there are gaps in Freud’s theorising, in terms of the splitting of the paternal image through ambivalence, he writes that We . . . know from the secret life of the individual which analysis uncovers, that his relation to the father was perhaps ambivalent from the outset, or, at any rate, soon became so. That is to say, it contained two sets

46  Rizzuto and Freud of emotional impulses that were opposed to each other; it contained not only impulses of an affectionate and submissive nature, but also hostile and defiant ones. It is our view that the same ambivalence governs the relations of mankind to its Deity. (Freud, 1923, p. 85) Furthermore, in terms of the second splitting mechanism, Freud suggests that God and the Devil were originally identical – were a single figure which was later split into two figures with opposite attributes. In the earliest ages of religion God himself still possessed all the terrifying features which were afterwards combined to form a counterpart of him. (Freud, 1923, p. 86) Therefore, Freud’s account of the splitting of the primaeval image of the father formed the image of Satan, which was later expounded in ‘A Seventeenth-Century Demonological Neurosis’, expressing ‘that the Devil is a duplicate of the father and can act as a substitute for him’ (Freud, 1923, p. 85). Alongside this, Freud posited that the paternal image was mainly satanic: ‘we should expect religion to bear ineffaceable marks of the fact that the primitive father was a being of unlimited evil – a being less like god than the Devil’ (Freud, 1923, p. 86). In a similar vein, Freud wrote the following to Fliess: ‘I dream, therefore, of a primaeval Devil religion, whose rites are carried on secretly’ (Freud, 1950, p. 243). It can be extrapolated that Freud’s understanding of the origins of the image of the father emerges from the images of humankind’s infancy and that of the childhood of individuals. It can be speculated that Freud thought that paternal images are unmediated object representations from early development. Regarding the image of both God and the devil, Freud wrote that The ideational image belonging to his childhood is preserved and becomes merged with the inherited memory-traces of the primal father to form the individual’s idea of God. (Freud, 1923, p. 85) In other texts, Freud views the satanic representation as evolving from a split-off aspect of the self-representation of the individual: in ‘Studies in Hysteria’ (Breuer & Freud, 1893–95), Breuer wrote that The split-off mind is the devil with which the unsophisticated observation of early superstitious times believed that these patients were possessed. It is true that a spirit alien to the patient’s waking consciousness holds sway in him; but the spirit is not in fact an alien one, but a part of his own. (Freud, 1923, p. 250)

Rizzuto and Freud  47 The representation of the primaeval father, at least in Freud’s view, is held by all men, alongside the associated feelings of love and hate that are felt in relation to it. It may be valid that the feelings are ‘memory traces’ which can be evoked when every child reaches the point ‘to fit into a phylogenetic pattern’ (Freud, 1918b, p. 860), as demonstrated through the case study of the Wolf Man. Freud arguably did not provide any evidence for the validity of ‘inherited memory traces’, and one can additionally argue that there is no biological or psychological evidence either. However, if one considers the genetic inheritance from one family to another and includes in this model psychological and emotional aspects too, quickly one starts to formulate a coherent picture of how phylogenetic patterns become initiated and established. This consideration is particularly relevant in relation to how it is easier to imagine and therefore contemplate physical substances impacting the foetus in utero, such as heroin, alcohol or nicotine, rather than the less tangible impacts of emotions and words on the foetus. Alongside this last point, there is a well-documented and thoughtful body of work on the transgenerational and intergenerational transmission of trauma (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975): the passing on of trauma and other emotional configurations from one generation to the next and within the same generation (Carey, 2018). Freud’s conception of the primaeval man’s potential for object representation relates to capabilities in eight ways, according to Freud. First, Freud considered that primaeval man has a developed and internalised representation of the image of the father. Second, primaeval man is able to experience intense and ambivalent emotions in terms of the father and the paternal representation. Third, primaeval man is able to act out such ambivalent feelings and murder the father. Fourth, primaeval man can experience guilt for murdering the father. Fifth, this happens despite such splitting of the wished-for aspect of strength, of the object representation from the remaining representation of the father. Sixth, an identification takes place partially with the split-off part of the representation. Seventh, the split-off partial representation is projected onto an animal (totem), creating a symbolic evocation of the primary identification by way of the ritualistic murdering and devouring of the totem animal. Eighth, a repression takes place of the remaining parental representation which had continued as latent up until monotheism emerged. Tenth, the repressed unconscious representation of the primal father is transmitted with the accompanying guilt and longing. Finally, the split-off partial representation is transmitted, which symbolically becomes reactivated in the totem sacrifice and meal. According to Freud, humankind, explicitly men, appear born with a repressed representation of the primal father; for example, Moses effects the return of the repressed representation, with similar feelings centuries later (Freud, 1939, pp. 133–134). Freud recognises that intense feelings can be experienced by at least one individual through the return of the repressed ‘memory trace’ in relation to an individual and the primal father who was

48  Rizzuto and Freud murdered in early civilisation. Additionally, Freud considered that the longings for the still-repressed representation of the murdered father are present in every man. Moreover, the compulsion component of the return of the repressed representation: ‘the idea of a single great god – an idea which must be recognised as a completely justified memory . . . has a compulsive character; it must be believed’ (Freud, 1939, p. 130). Freud suggests, interestingly, that monotheistic religion starts with a regression to a previous object, which is its representation and the emerging compelling emotions that are evoked. Such a compulsion leads to repeated experiences, such as described in the Wolf Man case study: At this point the boy had to fit into a phylogenetic pattern, and he did so, although his personal experiences may not have agreed with it. . . . In spite of everything it was his father from whom in the end he came to fear castration. In this respect heredity triumphed over accidental experience; in man’s prehistory it was unquestionably the father who practised castration as a punishment. (Freud, 1928, p. 86) It is further worth exploring how monotheistic ideas of God emerged in relation to the prohibiting, in Mosaic times, creating any image of God, which would presumably influence an individual’s representation of their God: This [precept] is the prohibition against making an image of God – the compulsion to worship a God whom one cannot see. . . . [Moses] God would in that case have neither a name not a countenance. . . . it meant that a sensory perception was given second place to what may be called an abstract idea – a triumph of intellectuality over sensuality or, strictly speaking, an instinctual renunciation, with all its necessary psychological consequences. (Freud, 1939, pp. 112–113) As Rizzuto points out, Freud did not seem to recognise that he undermines his entire formulation of object representations when he conveys about an abstract notion and instinctual renunciation, which introduces this new historical and logical idea. However, one may wonder about what Freud supposed by his notion of an abstract idea and instinctual renunciation, leading to the appearance of the belief in the ‘omnipotence of thoughts’ and The influence which our mental (in this case, intellectual) acts can exercise in altering the external world. . . . The new realm of intellectuality was opened up, in which ideas, memories and inferences became decisive in contrast to the lower psychical activity which had direct perceptions

Rizzuto and Freud  49 by the sense-organs as its contents. This was unquestionably one of the most important stages on the path of hominization. (Freud, 1939, p. 113) Furthermore, Freud outlines the second process in the shift from a matriarchal social order to one that was patriarchal: this turning from the mother to the father points . . . to a victory pf intellectuality over sensuality – that is, an advance in civilisation, since maternity is proved by the evidence of the senses while paternity is a hypothesis, based on an inference and a premise. (Freud, 1939, p. 114) According to Freud, the Mosaic prohibition created the outcome of elevating God to a higher level of intellectuality and made alterations to the idea of God (Freud, 1939, pp. 114–115). It seems true to conclude that a nonrepresentational idea of God would be more likely to be considered to be a prime mover than one associated with a representation. Aristotleargued in book eight of Physics and book 12 of Metaphysics ‘that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world’ (Aristotle & Ross, 1981). But Freud was moved from a theory of a paternal representation of God to one that was more abstract, which will be discussed further in what follows. Freud refers to a ‘mnemic image’ in relation to the primaeval father, one that is a mental representation able to evoke the feelings towards the father. In Exodus (20:2–6), Moses does not present an idea to the Israelites but a humanlike male image who had agreed covenants with ‘his people’: And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, o any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that I on earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments’. (Exodus, 20: 2–6) This supports Freud’s initial portrayal of a fatherly and jealous God, evoking the return of the repressed and providing powerful emotions to the Israelites’ religious commitment. After the brothers of the primal horde had murdered the father, this created unconscious mnemic images of him for all, according to Freud. Furthermore, Freud conjectures that the evoked repressed memory traces were less effected by sensory perceptions

50  Rizzuto and Freud but more so by Moses’s descriptive communications of God. The memorable imaginings of Moses’s listeners caused memory precipitates to come alive. Rizzuto (1970) contends that it is difficult to conceptualise the means by which the psychic representation of an object that has been cathected may transform into an abstract notion. A psychic representation can certainly create abstract notions but cannot be transformed into an abstract notion. Moreover, Rizzuto claims that representations of objects and representations of abstract notions are distinct, describing two different phenomena, as stated also by Maritain (1921). On the one hand, Rizzuto draws attention to her postulation that Freud confuses three ideas. First, he confuses the name of the object; second, he confuses the material representation of the object, such as in a work of art; and third, he confuses the mental representation of a human object. Rizzuto states that naming is a process in relation to the order of abstract ideas, where the ‘material representation’ mixes ideas with the symbolic means of representing them. Forming an object representation, according to Rizzuto, is a complicated psychic process, encompassing a wide range of psychic functions in terms of perceptions of physical changes in relation to memories, through to complex visual, mental and other representations (Rizzuto, 1981; Schafer, 1968; Sandler & Rosenbaltt, 1962). Having stated these points, Rizzuto continues to claim that Freud failed to recognise a lack of cause between object representation and naming, although there appears to be a causal relation between the two. It seems that Rizzuto refers to naming in the more limited sense than in the sense that Freud had used it, where the naming leads to the representation, which without naming would be an idea. Rizzuto claims that there is no causal relation between a God representation in relation to ritualistic and artistic symbols and the primal father representation, which according to Freud antedates it. However, as Rizzuto postulates, there is a causal relation between the mental representation of the primal father and the representation and selected symbol, namely the totem animal, which can be considered partially linked with strength. It appears that Freud is stating that the consequence being suppressed, which is naming or representing, creates a causal effect on the actual cause, which is the representation of the primaeval father. Rizzuto claims that that this comprises a logical contradiction, but psychoanalytically speaking, logic does not describe the whole story. It can be said that Freud here observes a transition, which Guntrip comments on: Freud’s ideas fall into main groups; (1) the id-plus-ego control apparatus and (2) the Oedipus complex of family object relationship situations. The first group of ideas tends to picture the psyche as a mechanism, an impersonal arrangement for securing de-tensioning, a homeostatic organisation. The second group tends toward a personal psychology of

Rizzuto and Freud  51 the influence people have on each other’s lives, particularly parents on children. (Guntrip, 1971, p. 28) In relation to Freud’s theoretical transition from one of object representation to ‘a triumph of intellectuality over sensuality or . . . an instinctual renunciation’, Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective on religion shifts to a mechanistic view of reining in the perception of the senses (id) and of the strength offered by inferential ideas (ego). Freud appeared to show bias towards intellectual activity and ideational processes above the processes involved with the formation of a representation of God as ‘a lower psychical activity’. Here, Freud took the first steps towards dismissing object representations as contributing to meaningful beliefs. Freud had reached a view of the world where having an idea of God was an illusion. Freud’s position appears to stem from ‘the Mosaic prohibitions elevated God to a higher degree of intellectuality, and the way was opened to further alterations in the idea of God which we have still to describe’ (Freud, 1939, pp. 114–115). Hence, Freud’s interests had shifted from images and precipitates to ideas. Rizzuto (1981) considered that the capability to conceptualise an idea of God through a process of psychic manipulation due to its intangibility does not change the imagos involved in forming the God representation. In relation to Freud’s notion of illusion, illusion can be helpful. But as Bell asks, is truth an illusion? He continues: ‘the fragility of truth-claims, of how easily they are overloaded with individual, social and political preconceptions, resulting in important challenges to orthodoxy, are all essential to the pursuit of knowledge’ (Bell, 2009). As posed by Maritain (1921), imagos and the representation of God in one view and the idea of God in another appear to be processes which occur at two different levels of the individual psyche, employing two levels of abstraction. Freud had originally posed a description in relation to object relations, involving emotional elaborations and object representations. It is a new concept to consider the idea of God, which appears to be a more conscious secondary process, stemming from thinking inferentially in relation to cause and effect, as discussed by Rizzuto (1970). The most clarity can be achieved by distinguishing between the God image and the idea of God. The idea of God does not depend on representations of God for its shaping, disconnected from the primaeval or parental image. However, Freud claimed with interest that the feelings remain identical thousands of years later. Although one could argue that where there is no refutation of such an argument, which therefore weakens its validity, Freud has contributed a major aspect to understanding the psycho-historical unconscious of humankind, especially to humans being object related, our early and lifelong creation and our use of early imagos and object representations: our dependency on object relations and human religiosity as an object-related activity.

52  Rizzuto and Freud There is a final theory formulated by Freud which is structural in relation to human relations with a god or devil. Freud introduces the mediatory entity of the superego, which is in line with oedipal thrust of thinking. The superego, as Guntrip (1971) indicated, ‘enshrines the fact of personal object-relations . . . an aspect of life not traceable to biology but based on identification with parents’ (Guntrip, 1971, p. 28). The development of the superego leads to the creation of an internal world of object representations in which those around the child become internalised as their inner representational world. Such an internalisation influences how the child can regulate themselves from within: About the age of five . . . an important change has taken place. A portion of the external world has, at least partially, been abandoned as an object and has instead, by identification, been taken into the ego and thus become an integral part of the internal world. The new psychical agency continues to carry on the functions which have hitherto been performed by people (the abandoned objects) in the external world; it observes the ego, gives it orders, judges it and threatens it with punishment, exactly like the parents whose place it has taken. We call this agency the superego and are aware of it in its judicial functions as our conscience. (Freud, 1971, pp. 205–206) Throughout later life, it represents the influence of a person’s childhood, of the care and education given them by their parents and of their dependence on those parents. The corresponding object representation of the superego is the caretaker, which Freud considers ‘identification’. Freud has contributed to a formulation of object relations, which first views all new objects as making use of the internalised imagos, which are perceived in the light of their libidinal attachments. Second, Freud thought that the internalisation of objects ends with the culmination of childhood. Third, Freud’s object-relations theory postulates that the final internalisation involves that of the divinity in whichever form. The first point addresses that all new objects inevitably use internalised imagos and are perceived in their context and in relation to the influence of their libidinal attachments. Freud iterates this aspect in one of his papers, which he wrote in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of his secondary school: For psycho-analysis has taught us that the individual’s emotional attitudes to other people, which are of such extreme importance to his later behaviour, are already established at an unexpectedly early age. The nature and quality of the human child’s relations to people of his own and the opposite sex have already been laid down in the first six years

Rizzuto and Freud  53 of his life. He may afterwards develop and transform them in certain directions, but he can no longer get rid of them. The people to whom he is in this way fixed are his parents and his brothers and sisters. All those whom he gets to know later become substitute figures for these first objects of his feelings. . . . These substitute figures can be classified from his point of view according as they are derived from what we call ‘imagos’ of his father and his mother, his brothers and sisters, and so on. His later acquaintances are thus obliged to take over a kind of emotional heritage; they encounter sympathies and antipathies to the production of which they themselves have contributed little. All of his later choices of friendship and love follow upon the basis of the memory-traces left behind by these prototypes. (Freud, 1914, p. 243) The second point that Freud contends is that object internalisation ends with the cessation of childhood. It is clear that many people, however, seek help in analysis to construct an inner sense of stability of self. Perhaps Freud was referring to the expected norm. In ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’ (Freud, 1924, p. 268), he postulates that The course of childhood development leads to an ever-increasing detachment from parents, and their personal significance for the superego recedes into the background. To the imagos they leave behind there are then linked the influence of teachers and authorities, self-chosen models and publicly recognised heroes, whose figures need no longer be introjected by an ego which has become more resistant. (Freud, 1924, p. 168) Finally, Freud considered that the last internalisation is of divinity in whatever form it may take. Freud refers to this in the same paper: The last figure in the series that began with the parents is the dark power of Destiny which only the fewest of us are able to look upon as impersonal. . . . All who transfer the guidance of the world to Providence, to God, or to God and Nature, arouse a suspicion that they still look upon these ultimate and remotest powers as a parental couple, in a mythological sense, and believe themselves linked to them by libidinal ties. (Freud, 1924, p. 168) The last imago which Freud refers to here is not clarified as being a transformation of the initial imago, but according to Freud’s account, it is referred to as the last transformation. This transformation is the last in the series since the oedipal resolution creates the inner world, where the resolution is linked with the father. Therefore, the oedipal conflict terminates with an alteration of imago of the father. From this point on, the representation of the father

54  Rizzuto and Freud is at once sublimated or exalted or becomes merged with the memory traces of the primaeval father, which then morphs into the representation of God. Hence, the Oedipus complex and the installing of the superego, alongside the creation of the internal world, results in the transformation of the imago of the parent into the image of God: Of all the imagos of a childhood which, as a rule, is no longer remembered, none is more important for a youth or a man than that of the father. . . . A little boy is bound to love and admire his father, who seems to him the most powerful, the kindest and wisest creature in the world. God himself is after all only an exaltation of this picture of a father as he is represented in the mind of early childhood. (Freud, 1914, p. 243) Therefore, Freud writes that ‘as a substitute for a longing for the father, it [superego] contains the germ from which all religions have evolved’ (Freud, 1923, p. 37). It seems to me that Freud proposes that the superego includes the representational side of the image of the parent, once the child has identified with the parent. Freud claims that the ego is responsible for identifications and that imagos are linked with the superego. In ‘The Ego and the Id’, Freud refers to both these aspects in the term identification: Thus, we have said repeatedly that the ego is formed to a great extent out of identifications which take the place of abandoned reflexes by the id; that the first of these identifications always behave as a special agency in the ego and stand apart from the ego in the form of a super ego. (Freud, 1923, p. 48) One question raised by Freud’s account is, why would the child need to transmute the father imago into an image of God while the ego identifies with the father? A further question may try to address another question: What is an exalted father and the process of exaltation itself? In relation to the formation of representations of God or the devil, Freud uses a range of terms to describe the transformatory process of the paternal imago into the god or devil image, such as exalted father (Freud, 1910a, p. 123, 1913, p. 147, 1923, p. 85), a transfiguration of father (Freud, 1911, p. 51) or a sublimation of father (Freud, 1918a, p. 115). In relation to the formation of the devil imago, Freud employs terms such as ‘direct substitute’ (Freud, 1923, p. 85) and a ‘duplicate’ (Freud, 1923, p. 87). The use of such vocabulary indicates that the God representation is the undisguised early father representation and, at a different point, that the early paternal imago undergoes a process of transfiguration or sublimation, which is a different father image than before. Freud writes in his first formulation that We know that God is . . . a copy of a father as he is seen and experienced in childhood. . . . Later on in life the individual sees his father as

Rizzuto and Freud  55 something different and lesser. But the ideational image belonging to his childhood is preserved and becomes merged with the inherited memorytraces of the primal father to form the individual’s idea of God. (Freud, 1923, p. 85) In this way, the unchanging imagos of the ancestral and actual father merge to create the God representation. According to Freudian theory, both of these imagos would be unconscious following the oedipal stage, since both are associated with powerful feelings, including longings which appear irreconcilable with the resolution of the Oedipus complex. In accounting for a god that is more conscious, Freud brings up the ideas of exaltation of the paternal imago and sublimation of the child’s libidinal attachment to it. Freud describes sublimation in relation to the parental imago in ‘The Ego and the Id’: The transformation of object-libido into narcissistic libido which this takes place obviously implies an abandonment of sexual aims, a desexualisation – a kind of sublimation, therefore. One may consider whether this is not the universal road to sublimation. (Freud, 1923, p. 30) Freud states that at the point of the resolution of the Oedipus complex, the infant might identify with their actual father, thus repressing the previous imago, which is imbibed with intense libidinous feelings in relation to the father, and then sublimate the libidinal attachments to the representation, then being transformed into the asexual image of God. The sublimated, aim-inhibited imago of the parents allows the appearance of religiosity and pious devotion to God, which is not conscious and is a source of self-worth, security and love. Freud also ignores hateful feelings in relation to the father when sublimation occurs. Such explanations point to Freud’s references to the Wolf Man’s sublimations: His extravagant love pf his father, which had made the repression necessary, found its way at length to an ideal sublimation. As Christ, he could love his father, who was not called God with a fervour which had sought in vain to discharge itself so long as his father had been a mortal. . . . But there was a third factor at work, which was certainly the most important of all, and to the operation of which we must ascribe the pathological products of his struggle against religion. The truth was that the mental current which impelled him to turn to men as sexual objects and which should have been sublimated by religion was no longer free; a portion of it was cut off by repression and so withdrawn from the possibility of sublimation and tied to its original sexual aim. . . . The first ruminations which he wove around the figure of Christ already involved the question whether that sublime son could also fulfil the sexual relationship to his father which the patient had retained in his unconscious. . . . Religion

56  Rizzuto and Freud won in the end, but its instinctual foundations proved themselves to be incompatibly stronger than the durability of the products of their sublimation. As soon as the course of events presented him with a new father surrogate, who threw his weight into the scale against religion, it was dropped and replaced by something else. (Freud, 1918a, pp. 115–117) Thinking about this complex passage, Freud appears to be saying that through learning, the pre-oedipal father image is linked only through sublimated libidinal attachments if it is to create a trustworthy image of God, which allows for long-lasting religious emotions. Second, once the child has created their image of God, the Oedipus complex becomes repressed and the child identifies with their actual father but lets go of the sexual ties to the oedipal image of their father. Third, Freud seems to be saying that this process allows a male to conjure up a God who is loved and acts as a protective factor and link to love. Fourth, where the libidinal attachments have not been sublimated to the father imago, he considers that ‘a violent defensive struggle against these compromises then inevitably lead [in the Wold Man’s case] to an obsessive exaggeration of all the activities which are prescribed for giving expression to piety and a pure love of God’ (Freud, 1918b, p. 117). Lastly, a religiosity which is not properly sublimated fails as soon as an external event offers up a more desirable father surrogate. Freud contributes a new perspective to object representational theory and the unconscious libidinal attachments to these representations. He seems to say that in order for the sublimation to take place from the father to a God of continuity, the father imago will have given up its homosexual ties without losing ‘this picture of a father as he is represented in the mind of early childhood’. As Rizzuto points out, on Freud’s account here, God has become an exaltation (Freud, 1913, p. 243; Rizzuto, 1981, p. 33). Once the sublimation in relation to the libidinal attachments associating the child in their latency, the internal representation of his oedipal father is only partial and precarious. Additionally, in this circumstance anyone who appears as a desirable father may lead to the child forgetting about their God. This can be seen in relation to the Wolf Man: It is most instructive to observe that the whole of this strict piety dwindled away, never to be revived, after he had noticed and had learnt from enlightening conversations with his tutor that his father – surrogate [i.e. the tutor] attached no importance to piety and set no store by the truth of religion. His piety sank away with his dependence upon his father, who as not replaced by a new and more sociable father. (Freud, 1918b, p. 68) Thinking about Leonardo seemed to offer Freud a way to reach a new insight regarding belief and the real relationship with the father: ‘Young

Rizzuto and Freud  57 people lose their religious beliefs as soon as their father’s authority breaks down’ (Freud, 1910a, p. 123). Again, Freud posits a similar view but one that is more circumscribing, in Totem and Taboo, ‘His [the individual’s] personal relation to God depends on his relation to his father in the flesh and oscillates and changes long with that relation’ (Freud, 1913, p. 147). Furthermore, Freud describes the effects on an individual’s involvement with their God of the real relation with the father. First, the presence of an actual paternal object may modify the relation to God or cause the God to become absent. This process can be otherwise thought of as a fresh attachment to an external paternal object. Second, as the father appears more realistically in the young person’s psyche, the imago sublimated into God is forgotten. Third, there is a long-lasting attachment to the father alongside the attachment to God. Interestingly, when one subsides, so does the other one. Moreover, for myriad reasons, the person detaches from their relationship to God but maintains the preserved representation of God in their unconscious. It would be fruitful to further consider how such an identification with the father would take place, since Freud provided no explanation of this and how the preserved and repressed imago becomes sublimated into God. Rizzuto offers three possibilities (Rizzuto, 1981): (1) that the people who undergo these processes do not lack proper sublimation as did the Wold Man; (2) that the relation to the actual father has a modifying effect on the paternal imago to the point that it is no longer cathected, not even with sublimated libido; or (3) that Freud’s theoretical formulations are defective either about how the God representation is formed or the role of libidinal influences on it. (Rizzuto, 1981, p. 34) Freud did not provide any thoughts on this problem, which is perhaps surprising, since he has contributed so much in this field. However, Freud writes that ‘He [the child] may afterwards develop and transform them [relations to people in childhood] in certain directions but he can no longer get rid of them’ (Freud, 1914, p. 243). Freud does not mention how the parental imagos that leave behind associations with teachers and authorities then modify the parental imago, if at all. Freud is clear, though, about the image of God needing to be left behind, and if it is retained, this indicates that the person is childlike, needing this shield when faced with life’s challenges (Freud, 1924, p. 168): Biologically speaking, religiousness is to be traced to the small human child’s long-drawn-out helplessness and need of help, and when at a later date he perceives how truly forlorn and weak he is when confronted with the great forces of life, he feels his condition as he did in his childhood, and attempts to deny his own despondency by regressive revival of the forces which protected his infancy. (Freud, 1910a, p. 123)

58  Rizzuto and Freud It would be of great interest to further consider what happens to the inherited ‘memory traces’ of the primaeval father, according to Freud’s accounts. Freud did detail the evolution of the child’s representational world regarding the image of God. Every male following the oedipal phase would maintain an unconscious God image which may be received and accepted or rejected at the conscious level. For the case of the Wolf Man, Freud offers a reason why the God image fades from consciousness. Alternately, Freud considered the formation of the devil imago, but his formulation is not so sophisticated. Freud states that the initial image of the father becomes split into two emotional figures with ‘opposite attributes’ (Freud, 1923, p. 86). The child’s hostile and defiant feelings towards his father become associated with the split-off image, giving substance to the devil image. Freud and Rizzuto both do not consider it relevant to actual belief in the existence of God, which when put into words can become philosophical, moving away from the personal, experiential and often irrational but no less important and powerful reasons for belief in God, pertinent to so many people’s lives. However, it seems to me that Freud was interested in how religious people develop their belief in a divine being, because he was interested in the unconscious meaning of psychic life. Object images reside in the unconscious and are evoked by emotional needs. Freud maintains that doubt and belief are phenomenal functions of the conscious ego and have no link with the unconscious (Freud, 1950, p. 255). It seems that in Freud’s writings, object representations are the key mediator in forming God images, giving paramount significance to the paternal imago on the basis of the primaeval father, which impacts, Freud claims, every male at the Oedipus crisis. Furthermore, early object representations are imbibed with powerful libidinal powers that affect all future generations, which transform into an image of God, which extends to universal parental powers. Freud thinks that the created religion helps to manage feelings attached to the image of God, thus regulating cultural processes. Through Freud’s thinking about images of God and devils, he clarifies his theory of object representations of those with significance to early life with far-reaching influences to individual and social life. However, what remains unanswered is the belief in a divine being and the complex and varied forces that lead such representations to a source of belief. In thinking about Freud’s dissenting followers, neither Jung nor Adler upheld Freud’s considerations about the image of God being the direct effect of the relationship to the father. Jung, on the other hand, thinks of the God image as one of several archetypes of human mental life: ‘[My observations of the human psyche] prove only the existence of an archetypal image of the Deity’ (Jung, 1938, p. 73). Additionally, Jung develops Freud’s notion that the representation of God is partially humankind’s psychological inheritance: ‘The archetypal motives presumably start from the archetypal patterns of the human mind, which are not only transmitted by tradition and migration but also by heredity’ (Jung, 1938, p. 63). And Jung does not agree with

Rizzuto and Freud  59 Freud about the nature of the psychic inheritance: ‘the archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a facultas praeformandi, a possibility of representation which is given a priori. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms’ (Jung, 1954, p. 79). Whereas Freud postulated that the inheritance is the content – in other words, the primaeval father who was slaughtered – Jung disagrees about the formation of the God image stemming from early object relations, apart from perhaps with the archetype of the self: ‘The God-image does not coincide with the unconscious as such but with a special content of it, namely, the archetype of the self. It is this archetype from which we can no longer distinguish the God-image empirically’ (Jung, 2015, p. 468). Therefore, Jung considered that the image of God filling the locus Dei of the archetype is dependent not on object relations directly but on the substance comprising the self. In summary, Freud and Jung agree that the inherited basic God image is internal, but they disagree that this originates from object relations. Freud though that the image of God is an internalisation, and Jung thought that the image of God is the self filling up a formal structural archetype. Far from Freud’s thinking, Adler considers God a metaphysical value. Agreeing with Freud and Jung that God images are a result of individual inheritance: the idea of God as innate and God being considered a synthesis of being and value. Adler had defined the idea of God ‘as a concretisation and interpretation of the human recognition of greatness and perfection’, as stated by Nelson (1987). Furthermore, Nelson recognises that Adler thinks that an idea of perfection is directly associated with the preferred parent. Therefore, Adler revisits and maintains Freud’s original object-relations theory of the origins of the formation of images of God. However, Adler refers to the conceptual idea of perfections, rather than the image being internalised, as held by Freud. Furthermore, Rank, Abraham, Reik and Jones developed Freud’s ideas and found support for his theories. Consequently, Abraham wrote Dreams and Myths (1913); Rank published The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1909); Jones interpreted Christian dogmas, mythology and folklore; and Reik developed Freud’s lines of thinking in Totem and Taboo. But none of these thinkers made any outstanding contribution beyond what Freud had already proposed. In the next generation of thinkers, Anna Freud and Melanie Klein seemingly did not contribute so much to the psychoanalytic theory of religion. However, images of God have little to do with belief, according to Freudian thinking on this issue. Anna Freud (1966, p. 62) helpfully added that there is a ‘necessary collision’ between the psychoanalytic developmental line and that we progress and regress along this depending on the strength of our internal objects and external pressures. This model is helpful when considering the reference to images of God as pointers towards regression. Furthermore, Kleinian observations of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions are fundamental to understanding the persecutory and more

60  Rizzuto and Freud benign images of God, depending on the terror of feelings or more-balanced, content ones of the depressive position. Erikson (1958) interpreted Luther’s relationship with his father and the subsequent change in his image of God following an identity crisis, leading to his considering Freud’s thinking expressed in the Wolf Man case. It is the stage of negotiating basic trust that Erikson later identifies as the time when religious feelings emerge (Erikson, 1959). Freud had pinpointed the time of religious antecedents in the oedipal phase. On the other hand, Winnicott (1953) considered the antecedent in relation to religious development at the time of transitional phenomena – hence returning to the object-relations theory of religious experience as postulated by Freud but not tracing the formation of the image of God. In a paper in 1969, Guntrip turned Freud’s arguments on their head: The finding of present-day object relation theory is that personal integration is a function of growth in the medium of loving personal relationships. Since religion is pre-eminently an experience of personal relationship, which extends the ‘personal’ interpretation of experience to the Nth degree, to embrace both man and his universe in one meaningful whole, the integrating nature of fully developed personal relationship experience, is our most solid clue to the nature of religious experience. (Guntrip, 1969) Both Guntrip, in this passage, and Freud emphasise the object-related nature of religious experience. However, Guntrip focuses, in an overly enthusiastic way, on the psychic function of religious experiences, especially in relation to their integrating power. Guntrip compares this integrating power to the integrating potential of a meaningful, personal relationship. Although Rizzuto disagrees with this point of Guntrip’s, on the basis of there being rare examples of deep human or religiously based relationships, it is likely that the human lack of consistently meaningful relationships will be compensated for by the more powerful relationships that humans have with images or ideas linked with religious feeling or sense. Although Freud’s consistent commitment to human turning to divine and devil images was not upheld by his followers, his contribution reaches deeply into the nature of our historical psyche, which is profoundly significant and worthwhile. Murray Cox in ‘A good-enough God? Some psychology-theology crossing places’ raises the interesting and important question of the meeting of human development and the theological redemptive line (Cullman, 1951) in a person’s expectations invested in their image of God, possibly originating from the prenatal and perinatal period. Additionally, aspects such as expectation and dependency may be evaluative in relation to outer and inner constraints, which is an absorbing question in terms of the degree of inherent adaptability at that inevitable point of intersection when and where

Rizzuto and Freud  61 the developmental and redemptive lines meet – the Weltanschauung of psychoanalytic psychology and theology. Furthermore, Cox clarifies that he thinks that there are complex conscious and unconscious processes unleashed in the development and resolution of psychotherapeutic transference phenomena. He asks, ‘How much more daunting are the existential obligations called into activity by that other pervasive transference re-enactment evident in theories of the atonement?’ (p. 107). Guilt and internalised grace can yield to subsequent startling shinings. An individual may well find it hard to say whether a religious experience or a psychotherapeutic shining, after prolonged and unimaginable darkness, is the more startling. An understanding of their integration is perhaps the most startling thing of all (Cox, p. 44, in Stein, 1999): I am aware that to be present during the rehearsal process is as much a point of privileged access as it is to be in a therapy session. The therapist is always in such privileged proximity to the inner world of another, who is struggling with what he cannot quite say. The theological link to deictic stress is not only the power of the spoken word; it is also the core concept and conception of words doing things, becoming flesh. (Cox, p. 53, in Stein, 1999) Jean Piaget (1896–1980) considers the functional role of representations, more generally illuminating ideas about the world, elaborated through the experiences and actions of individuals (Fraser & Burchell, 2001, p. 272). Moscovici emphasised representations as social constructs: ‘collective, shared organisations of meaning through which a community aims to sustain a particular view of some aspect of the world’ (Fraser & Burchell, 2001, p. 272). But whether this adds anything new is debatable, since everything is socially constructed. Vergote designates God representations as parental figures rather than as images, the latter suggesting ‘an internal representation’ resulting ‘from memories . . . partially altered by the affectivity of the subject’ (Vergote & Tamayo, 1981, p. 3). It is possible to conceive of God representations as part objects that have become split off from the whole with significance for the individual that has not yet been consciously comprehended. Clearly, our God representations take many forms: a broad range of psychical structures, statues or real figures of worship. And what kind a person worships will tell us many deep facets of them: It would appear that an individual’s representation of God fits with their personality structure. If one uncovers the kind of God one relates to (and this differs from person to person), one learns about the underlying personality structure. Freud, a rationalist, was confident that truth claims can be made. Alternately, as Peter Vardy writes, ‘postmodernism denies there are any such rocks of certainty. . . . any meta-narrative . . . once truth is truly abandoned, then there really is no truth to be sought; people must be content with truth

62  Rizzuto and Freud that is simply dependent on perspective’ (Vardy, 2003, p. 12). Postmodern constructionists are relativist; although in them, there is a reality to behold, there is no possibility of knowing it, and they place ‘knowledge within the process of social interchange’, according to Gergen (1985, p. 266). The solipsist view recognises reality invented by the individual, and one can debate the extent to which the solipsist position is possible given cultural influences. Our constructions of God are important in relation to what they reveal about our current personality structure – the story they tell of our life history and the culture from which they are derived. Religious development emerges in a new form once the mother–infant relationship becomes the focus of the origins of religion: when the transitional space between caretaker and child and the transitional objects that emerge are assumed to be the origin of our God representations. . . . religion is conceived as a basically interactive process; religious development can be correlated with the development of object relations in a psychoanalytic perspective. (Streib, 2001, pp. 145–146) Transitional objects were expounded by Donald Winnicott, who was a British psychiatrist and paediatrician and a prominent influence in AngloAmerican psychoanalysis over three decades. Winnicott’s ideas, particularly that of the transitional object, has attracted much attention by those interested in thinking about religion and early human development. Perhaps there are numerous reasons for this interest, among which is prominently Winnicott’s description and evaluation of that which he named the area of illusion, which he identified with religious experience (Winnicott, 1953, 1971; cf. Flew). Winnicott’s popularity might stem from his creating profoundly accessible metaphors for human relationships and investigations into and reflections on fundamental religio-philosophical queries, about how humans develop or acquire a sense of self. Winnicott’s formulation of the transitional object, alongside its fate over time, is resonant with the lifespan of cultural heroes such as Prometheus, Hermes and Don Juan. There appear to be two contributions from Winnicott that further our understanding of God representations: first, he offers a seemingly clear group of concepts, which are highly pertinent to the process of analysing religious experiences, alongside religious thought, and second, Winnicott’s stance in relation to Freud disagrees with Freud’s conception of culture and religion. It appears that Freud’s fascination with religion and religio-cultural experience, similar to his liking of literature, stemmed from his interest in explicating universal human conflicts. However, such conflicts manifested between apparently functioning humans: historical figures, such as Oedipus and Moses. Freud also accredited similar levels of status to characters in literature, such as Hamlet or Prometheus, to whom he refers as cultural

Rizzuto and Freud  63 heroes. Freud postulates that Titan’s narrative represents the renunciation of an archaic instinctual drive to extinguish fire, through urination (1932). It is relevant to reflect on this idea of mythical characters representing characteristics of human instincts. On the one hand myths can be viewed as an elaboration of the task of mastering them and then applying them in everyday life. Indeed, Freud posits that cultural attainment brings restraint from its individuals. It is worthwhile to consider how the instincts incorporated in rituals and myths become repeated again and again, since generations need to learn afresh how to exercise self-control and self-sacrifice. However, Winnicott, alongside other like-minded object-relations thinkers, does not support this perspective. Freud pictured the struggle for culture as internal to the person (between ego and id), whereas object-relations theorists imagine the conflict for culture as linked to the dyadic mother–child relationship and in other developed dyads. According to Freud, civilisation is viewed as a necessary hindrance cast upon primordial human animals, which if left to its own devices would not ascribe a portion of its energy for the common good of humanity. Freud’s view resonates optimistically, in contrast to that of Winnicott or Klein. For Klein and Winnicott, the task is not to employ skills to master one’s powerful impulses to be satisfied; rather, it is to gather an integrated ‘self’, or in other terms, an agency that can connect emotionally to such impulses, whether powerful or not, and to make sense of one’s own images of God. Freud postulated civilisation as a necessary evil, inducing conditions of a neurotic nature, whereas for Winnicott, civilisation, which included religion, is considered a necessary means to achieving solace and hope. If these are not accessible, the ego will revert to schizoid horrors. Therefore, there is a radical difference in Freud’s and Klein and Winnicott’s respective assessments of culture, namely that it underpins a corresponding difference between Freud’s and Winnicott’s respective analyses of mythical figures that may possibly be projected into images of God. Interestingly, Freud identified these mythical personages with instinctual forms, whereas Winnicott identified the mythical characters with partly corroborated aspects of the self, or part objects. It can be argued, first, that it is demonstrable how cultural icons are the phylogenetic counterpart in relation to a transitional object, or a part object. Second, it can be queried, how correctly can such parallels be made? For example, is the notion of the transitional object clinically astute or valid? If so, is it right that a culture can manifest its phylogenetic counterpart, the cultural icon, in its own right? It is relevant to note that the reference to object has long stood in psychoanalytical theory (Nagera, p. 139–43). Freud, in his early writings, designated the term object to that which provides a focus for sexual and aggressive satisfaction. Where there was greater awareness and knowledge of the problem of narcissism, the meaning of object changed, referring also to a person’s sense of ‘self’. This latter meaning preoccupies the minds of object-relations thinkers. Alongside this notion of object as self is the sense of the symbolised

64  Rizzuto and Freud object, which creates links between object-relations theory and accounts of religious experience in the form of images of God. Rizzuto, the Freudian psychoanalyst, used clinical findings from the life histories of 20 patients and theoretical insights from works by Freud, Erikson, Fairbairn (1889–1964) and Winnicott (Rizzuto, 1979). Rizzuto accepts Spiro’s definition of religion: ‘an institution consisting of culturally patterned interactions with culturally postulated superhuman beings’ (Spiro, 1966, p. 96). God representations have arguably nothing to do with belief in God. Rizzuto, on the one hand, accepts God representations as projections of human endeavour: ‘as experienced by those who do and do not believe in them. . . . I have studied the history of their lack of belief in a God they are able to describe’ (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 3–4). On the other hand, Rizzuto formulates conditions of belief in God representations, to be discussed later on. Rizzuto advanced Freud’s focus on the father as the origins of religion by acknowledging the influence of the mother in the formation of God representations. Rizzuto elaborates positively on the function of ‘illusion’ facilitating the child’s separation from the mother (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 177–180). Winnicott postulates the transitional objects of the teddy bear and blanket serving a time-limited purpose, while the God representation is subject to increasing catharsis in early development and sustains its function as an available transitional object throughout life. God, like all transitional objects, is located ‘outside, inside and at the border’, writes Rizzuto (Winnicott, 1953, p. 2). God ‘is not an hallucination’ and ‘in health does not “go inside”‘; nor does the feeling about it necessarily undergo repression – it is not forgotten and not mourned (Winnicott, 1953, p. 5). It seems that God representations, on this view, are based on developmental needs originally met by the mother and later articulated through images in complex psychical ways. Generally, the relationally based transitional object is ‘gradually allowed to be decathected, so that in the course of time it becomes not so much forgotten as relegated to limbo . . . it loses meaning . . . because the transitional phenomena have become diffused . . . over the whole cultural field’ (Winnicott, 1953, p. 5). God, among other transitional objects, does have a special place, because he is the cultural creation offered to humans for their private and public re-elaboration of those primary ties, especially to the mother, according to Rizzuto. The God representation undergoes revision through the intimately related parent representations and self-representations prevalent at the time of the oedipal conflict and in late adolescence, when the individual needs to integrate a self-representation to face life decisions ahead (Wulff, 1997, p. 344). Freud’s expressions were those of the zeitgeist: he rejected the material truth of religion and had no apparent need for its ‘fairy tales’, according to Black (Black, 2002, p. 321). However, Rizzuto is deeply interested in ‘what people do with the God they create and find in their personal development and their cultural circumstances’, using a method of accurately recording

Rizzuto and Freud  65

Figure 1.1  Drawing by Fiorella Domenico

what the person says, writes and draws as access into their private world (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 24). One of Rizzuto’s patients, known as Fiorella Domenico, was asked to draw a picture of God and, as seen in Figure 1.1 next, wrote underneath ‘Dad is praying to us and looking over us’ (Rizzuto, 1989, pp. 93–94). Rizzuto interpreted that the drawing demonstrates immaculately the description posed by Freud of religion’s derivation from the oedipal conflict, whose existence is not questioned but remains significant. Additionally, Rizzuto’s patient Douglas O’Duffy (Rizzuto, 1989, pp. 109– 110) drew a picture, as seen in Figure 1.2, stating ‘I know that God is there inside me–I don’t know what it is. I have to find out inside me’ and then writing below the picture ‘I feel that God may be me in a mirror and that the only way I can open the Door is to know me completely and honestly’. Rizzuto considers that this patient demonstrates that he is unsure about believing in a God that he is unsure exists and that he is in the last stages of separationindividuation – his God representation mainly stemming from the mother. Rizzuto’s patient Daniel Miller’s drawing of his God representation in Figure 1.3 demonstrates, according to Rizzuto, that Miller appears angered or amazed in others interest in a God whom he has no interest in. Developmentally, he draws a well-defined and distinct image, deriving from the latency phase, drawing on influences entirely from the father, according to Rizzuto (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 130–132).

66  Rizzuto and Freud

Figure 1.2  Drawing by Douglas O’Duffy

Then, Rizzuto’s patient Bernadine Fisher drew a bright yellow sun, as seen in Figure 1.4, adding the words ‘A bright, clean, warm feeling’ (Rizzuto, 1989, p. 150). Rizzuto considered that Bernadine Fisher struggled with a harsh God that she would like to get rid of if she hadn’t been convinced of God’s power and existence. Developmentally, Rizzuto claims that this patient has never been validated as a daughter with an idealised image, with full separation achieved pathologically yet showing a constant relationship

Rizzuto and Freud  67

Figure 1.3  Drawing by Daniel Miller

with a specific object, drawn from the maternal representation. Margaret Mahler’s (1897–1985) theory of separation-­individuation describes the process by which a child attains their sense of self and individuality while coming to terms with recognising the caregiver as a separate individual. In The Birth of the Living God, Rizzuto analyses at each stage of development, in relation to the parents, the conditions for belief in the formation of our God representations. At the oral stage and early infancy with no

68  Rizzuto and Freud

Figure 1.4  Drawing by Bernadine Fisher

God representation formed, basic feelings of trust and mistrust for future emerging images of God are established; at the anal stage, the condition for belief and unbelief are the feelings of absence and presence; the phallic stage brings frequent idealisation of the father or other primary object or otherwise lacking admiration from the child creates a God of doubt or unbelief. Moreover, during the oedipal stage, the child’s God representation relates to both parents changing with the resolution of the oedipal conflict. At the latency stage, the God representation is based on protection or, through disappointment and despair, a turning away from God. In adolescence, separation from the internal object leads to a multilayered God representation (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 180–201). Daniel Miller, as analysed by Rizzuto, illustrates through his representation of God that he is a welldefined separated person expressive of a wide range of emotions and characteristics, at a time when full object representation is possible. Rizzuto identifies the terrifying father of the primal horde in Daniel’s image and his need for protection from an aggressive man (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 130–132).

Rizzuto and Freud  69 In Freud’s view, the oedipal phase is concerned with the relationship between fathers and sons. However, Rizzuto’s patient Fiorella Domenico’s God representation illustrates mainly her oedipal ‘internalised idealising love’ for the father, the daughter–father relationship had not been documented by Freud (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 93–94). In Moses and monotheism, Freud traces the origins of Christianity through guilt of a primitive patricide. Freud considered religion’s primitive origins in his historical exposition Totem and Taboo (Freud, 1912) – a totemic god having its source in a father, the sons of whom deified him (Freud, 1950, p. 149). In Civilisation and Its Discontents, Freud writes in relation to God, ‘the whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality’, considering that religion relates to unmet childhood needs (Freud, 1930, p. 74). In tracing the origins of God representations through parental influences, Rizzuto credits Freud’s thinking as being the most cogent. Freud argued that boys, around the stage of the resolution of the oedipal complex, incorporate their parental imagos, particularly that of the father into the formation of their God representation. During this process, libidinal wishes become sublimated, and where sublimation does not occur, the child develops a libidinal attachment to either his image of God or to another father substitute. Due to the increasing detachment from their parents, and the superego therefore receding, with ‘the imagos they leave behind, there are then linked the influences of teachers and authorities, self-chosen models and publicly recognised heroes, whose figures need no longer be introjected by the ego’. The ego having strengthened, Freud surmises ‘all who transfer the guidance of the world to Providence, God . . . still looks upon these ultimate and remotest powers as a parental couple’ (Freud, 1924, p. 168). In relation to maternal influences on our God representations, Rizzuto considers Freud’s account of the ‘permanent representations from the mother to the godhead forming the inner world of object representations’ (Rizzuto, 1979, p. 6). Freud writes that at the age of five, an important change occurs: ‘a portion of the external world has, at least partially been abandoned as an object and has instead, by identification, been taken into the ego and thus become an integral part of the internal world’ (Freud, 1938, p. 204). This newly formed psychical agency carries on the functions formerly performed by people in the external world, called the superego, the conscience that functions in a judicial capacity: observing, judging and threatening the ego with ‘a severity for which no model has been provided by the real parents’ (Freud, 1938, p. 205). Rizzuto describes this scope as the relational-representational object experience, beginning with the parents and culminating in the child’s formation of divinity, so closing the first cycle of representational development at the resolution of the oedipal conflict (Rizzuto, 1979, p. 6). Rebalancing Freud’s underestimation of the mother’s role in the formation of God representations, Rizzuto recognised that the child is known and read by her mother, and the mother’s face organises the child’s experience, to make a more or less cohesive sense of self for the formation of God representations. Lake

70  Rizzuto and Freud suggests that there are two needs of every child in these foundational first three years, which can be summed up as the face of the mother and the voice of the father on one hand and the smile of loving recognition and words of guidance on the other (Lake, 1966, p. 179). Jacques Lacan (1901–1981), drawing on linguistics, anthropology and psychoanalysis, updated Freud’s idea that the ego is an effect of largely unconscious processes rather than an innate agency as considered by ego psychologists, mainly Heinz Hartmann (1894–1970). For Lacan, the unconscious is structured like a language, according to Noelle McAfee (McAfee, 2004, p. 21). McAfee states that Lacan develops the story of the Oedipus complex. In Freud’s view, once the male child realises that the mother is not almighty, that she lacks a penis, the boy starts to identify with the father. Lacan theorises that ‘the law of the father’ shows that it is not the father that the child turns to per se but rather what the father represents: language and the law. The image of God as father in Freud’s scheme is in Lacan’s terminology – a signifier exchanged in the symbolic realm. In the case of the phallus being a signifier and not an organ, no one can ever have it: the power of the phallus means to be loved, recognised as powerful and complete; no one is never satisfied; and the result is desire (McAfee, 2004, pp. 21–22). This desire or longing is arguably one of the main affective residues left over through separation from the mother in the formation of our God representations. Lacan talks about the child being in the imaginary realm; the infant accepted as ‘the world, the register, the dimension of images, conscious or unconscious, perceived or imagined’ (Lacan, 1977, p. ix). The mother is the object of the infant’s concerns in relation to the infant’s needs, not as an object distinct from the infant but connected as its first imago, a phantasm, an object conceived to be located in psychical reality reacting to it as if it were real – in the imaginary realm, the way ‘reality’ appears to a preverbal, pre-linguistic consciousness (McAfee, 2004, p. 33). In the imaginary realm, there is no distinction between the truth and the fiction of its images, symbols and representations; it takes all its internal representations to be real. In this early stage, Lacan identified the aspect of mirroring. Lacan identified two other realms: the real, which is outside of the imaginary and the symbolic, and the symbolic, which attempts to capture the real. The imaginary and semiotic realm is postulated by Kristeva as a necessary precondition for symbolic and linguistic articulation (McAfee, 2004, pp. 33–34). On the other hand, Luce Irigaray creatively articulates the origins of our God representations as The imaginary and the symbolic of intra-uterine life and of the first bodily encounter with the mother. . . . Where are we to find them? In what darkness, what madness, have they been abandoned. And the relationship with the placenta, the first home to surround us, whose halo we carry everywhere, like some child’s security blanket, how is that represented in our culture? (Irigaray, 1991, p. 39)

Rizzuto and Freud  71 Our God representations reveal much about underlying parentally influenced internal and social processes. Brendan Callaghan suggests that he thinks that the way Mary, the mother of God is thought of and represented, influences how people develop, reflecting changes and differences in the processes of development: our internal processes are entwined with cultural processes, and our internalised ‘objects’ are shaped by the symbols of Christianity (Callaghan, 1990, pp. 402–403). Callaghan suggests that as the representation of Mary becomes more perfect, the representation becomes more divorced from people’s real experiences. Women then become denigrated for embodying imperfect characteristics seen as evil that are projected onto as ‘witches’, as expressed in Jungian terms (Callaghan, 1990, p. 407). Aiding our understanding of the formation of our God representations, Ann Belford Ulanov reflects on how our internal images of the feminine and the spirit are influenced: ‘what is inside is certainly ours – it is after all inside “us” – but it is comprised of bits of “them”, not only specific other people but also images of our culture and historical time’ (Ulanov, 1990, p. 143), and ‘among the more central and rapidly-changing symbols are those of the feminine, of woman and hence of the relationship between women and men’ (Callaghan, 1990, p. 404). Gemma Fiumara suggests that current concepts from developmental research indicate that what the infant internalises is not the person that they deal with but the process of mutual regulation. Fiumara thinks that it is not the ‘bits’ of people, nature and culture that are absorbed but types of relations and that we ‘grow through the absorption of the affective and structural links that exist between everything we experience in our inchoate vicissitudes’ (Fiumara, 2001, p. 113). On the other hand, Vergote and Tamayo (1981) considered that our God representations are composed of a mixture of both parents; the maternal representation of availability; and the paternal one of law and authority. In their study, it was found that in the six cultural groups, involved in all, availability accounted for a much higher proportion of the variance, and the representation of God proved to resemble the mother figure more than the father (Vergote and Tamayo, 1981). In a different study, Bernard Grohm found that parental relationships are the major factor affecting our selfworth and our God image (Grohm, 1981, p. 709). In considering the underlying structure of God representations, Christopher Mackenna, Jungian psychoanalyst and previous director of Saint Marylebone Healing and Counselling Centre, thinks that the power of God images to maintain a rigid defensive system and the more benign ways that these images develop correspond to changes to our self-image, through modifications of the defensive structure. MacKenna concludes that a God image ‘may be the only safe container for our longing for perfection, so long as our attitude towards it is one of worship rather than identification’ (MacKenna, 2002, p. 325). Perhaps the longing for perfection is an unmet need from infancy for nurturance. As Vergote summarises, similarities between God representations and parental figures, rather than images, can be interpreted as conceptual

72  Rizzuto and Freud expressions of religious experience; symbols motivated by some innate need (Allport, 1953): projections (Fromm, 1950; Spiro & D’Andrade, 1958), attributions (Proudfoot & Shaver, 1975), attachments (Kirkpatrick); or perhaps a correlational way of coping (Pargament et al., 1990). And that a clear understanding of the figures of mother, father, and God is necessary to devise an adequate psychological explanation of their interrelations (Vergote & Tamayo, 1981, p. 2). For Vergote, a ‘representation of God’ connotes the ideas that God is rendered actively present in the mind, and this is done by means of that which is present to the mind from the experience of the realities of the human world through their affective relations (Vergote & Tamayo, 1981, pp. 4–5). Vergote recognises that the father is not attached to the infant by a primordial bioaffective bond, his presence not representing values of the same vital and affective order as the maternal presence. . . . the father, as a third party, is introduced progressively as a significant person for the infant’s psychic development. (Vergote & Tamayo, 1981, p. 13) Interconnected with these ideas in relation to religion are those formulated by Black (1993) when he asks, what sort of thing is a religion? Black argues that ‘the contribution to religious understanding that psychoanalysis has to make lies chiefly in its notion of ‘internal objects’ – in other words, the imagined figures to which we are always unconsciously relating and which we derive by a rich process of introjection and projection from our earliest memories, even going back to the womb. Contemporary psychoanalysis refers to ‘psychic reality’, in relation to designating the effectiveness in our lives, of these figures which are often just as powerful as those relating to our ordinary, external reality. Black considers that it does not diminish religious figures such as God, Jesus or the Buddha, by referring to the reality of their action as that of an internal rather than external object (Black, 1993, p. 7). Another perspective is offered by Gerald Edelman (1992) in relation to his view of the individual Darwinian development of brain structure, in response to particular signals, including the responses of mother, father, siblings and others. Black considers that this provides a way to imagine how ‘internal objects’ become so deeply inlaid in us and why they are so strongly resistant to being altered, despite all the good intentions of the conscious mind (Black, 1996). Buber was abandoned by his mother at age three and he reflects on ‘The eternal silence of these infinite spaces makes me afraid’ (Friedman, 1980). This emphasises the importance of the presence of the full encounter of ‘ich’ and ‘du’ – ‘I am the intimate you’, which is the grammatical form in which mother speaks to her child. However, Buber had experienced the opposite, namely the terrifying unfathomable abyss of absence. His main thought was of God as a presence and revelatory encounter when another is experienced as ‘You’–’Thou’ rather than as he, she or it. Buber writes, ‘for me

Rizzuto and Freud  73 everything religiously actual is fundamentally a matter of the here and now, not of some historical event that is by its nature unique and incomparable’ (Horwitz, 1988). Furthermore, Buber writes that The human being receives, but what he receives is not a content, but a presence, a presence as strength. This presence includes three elements: first, it includes the whole abundance of actual reciprocity, a state in which one is no longer cut off . . . no longer abandoned, although one cannot tell what it is to which one is linked. . . . Second, it includes – it is really the same thing, only contemplated from another angle – the confirmation of the meaning. There is undeniably a meaning, not a meaning that can be pointed out and asserted but a meaning that is thus confirmed and guaranteed to oneself, a meaning that one cannot translate. Then, third, this presence and this strength includes a call to the human being to put this meaning to the proof in his life through his deeds. (Horwitz, 1988, p. 115) Buber (1970) formulated the ‘I’–’Thou’ relationship, which describes the opposite, it seems, of projection, where the person is conceived to receive a presence as strength and not a content, experienced in three ways. God is referred to by Buber as a presence. First, the person is in a state of reciprocity and is no longer cut off or abandoned in isolation. Discussing internal objects, as posed through psychoanalysis, to Buber would have reduced significance, since he considered that perceptions of ‘Thou’ change from he to she to it and back to ‘Thou’, which for Buber is the most precious as a religious experience of God as love, where God and love are observedly identified. Buber stated that the ‘You’ world coheres at the centre in which the extended lines of relationship intersect, as the external ‘You’ (Buber, 1970, p. 148). Furthermore, in relation to Buber and the personal God, the designation of God as a person is indispensable for all those who like Buber does not mean a principle when they utter ‘God’. Eckhart, at times, equated ‘Being’ with ‘God’, though Buber was clear that he does not mean an idea when expressing ‘God’. Philosophers, such as Plato, could designate God as entering into a direct relationship to humans through creative, revelatory and redemptive acts, making it possible to enter into a direct relationship with ‘God’. This arena and meaning of existence establishes each time a mutuality of a kind that can obtain only between people. Interestingly, Buber makes reference to how the concept of personhood is incapable of describing the nature of God but says that it is permitted and even necessary to refer to God as also a person (Buber, 1970, pp. 180–181). How God is perceived, generally speaking, has been discussed for centuries, such as by Pascal (1666, p. 309), who distinguishes between my God and your God. The attributes which Pascal considers relevant to a

74  Rizzuto and Freud description of the Abrahamic God and then later the God of Jesus Christ places him firmly in the tradition of Judaism and then Christianity, where a figure of God which is not a consistent figure. The human model for this God seems to be an ultimately benign but very powerful parent, one who is determined not to let his son forget his dependency. There are possible prenatal resonations with the sentiments expressed in the words of the Buddha: ‘A good theologian is one who says almost nothing about God, even though the word “theology” means “discourse about God”, perhaps pertaining also to psychoanalysis. Furthermore, a philosophy of psychology may consider that, on the other hand, it appears dangerous to talk about God. The notion of God might be an obstacle for those believers to touch God as love, wisdom, and mindfulness’. Thich Nhat Hanh (1995, pp. 150–151) articulates Buddhist thinking: You tell me you are in love with a beautiful woman, but when I ask you, ‘What is the colour of her eyes? What is her name? What is the name of the town? You cannot tell me. I don’t believe you are really in love with something real’. Your notion of God may be vague like that, not having to do with reality. The Buddha was not against God. He was only against notions of God that are mental constructions that do not correspond to reality, notions that prevents us from developing ourselves and touching ultimate reality. That is why I believe it is safer to approach God through the Holy Spirit than through the door of theology. . . . Whenever we see someone who is loving, compassionate, mindful, caring and understanding, we know that the Holy Spirit is there. (Thich Nhat Hanh, 1995, pp. 150–151) Thich Nhat Hanh, among other Buddhists, insists that religion is a practical business and that all concepts are on the whole misleading. By setting aside the concept of God, the Buddhist may place themselves closer to the reality that the concept derives from than many of those who retain it (Thich Nhat Hanh, 1995, p. 5). Moreover, Blaise Pascal discussed that ‘the heart has reasons’ and discussed the relevance for conversion experiences, and he referred to the ‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob’ (Pascal, 1654). Pascal describes further how the God aligned with Jesus Christ is a distinct figure, where the humour prevalent in Abrahamic folk tales is replaced by deep moral concern. Furthermore, Abraham’s cautious distancing becomes replaced by an almost childlike acceptance, or even welcoming – Jesus addresses his God as Abba, ‘Daddy’ while moving obediently to his tortuous death – but again at times, it is fierce sounding: ‘I bring not peace but a sword’. Black reflects the binding quality of religion in recognising that joining a religion is establishing membership in a community, people who become a vivid and significant internal reference group. These people,

Rizzuto and Freud  75 like family members, are internalised as objects whose words, attitudes and actions influence the believer, especially through traditional life transitions: birth, marriage, the birth of children, death. Pascal describes his experience of having embraced the God of Abraham and Jesus Christ, who surrendered himself to a vast process, involving opening himself to an experience of love for an internal object, at once particular and infinite, a glimpse of his lost mother perhaps. Pascal adopted a religion of incarnation (but a different notion of God, than Buddha had referred to previously). Through a belief in such objects, he affirmed reality in them (Britton, 1995). The heart had now found its reasons, for example through the transformative impact of religious objects created, transmitted and developed from the context of a specific tradition. A philosophical lens on psychological mechanisms in relation to religion was presented by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Before Kant, it was possible to believe claims about the world, including religious claims, which took the form of straightforward statements about objective reality. Kant observed that the nature of experience depends also on the nature of the experiencing subject; human beings can have experience only if it accords with certain categories: 1 It must fit into the continuum of space and time. 2 It participate in the network of cause and effect. 3 It must be of a certain intensity. In this way, Kant introduced the uncertainty of knowing reality as it is, since we can only be certain of, or know via the distorting constructs of our subjective apparatus, as proposed by Buddha 2000 years earlier. As far as psychoanalytic language is concerned, states Black, it is of contemporary relevance to speak openly in relation to the significance of the psychotic aspects in the non-psychotic personality and, according to Bion, differentiate the psychotic from the non-psychotic aspects of personality. Psychosis, as Bion refers to it, is a non-psychiatric term designating a repudiation of reality. Reference to the psychotic aspects of personality is an attempt to seek further about the fact that the catastrophic and incomprehensible infantile anxieties underpin and influence the psychotic structure of the child’s personality, which needs to be negotiated through the passions of ensuing life. In contrast, some people appear to be creatively affected by having to cope with early loss, as described by Aberbach (1989) in relation to surviving trauma through grief, perhaps just as images of God are created, changed and mourned. The possible connection and overlap between psychoanalysis and religion as cultural practices supporting the analysis of images of God has been considered by Symington (1998) and Fromm (1960), who indicate that psychoanalysis provides a form of spiritual practice, facilitating a capacity to

76  Rizzuto and Freud hold in mind a good object alongside distinguishing psychoanalysis from spiritual guidance: But certainly psychoanalysis can do something recognisably similar to what a traditional religion may do for someone in crisis – for example, St Ignatius after he was wounded at the siege of Pamplona – the prolonged process by which he transformed himself from soldier to saint – it is easy to think of Jesus Christ and the virgin Mary, the objects of his constant adoration and remorse as playing the role of transference figures. (Meissner, 1992b) Other major religions, including Buddhism, are in some ways unlike psychoanalysis, as Meissner suggests, since these religions provide a narrative in relation to the god object, which supports its existence beyond that of subjective personal experience (Meissner, 1992a, p. 16). The positive qualities encouraging the religious believer in relation to their needs can be identified as generosity, love, attribution of significance, protection from disappointment, bitterness, envy, hatred, regret, commitment to their values and principles, challenge and hope in assisting people to manage their vulnerability better in terms of external (‘real’) encounters with danger. Meissner helpfully states that strength demonstrated by the religious believer corresponds to the psychoanalytic understanding of the capacity to maintain a ‘good object’, enabling an experience of perceiving a person as good, when the person is absent and where limitations are exerted. The recognition of the significance of nurturing such a capacity for mental health is arguably one of the main contributions of contemporary psychoanalysis. This aspect can be viewed in wider terms, since religion provides a holding ground, or secure base for, the psychic health of the individual and society. Developing this idea, mental health is additionally promoted through a feeling of being spiritually connected to the collective consciousness and unconsciousness of the world and nature. Likewise, interest in the Indian tradition stimulated the idea of infinitely many layers of symbolisation, facilitating a capacity to manage the potential delusory nature of statements made in terms of religiosity while being able to hold onto their truth value, as Buber states in terms of his vision of God as a person reflecting Indian influence: ‘For me, this is essential, but there are quite other ways of conceptualising the matter which may be equally true’. Furthermore, Ramakrishna postulates that ‘Man does not go from error to truth, he goes from truth to truth’ (Ramakrishna, Kishore, Vaidya, Nagaratna, & Nagendra, 2014). Freud conceived of religion as a replay of early parental relationships of historical origin. James Jones recognises that as psychoanalysis moves towards an approach incorporating the relational self, it can be seen how transferential patterns stemming from earliest relationships affect ‘their

Rizzuto and Freud  77 construing of experience and in the deep structure of their internalised relationships’ (Jones, 1991, p. 63), and he recognises that God representations, faith and symbols are at the interface of subjective and objective worlds (Jones, 1991, p. 41). Rizzuto was aware of the use of God representations to avoid transferential issues, for silencing the superego and the potential use of God representations to aid integration and relating to the world (Rizzuto, 1996, pp. 409–431). Rizzuto’s lending of Kohut’s (1913–1981) concepts of transferential mirroring and a self–object bond is a useful explanation of the maternal origins of the God representation (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 185–188). Rizzuto states that the appropriate mirroring of self in the mother’s reactions is essential for constructing a cohesive sense of self, at the core of our God representations (Jones, 1991, p. 43). Rizzuto is right to state that Freud was basically correct in tracing the origins of the God representation to early oedipal relations. Yet it is also true that Freud underestimated ‘the complexities of this derivation, especially the role of the mother’ (Wulff, 1997, pp. 343–344). Freud contributed vastly to our religious understanding of the oedipal origins of the God representation of the figure of the father, and it is appreciated that he was analysing religion in the context of a particular time and culture. Rizzuto acknowledges the importance of the Oedipus complex and expands its exclusive focus, considering God representations as complex and belonging to every developmental stage. Callaghan adds that Rizzuto shows us ‘how our God representations can be seen as operating in transitional space, and so are themselves open to development (or the absence of it)’ (Callaghan, 2003, p. 28). To the extent that Rizzuto is right, it will be pertinent now to explore the possible derivations of images of God, according to Klein and Bion, in relation to the prenatal and perinatal phases of life.

2 Klein and Bion

Klein and BionKlein and Bion

The intrauterine in relation to images of God

There is much more continuity between autonomically appropriate quanta and the waves of conscious thought and feeling than the impressive caesura of transference and counter=transference would have us believe. So . . . ? Investigate the cesura; not the analyst; not the analysand; not the unconscious; not the conscious; not sanity; not insanity. But the caesura, the link, the synapse, the (counter-trans)-ference, the tranisitive-intransitive mood. (Bion, 1989)

It is perhaps the Kleinian espousal of unconscious phantasy underlying all mental activity which most aptly illuminates the possibility of understanding the potential disposition of developing images of God from prenatal and perinatal life. The main support from the Kleinian perspective is that the transference is present from the very beginning of the analytic relationship; the transference is there with the patient; a whole gamut of transgenerational projections onto and into the foetus make this a poignant, emotional beginning. It would be possible, therefore, to conceive of a prenatal and perinatal transference manifesting in the analytic setting later on. Similarly, as Freud described, the transference involves repeating with the mother and other significant figures in their present existence relational patterns, phantasies and conflicts mainly with their parents (Esman, 1990). As previously discussed, Freud looks in detail at the evolution of the formation of the parental representation, which has focused on the primaeval father through to the father’s actual father, has exalted the father into an image of God. It is worthwhile to explore how we can better understand images of God in relation to Kleinian theory, which perhaps remains unexamined. Klein is considered to have not contributed to our understanding of religion, which requires exploration and reflection. First, let us turn to the key concepts which Klein formulated on the basis of her observations, mainly of children. There had been a belief that children could not be analysed, on the basis of the belief that children did not transfer their feelings and therefore could not be worked with psychoanalytically. However, Klein believed that children could be analysed and adopted from Hug-Hellmuth, with an emphasis

Klein and Bion  79 on play. Klein held that girls are preoccupied with their hostility to their mother’s insides and they fear that retaliation from the mother will destroy their body, abolish its contents and take them out of it. This contradicted Freud’s view that children deny the anatomical difference between mother and father. The origin of Klein’s object relations was through the use of male and female toys, which pointed towards the relationships with and between objects. Klein’s view places less emphasis on Freud’s focus on the tensions caused by sexual energy, the libido, involving the instinct having a source (erogenous zones), aim (discharge) and object (incidental and variable). In contrast, Klein emphasised the importance of the object and, following Karl Abraham, emphasised anxieties about and for people and things, which the child related to. It was Fairbairn and Guntrip who dispensed entirely with instinct to focus on relationships with objects (people). Children’s play with objects revealed that the toys revealed the child’s unconscious phantasies becoming active in the child’s mind. There was a consistent unconscious content which Klein believed threaded its way through the anxious play, and she was interested in freeing up this inhibition. On the other hand, Anna Freud thought that only infantile neurosis could be treated and only if only the child actually suffered rather than the rest of the family as well. Therefore, Anna Freud argued against Klein that play is like free association in adults and that no transference is possible in children. Arguably, Klein demonstrated that Anna Freud’s warming-up phase was unnecessary and that negative transferences can be worked with in children. It is important in relation to thinking about prenatal and perinatal existence that Klein discovered that the Oedipus complex starts before age three and that the superego precedes the Oedipus complex. Development in children was thought to be stunted by anxieties about spaces and gaps, which can be filled with symbols if anxiety about them is not too great. The Kleinian perspective is arguably embedded in Freudian drive theory, and in relation to the depressive position formulated by Klein, Abraham was also a forerunner through their interest in depression and when ordinary mourning has gone awry. Individuals may get stuck and be unable to move on to a new object when unmanageable degrees of aggression are felt towards the loved one, as considered by Freud; the dead person is then taken inside the ego, and the mourner identifies with that person in a significant sense. Freud considered that the ego then receives this aggression and punishment, which turns to a self-punitive depression known as melancholia. The ‘position’ which Klein refers to is in relation to an object and has characteristic anxieties, phantasies and defences. The use of the word position in Kleinian literature doesn’t replace phase or the Freudian anal, oral and genital stages of development. Klein’s depressive position (Klein, 1935) involves the psychotic anxiety of a primitive and infantile nature in relation to the infant in the child. The initial depressive position marks a significant step forward in relation to

80  Klein and Bion integrative development, which can occur once the infant discovers that the hated bad breast and the longed-for and loved good breast are the same. Gradually, the mother starts to become recognised as a whole object, one who can be both good and bad, rather than being two part objects, one being good and one being bad. The aspects of love and hate, in relation to external reality and internal phantasy, would now start to coexist. As ambivalence is gradually accepted, the mother is able to be considered as fallible and therefore capable of both being good and being bad. The infant then starts to acknowledge its own powerlessness and helplessness, alongside dependency and jealousy, felt but not necessarily consciously towards the mother. The infant in consequence becomes anxious about the aggressive impulses which might have hurt or even destroy the caregiver, who they now recognise as being needed and loved. The result of this is depressive anxiety, which replaces destructive impulses with guilt. More generally speaking in the depressive position, the mechanism of projective identification is employed to feel empathetic in relation to others, involving moving emotional aspects of the self into the other person, to aid understanding. To a certain degree, this process is facilitated through the other person being receptive to this occurring. It is fascinating to note such observations: the experience of the projecting person through their identification becomes related to the actions and reactions of the other person. Once the thoughts and feelings are re-introjected or taken back inside the projecting person from the other, they may likely be better able to manage them, because they mirror how the other person coped. Klein described the depressive position beginning after the paranoid-schizoid position at three to four months, possibly playing a dominant role, depending on other circumstances throughout life. Additionally, it is commonly thought that the individual oscillates between these two manic depressive states. Wilfred Bion associated the depressive position as being the normal mode of functioning for an adult work group (Bion, 1959). He portrayed projective identification as a means of communication which seeks an experience of containment. In Bion’s theory of containment, this aspect is expressed as a link between the container (the other person) and the contained (the thought or feeling). This model includes parent–child and analyst–patient relationships in relation to containment. In relation to Kleinian theory, she considered that neurotic mechanisms emerge and overshadow the psychotic anxieties once the child is maturing. It is reasonable to be curious and ask what Klein means by psychotic. Klein does not mean psychosis in the psychiatric sense but rather as anxieties existing in everyone, and they are therefore ordinary processes. The exact form of anxiety which is at the core of the depressive position is depressive anxiety, which leads to manic depression for some. Klein thinks of depression as a state arising when the depressive position has not been worked through and when conflicts are not adequately resolved, and therefore, pressures remain at the roots of an individual’s personality.

Klein and Bion  81 Karl Abraham confirmed the theory that at the deepest layers of the psyche, the loss of an object is an anal process and its introjection an oral one. Klein recognised the internalisation of parental figures before the genital phase, at around 3 years old. However, this ignores the possibility of internalising parental figures intrauterine. It is pertinent to ask, what is meant by the idea of an internal object? For example, does it mean that showing concern for internal organs mirrors concern for people externally, where the relating is to organs as if they were people, which defines a quality of otherness, such as ‘my poor toe’, rather than ‘poor me’? Unconscious phantasy is central to Kleinian perspectives, where the internal play activity can often be violent and aggressive, and if it were applied to the mind of prenatal and perinatal infants, it would create frightening and persecuting images of God. Similarly, Klein’s paranoid-schizoid position elaborates anxious and aggressive play, representing aggressive internal states and in relation to the formation of images of God. The internal mother and father, creating the combined parent figure, evokes enormous insecurity in relation to the internal state, which is concerned to manage the violence and the anxiety in relation to the loved parents, thus forming a crisis for the child. Such a crisis may well be managed at this phase of development, and there is no reason for it not occurring earlier in the lifespan prenatally, where images of God possibly act as a surrogate parental figure, who is always available. It is the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions which show in the latter case an especial confluence of love and hate, violence and concern, where primitive phantasies comprise the depressive anxiety, which suggests an early origin in children’s development: at least in the first year of life. However, again this demonstrates that by examining infant psychological development in the first few months of life, this is a continuation of earlier life back to the intrauterine state and therefore will not be so different. Attempts are made to work out situations in external objects, through projection and internal objects into the external world, where it can be seen how the objects in the figures of parents’ phantasies are lived out through them. Klein writes about reparation, and one may wonder how the foetus employs this to try, perhaps, to repair damage from violent phantasies, where reparation is an impulse towards creativity. This is reparation towards external objects, as representatives of those inside that are damaged, where external objects that are once restored can be internalised as repaired internal objects through an attempt to mobilise positive loving feelings to dominate over hatred and thus to rescue the parents in whatever surviving condition. Hence, what is being described is the introjection of good and bad objects. The depressive position becomes embedded when the child can accept mixed feelings towards others, such as anger plus remorse. Klein insightfully refers to part objects as primitive defence mechanisms of splitting, through ‘splitting of the object’, where the person recognises its objects in a magnified form of one feature to such proportions, such that it

82  Klein and Bion eclipses all others in the personality. Bad objects are experienced as all bad, with intent on destroying the child, which is manifested in all good or all bad ‘part objects’. Some infants are observed to particularly position away from the breast when most in need as if it is a dangerous predator. One may wonder how early on these splitting defence mechanisms emerge, and it is worth looking into the possibility that such feelings would inevitably and most intensely be evoked in utero, where dependency is at its most intense. A further link between postnatal and prenatal existence can be found in the way that Klein conveyed the related process of splitting the ego, where the person divides their own self. Aspects of the self are separated and obliterated as if not a part of the personality at all. The individual can tend to deny all knowledge of aggression, or all guilt is separated off and abolished. A further concept of projective identification describes the process of splitting the ego, where additional support is employed from projection and introjection. With projection, the person does not believe themselves to be aggressive but rather wholly harmless. Loss of parts of the personality or identity through finding these in the other is called projective identification, involving a need to defend against aggression. This process would inevitably be key to the formation of images of God, and for the foetus, there are powerful emotional and physical currents which would require defending against. A further area of interest in relation to the possibility of prenatal and perinatal formation of images of God from the Kleinian perspective is that of narcissism. If powerful and primitive defences distort the person, then this is considered narcissism, which is different from Freud’s meaning of narcissism. Freud thought that the way the libido is directed to the self as if no one else exists, which happens from birth, is then turned outwards to others, influencing the evaluation of others in their actual surroundings. Klein believed that there is no objectless state at birth and that narcissism results in the interchange, through phantasy with an object, so that good qualities of all kinds reside within the self and all bad in the object. Therefore, aspects of the personality are exchanged across the boundary. Klein thought that healthy development of the infant stems from recognising good and bad aspects of the self. The paranoid-schizoid position comprises the split state from birth onwards, which is dominated by fear and insecurity and therefore a sense of the presence of the bad object. In relation to the death instinct, the early state that the baby employs comprises primitive defence mechanisms to allay the terrors of earliest anxieties. There is every reason to consider it possible that such primitive anxieties originate from life in the womb, where the foetus contends with a plethora of risks alone. Surely, once the brain has developed at 17 weeks, images would be evoked to help the foetus manage such an emotional and often physical onslaught, as Bion has explained (Bion, 1962). The question arises about the nature of the possible images of God in the mind of the foetus. It is pertinent to now turn to examine Bion’s unique consideration of intrauterine life.

Klein and Bion  83

Bion on intrauterine life In Attention and Interpretation, Bion (1970) emphasises the importance of pursuing the truth O: that which cannot be known of any object but that one can be at one with it, free of memory and desire but that which is ‘ “faith” – faith that there is an ultimate reality and truth – the unknown, unknowable, “formless infinite” ’ (Bion, 1970, p. 31). In these statements, Bion appears to be referring to trust with all its experiential complexities, at its most fragile, one can speculate, during intrauterine life, when the first emotional ties are tentatively becoming established. The transformation through faith is expressed by Bion as being from O to K. On the other hand, Bion referred to the innate expectation – for example, the premonition of death as a ‘preconception’. The propensity to have an experience when the baby meets the right external conditions can be thought about in relation to Klein’s thought of the innate propensity to feel the terror of death, through neglect, pain, prolonged hunger and so on. Klein had discovered a remarkable specific phantasy, such as those she observed in children’s play. The internalised sense of someone inside the body trying to tear the individual apart ‘from within’. The self-destructiveness and accompanying persecutory anxiety show the defences against this anxiety, which she called schizoid mechanisms, and she referred to the whole state of mind as the paranoid-schizoid position (Klein, 1942). Bion (1962) alludes to the pain of the individual, which would presumably include the foetal phase of development, to create an image of God in their mind, as a way of coping with such disturbance; Bion referred to this as ‘nameless dread’ manifesting in psychosis, dream, feelings of persecution and a most feared attack, for which the superego is responsible. The transference which most likely starts prenatally projects states of mind into the analyst, which are no longer defined as a past process and yet are repetitiously recreated in the here and now, by using the object for a projective identification, supporting the splitting of the ego. Controversies over the usefulness of the countertransference have been debated for many years. Countertransference is an accurate reception of the projection from the patient, which becomes reversed from being an interference to becoming a potential source of vital confirmation. Bion called this the containing function, where the analyst is containing the projection of intolerable experiences like a mother in relation to her child. This notion extends to the intrauterine state, where the foetus’s life is most in jeopardy and where the foetus can be imagined to use images of godlike figures to contain such unmanageable feelings of persecution or bliss. Freudian psychoanalysis views the death instinct as silent, like the foetus who uses no words at all but communicates through kicking, for example. There is no way of observing a self-destructive instinct, since the self-destruction behind the compulsion to repeat could not be verified by practical methods resting on symbol-interpretation and dream analysis.

84  Klein and Bion Now the direct enactment in the transference and the direct transfer of feelings and parts of the self are understood as non-verbal and non-symbolic interactions between patient and analyst. The death instinct reveals itself in the subtle interactions of the splitting and the unconscious transference and countertransference relationship between the analyst and the patient. According to Klein, envy is identified as developing from the beginning of life as part of an inherent conflict in the human inheritance. This same process can easily be considered in prenatal existence. Others contend that envy arises secondarily to frustration, neglect, trauma or abuse. In relation to quantities of aggression in the human being, Klein attempts through envy to understand how the immature and developing mind of the infant tries to deal with an internal state of self-destruction and to mobilise the other side of nature. Self-destructiveness turned onto another or the attack on the life and goodness of another person is ‘envy’, involving immediate externalisation of the death instinct, resulting in phantasies of sucking the life out of something, scooping out the goodness in a form of raiding, stealing, breaking and entering. In association with this is a belief that the object itself is then endowed with an equal and opposite violence towards this invading space. Klein thought that she had found a level of explanation of these early states in children in which cycles of paranoid fear and aggression mount up into panics and night terrors. This is the grounding of the paranoid-schizoid position and close to a direct expression of the death instinct. Is it controversial to propose the possibility of a prenatal unconscious? It was Rene Descartes who viewed the mind and consciousness in unity and at the same time as not including animals’ experiences. Alternately, Freud reassociated the links between humans and nonhuman animals by postulating that the unconscious contains the instincts and primitive emotions, often referred to as anxieties. The deeper one reflects on and makes contact with more primitive, possibly prenatal and perinatal feelings, one can wonder about the human capacity to get in touch with primitive, seemingly irrepresentable, unreachable aspects of the self, along with the unrepressed unconscious. Contact with such primitive mental states and with the origin of the self is a possible aim of psychic growth, perhaps not so much for uncovering historical truth or recalling unconscious content but for generating movement between different aspects of the psyche, including the prenatal and perinatal. The motion itself expands the mind and facilitates psychic growth and development. Bion’s (1989) new and powerful concept of the caesura implies a connection between mature emotions and thoughts and intrauterine life. This functions as a model for linking apparently unbridgeable frames of mind. Bion is innovative in encouraging us to ‘dream’ creatively and to allow our minds to roam freely, emphasising the analytic speculative imagination and intuition, which at times can be considered as bordering on hallucination.

Klein and Bion  85 However, being on the border between the conscious and unconscious, dreaming undermines the psychic equilibrium and creates a threat of catastrophe resulting from the confusion that it afforded between the psychotic and the non-psychotic aspects of the personality. Therefore, there can be a tendency to attempt evasion by reverting to a more intensive mode of thinking, often by relying on an external reality. The psychoanalyst’s intuition and dreaming, which is possibly a remnant of intrauterine life, becomes elaborated by way of penetrating and moving beyond the caesura, which can move the analysis to bear unbearable states of mind, alongside the painful awareness of not being able to know the emotional experience. Therefore, if dreams and intuitions can be considered remnants of intrauterine life, images of God can be considered in a similar vein. In other words, it is likely that images of God were formulating in the prenatal unconscious. Maiello (2012) explores the notion of possible proto-experiences in relation to the prenatal foetus, within the framework of Bion’s analytic model of the container–contained relationship. According to De Masi, the contact barrier and alpha function perform the function of freeing the mind from excess sensory stimuli or otherwise transforming it. Just as dreams can be considered as the way the psyche performs in waking life, establishing the contact barrier via beta elements which become transformed into alpha ones and sensations which then turn into emotions, a similar process may take place in relation to the formulation of images of God from prenatal and perinatal life, viewed in similar terms as those of dream symbols. The mother perhaps plays her part in facilitating this function through her capacity for reverie. The physical complex of the foetus contained in the maternal uterus may represent the beginning of an exploration of the foetus’s possible experiences of its condition of being contained in a container. Maiello’s paper considers the sensory elements of auditory, tactile and kinaesthetic layers and levels of awareness in relation to the prenatal child in respect of the mother’s voice and the uterine enclave. It seems that Maiello’s hypothesis centres on containing prenatal experiences which may hold their mental counterpart through the development of a proto-mental container alongside memory; this is observable in the newborn infant. Furthermore, Maiello indicates that containing prenatal proto-­experiences may facilitate the child for deeper postnatal insights in relation to the preconception of containment and thus represent the experiential foundation for meeting with the breast. It is clear from observations of newborn babies in an obstetric ward, alongside observations of premature infants on a neonatal ward, that intrauterine experiences of the container/contained relationship play a central role in the infant’s prenatal development and that of creating images of God. Such experiences will vary depending on the circumstances of the family’s functionality. Interestingly, Maiello explores the possible meaning of thumb-­sucking in the womb in the model of container–contained relationship at the

86  Klein and Bion part-object level. Prenatal observations of the play of the foetus provide material to stimulate further thought in terms of the meaning and role of the introjected configuration of the container–contained relationship regarding the developing sense of self, identity and symbolic thinking. Experiences of the nameless dread evoked through threatened termination in the womb may find containment in an image of God as a terrifying or benign figure representing unexpressed feelings, which in a containing analytic environment could be shared, explored and understood. When considering the possibility of the prenatal and perinatal origins of creating images of God, the relevance of repression for Freudian theory in terms of the content of such images is considered differently by Bion, in terms of a semi-permeable membrane, which can be described as a form of an unconscious organ in relation to consciousness. This tool facilitates the processing and what can be known of the world and emotions. Additionally, Bion saw no contradiction in consciousness and unconsciousness, where he viewed the latter as a network of archaic contents which are explorable and understandable. Otherwise, Bion considered the relations between objects and functions, where such fields can be intuited but are somewhat out of awareness. The contradiction for Bion is not in relation to the unconscious as repressed, as viewed by Freud, or what is split off, as posed by Klein, but rather in the contrast between sleep and waking life, between what is not and what is conscious in awareness. In considering the prenatal and perinatal disposition to initiate images of God, the unconscious would need to be functioning adequately to create thoughts and presumably images. This conception bypasses any spatial metaphor alongside repression and splitting, where guilt and anxiety are conceived of having been done to the relational objects (Maiello, 2012). Within Bion’s post-Kleinian model, the patient can be considered as being unaware, according to his theory of thinking without a thinker. In terms of psychotic states (not in psychiatric terms), Bion postulated that thoughts can lack a thinker because of the damage done by the alpha function. In this model, thinking collaborates with the potential for dreaming. Bion thought that dreaming is the process by which the unconscious is made conscious and the means of transformation into storable material, as the patientfoetus progresses from evacuating in the paranoid-schizoid position to the assimilation of the depressive position. As the foetus exists in the womb, the preverbal unconscious material represented in images of God would be continuously modified through a process like that of the dreamwork, operating externally to consciousness. The images of God first created while in utero perhaps express the birth of emotions, of affective symbols, constituting the foundations of psychic life, as conveyed by Bion. In The Grid (1989) Bion acknowledges that although Freud considers belief in God to be an illusion, Freud recognised the reality of this illusion. Bion adds that the illusion must be taken seriously by

Klein and Bion  87 psychoanalysts, which can only be supported. Bion draws attention to the conflicting dimensions of omnipotence and helplessness, whereby it can be considered from this conjunction that the sadomasochistic position of the dominant-submissive position is enacted, through worship of the other as a deity, to be treated with disdain. One wonders, in relation to clinical work, what it is that the masochist feels so bad about themselves. A distinction is made between Freud’s dreamwork and capacity to symbolise, from that of his own, where Freud takes up the negative affect as concealing something, while Bion looks at the dream structure; Freud focuses on the dream as a function of sleep, while Bion enquires about the dream’s function when awake (Bion, 1992). The foetus is medically observed to dream at 33 weeks and can therefore form images, like dream symbols. The prenatal unconscious shown through dreaming at this very early phase of development provides new symbols and images of God – for example, transforming the sensory experiences of the foetus into thoughts, which can then be shared and understood. Klein considered that the infant was born with an ego that could represent. On the other hand, Bion quotes Freud, who changes his mind on the issue of intrauterine life. Bion’s paper ‘Caesura’ refers to Freud’s astute observation that ‘There is much more continuity between intra-uterine life than the impressive caesura of the act of birth would have us believe’, expressing speculation about the relationship between psychological and physiological birth. Bion considers the possibility of a prenatal ‘primitive sensitiveness’, which may continue to inform developing psychological life and insights into the prenatal and perinatal phase of development in relation to images of God. De Masi (2000) advocates for the meeting of psychoanalysis and the neurosciences through the unconscious and emotions, demonstrating how emotions are formed through mechanisms in the unconscious (De Masi, 2000). It appears that neuroscience is based on neurobiological research and that analytic intuition may be compatible with it but possibly with some contradictions. The unconscious powerfully influences our behaviour and that States of consciousness arise only when the system responsible for awareness is put in touch with the systems of unconscious processing, an activity that may remain for ever unconscious. (De Masi, 2000) However, there appears a major barrier to uncovering the prenatal and perinatal unconscious, whereby adults do not wish to recognise the powerful primitive feelings during this phase of development. The emotional content of prenatal and perinatal derived images of God has been identified as being located in the amygdala, the mammillary subsystem, the striate nucleus, the hippocampus and the thalamus, each contributing different functions of the integrating process of emotions, which would be different at different

88  Klein and Bion phases of life. At the prenatal and perinatal phase, anxiety may be considered to be the overriding emotion, linking to trauma, affecting memory, amnesia and repression. High levels of anxiety may cause amnesia and possibly damage the hippocampus. Bion came up with a practical analytic theory of the container–­contained relationship (Bion, 1970). Possibly the essence of Bion’s thinking is his formulation of the central relationship between thinking and communication in relation to the container–contained relationship. In his key text, Bion (1970) describes three forms of communication experienced on differing levels of development: commensal, symbiotic and parasitic. Such patterns indicate both atypical and pathological versions of the container– contained ­relationship and employ different articulations of the therapist’s subjectivity. First and foremost, Bion (1970) asserts that The individual cannot contain the impulses proper to a pair and the pair cannot contain the impulses proper to a group. The psycho-analytic problem is the problem of growth and its harmonious resolution in the relationship between the container and the contained, repeated in individual, pair, and finally group. (Bion, 1970, pp. 15–16) This perhaps condensed extract specifically refers to the essential difficulties in human communication and the importance of others to support the individual’s motivation to think and to develop meaning. To grow and develop, any person needs communicative containment by the pair and the group: the parents and the family. However, the individual stays in both intrapsychic and interpersonal conflict because thinking about things is painful, constituting the basic conflict: to think or not to think. Similarly, to Freud and Klein, Bion posed basic underpinning emotional dilemmas internal to the individual and group which on the one hand contributed to intrapsychic and interpersonal problems and on the other could also inspire symbolic and cultural developments and constructive group participation. Freud arguably mythologised an antagonism between the pleasure and reality principles and between the life instinct and the death instinct. Klein focused on the dramas of love versus hate and envy versus reparative gratitude. In relation to Bion and the prenatal, Maiello (2012) explored the notion of possible proto-experiences in relation to the foetus in the context of his model of the container–contained relationship. Thinking about the physical complex of the foetus contained in the mother’s uterus perhaps represents the beginning of an exploration of the prenatal infant’s possible experiences of its state of mind of being contained in the container of the womb. There are considerations of the sensory elements of auditory, tactile and kinaesthetic aspects of awareness in relation to the prenatal infant in terms of the

Klein and Bion  89 maternal voice and intrauterine environment. It is possible, as proposed by Maiello (2012), that the prenatal actual experiences of containment could possibly have their psychic counterpart in relation to the development of a proto-mental container and memory, which is observable. Moreover, Maiello asserts that prenatal proto-experiences of containment would prepare the infant for additional postnatal insights in terms of the preconception of containment and come to represent the encounter with the breast. Observations of newborn infants, on an obstetric ward, alongside the observation of a prematurely born infant, appear to indicate the idea postulated by Bion: the intrauterine experience of the container–contained relationship plays a defining role in the child’s prenatal development. That foetuses in the womb have been observed by ultrasound to be sucking their thumb can also be understood in terms of Bion’s model of the container– contained relationship, in relation to part objects. Observations of young children at play offer insights into thinking further about the function and meaning of the introjected complex of the container–contained relationship for the developing sense of identity and furthermore symbolic thinking and the formation of images and of images of godlike figures in the infant’s mind (Maiello, 2012). It is heartening to recognise that Bion acknowledged prenatal life. In ‘Caesura’, Bion quotes Martin Buber: The prenatal life of the child is a pure natural association, a flowing toward each other, a bodily reciprocity; and the life horizon of the developing being appears uniquely inscribed, and yet also not inscribed, in that of the being that carries it; for the womb in which is dwells in not solely that of the human mother. (Buber, cited in Bion, 1989, p. 37) Bion draws our attention to the simple yet profound aspect of the foetus affecting the environment of the womb: Every developing human child rests, like all developing beings, in the womb of the great mother – the undifferentiated, not yet formed primal world. From this it detaches itself to enter a personal life, and it is only in dark hours when we slip out of this again (as happens even to the healthy, night after night0 that we are close to her again. But this detachment is not sudden . . . like that from the bodily mother. (Buber, cited in Bion, 1989, p. 38) In contrast to the writings of Freud, Bion refocuses our minds on the mother: ‘in his mother’s womb man knows the universe and forgets it at birth’ (Buber, cited in Bion, 1989, p. 39). From a different standpoint, Bion quotes St John of the Cross, in his ascent of Mount Carmel, who has remarkable foresight in relation to prenatal and perinatal images of God. St John of the

90  Klein and Bion Cross, however, does not appear to distinguish ‘union with God’ from such images of God: the love which the memory always has for other forms and kinds of knowledge which are of supernatural things, such as visions, revelations, locutions and feelings which come in a supernatural way. When these things have passed through the soul, there is wont to remain impressed upon it some image, form, figure or idea, whether in the soul or in the memory of fancy, at times very vividly and effectively. Concerning these images, it is also needful to give advice lest the memory becomes encumbered with them and they be a hindrance to its union with God in perfect and pure hope. (Buber, cited in Bion, 1989, p. 39) Images of God, which could possibly originate from a predisposition prenatally and perinatally in the infant, can be likened to dream symbols. Images of God can be dreamed up (Ogden, 2009) in adults for a plethora of reasons, as investigated by Freud (1900), and developmentally reach far back into intrauterine existence. The main reason for proposing the possibility of the foetus dreaming up images of God during intrauterine existence after 17 weeks is that this is the estimated point of development when the brain has fully integrated and is capable of imagination, phantasies, dreams and thoughts. Cavalli (2019), a developmental Jungian analyst, offers a different perspective on the caesura, which will be outlined in what follows. She states that in relation to continuous becoming or the state of becoming into being, when the egg and the sperm meet and the fertilised egg forms from the fallopian tubes into the uterus, according to the French child analyst Francois Antou, an unconscious desire is born into life and a new drive towards consciousness is actualised; the human skin is hankering for the fertile earth of the mother. There everything needed can be found, and from inside the uterus, the foetus grows attached to the mother through a link of life: the umbilical cord, which guarantees survival. Cavalli adds that the seed grows and unfolds practically; at three months of gestation, the foetus is able to listen to everything outside; the mother’s and the father’s voices are recognised, she claims. Likewise, Cavalli states, that noises are identified and heard. Soon the foetus, Cavalli postulates, begins to dance to the sounds they hear; they attune themselves to the sound of the mother’s voice, choosing different movements; they might move the right leg every time they hear the ‘a’ sound or the left leg every time they hear the ‘eh’ sound. This dance, Cavalli claims, makes the foetus connected to the mystery of a walk that they do not know yet but are prepared for. The foetus has a great need for connectedness, is able to synchronise their heart beat to their mother’s heart beat and in this way are able to learn about their mother inside out, her peace of mind, her

Klein and Bion  91 depressive state, her anxieties – that is, all the different frequency of her heart beat. The foetus starts to gain an unconscious knowledge of her state of mind, of her thoughts, which is why they explore the world in which they live and learn that the world in which they live is linked to the world outside. Cavalli continues to speculate that the foetus begins to know that they might have to go off and explore the world outside. They use their resources and newly acquired knowledge based on experience in the uterus and might be imagining something about that other world outside: Will others also dance in water like the foetus does? Whereas inside the uterus, it is very loud – the heartbeat, the bowel movements, the parents making love and so on – the foetus knows that in the world outside, there are many rivers, silences, sounds, movements full of intensity and softness. The foetus unconsciously knows that he is ready for that journey, and that one day he will go there into that world that he was hearing about. The journey that the foetus has to undergo is difficult: they have to abandon their ordered world, let go of it, face the unknown, the chaos of the unknown. It is a tremendous step into the void, but Freud recognised that there is more continuity between uterine life and early postnatal development than the impressive caesura of the act of birth leads us to believe. According to Cavalli, in the caesura of the act of birth lies the secret of development. At each caesura in life, we grow, we transform ourselves, we actualise our potential, we transcend who we were to be more of what we are to become. Despite medical advances in relation to being able to gain knowledge about intrauterine life, the human motivation to accept or show interest in prenatal life is abundant today. Prenatal life is most frequently dismissed as a period of development that cannot be known about. An example of this, of course, is when asked our age, we never add on the nine or so months spent in utero. Why is this? Is it that the first nine months are denied, and we can pretend that they never happened and dismiss this early development? What would drive anyone to this state of mind? Cavalli speculates further in relation to in the depths of the undeveloped mind of the foetus that there is a preconception, an archetypal predisposition, a sort of grammar of the psyche that guides the newborn baby into chaos, into the unknown. What does it search for? Smell, vision and taste will help the newborn baby to detect and find the breast. It was first described in 1987 in Sweden as the crow of the breast. If left alone on mother’s abdomen just after birth, the baby has the capacity to crawl to the breast helped by their capacity to make a connection between the amniotic liquid still on their hands and the smell of the cholesterol of the nipple. In relation to birth being the first possible caesura in the life of the infant, there are three other caesuras to investigate, which will be outlined in what follows. The aim of what follows is to show that there is much more continuity between infancy and mature life than the passive caesura of the end of infancy allows us to believe. The motif of St Ann, Mary and the child and

92  Klein and Bion how it is depicted through the history of religious art seems to describe well and in a powerful way the journey of childhood. Sometimes representing the observer, the father supports the mother and a newborn baby. It is the beginning of order and chaos, from preverbal to verbal, from confusion to order from unconscious to conscious. The baby can hallucinate the breast, yet the attuned mother knows that her baby is hungry, and she intuitively knows what her baby needs. As a result of her imaginative work, the baby has a realisation of their own hallucination: preconception. Everything arrives in just the right way as observed in the newborn crawling to the nipple. There is a sense of fit between the infant’s anticipation and the realisation; the mother helps the baby to feel that the chaos is bearable. When the mother is not in tune with her baby, for example being in denial of the foetus’s needs or less confident in herself, the mother does not realise what she can do. Such a mother becomes more mechanical, less attentive, more depressed, less in tune with her baby, and in this certain scenario, the breast presents itself to the baby as an alien object. The attuned mother creates a child who is not afraid of the unknown, whereas the less attuned mother creates a child who is frightened of the unknown and finds it much more difficult to open up to it; this situation may be too traumatic, so the baby closes themselves to chaos and decides to stay in their private environment. In such a situation, Cavalli thinks that growth is prevented and the potential will never come to actualisation. The infant of the attuned mother may likely feel that they have created the breast, thinking ‘I have created the world or the world is a responsive place that I have more than I imagined’. Such thoughts seem to underpin creativity. Just as the foetus growing in the womb feels more and thinks more, they feel more and more special and able to manipulate their environment, such that they become in their own mind the creator. This is a possible feeling that may develop into the thought and subsequently gives rise to feelings of being akin to God, which as Freud has described, becomes an image that has the capacity to be elevated to the status of a God figure. Only when the self-experience is reflected does the baby feel fully alive as they praise the world giving voice to their own feeling self; these are reflected in the thoughts of the world, beginning through the mother’s face. By doing so, the baby transforms the world while they are transformed. The mother’s responsiveness is like echoes. Prenatally, the infant lives inside the mother’s space, and after birth, the mother creates with her body, her arms, her breast, her warmth and affection an intrauterine space for her infant, like a marsupial space. Such a space is a transitional space between total dependence in the womb and increasing separateness of independent existence. For the first few months of extrauterine life, the infant’s physical space is largely the same as the mother’s physical space. As the baby grows and develops, in terms of mobility and independence, they gradually emerge from the pouch of mother’s orbit, and the personal space is increasingly

Klein and Bion  93 defined by this generous of the wider world. As this happens, the infant’s internal space begins to form, the mind capable of thinking, observing, facing chaos together with a sense of a core self that we could also call the personality of the infant with their own sense of identity. However, surely the foetus’s personality has already been defined through their inheritance, through their ancestor’s genes, including emotional an experiential inheritance developing from conception so far. Moving away from the known marsupial space, exploring the unknown between mother and infant, the physical and psychological separation between mother and infant creates a space between mother and infant in the infant’s experience, which is the rudimentary space for consciousness. Experience of separation as a painful absence is a necessary development in the growth of consciousness. The suffering of an actual space in which the mother is absent is a necessary condition of development of representation and symbols. Such conditions are equally true of the foetus in the womb, who conceivably would experience absence when the mother is asleep or more seriously through neglecting the needs of the foetus, through selfmedicating drugs or being involved in abusive relationships, harming and alarming the foetus. Where there is such an absence where growth can take place, thinking can develop, and creativity takes place where the absence has been acknowledged. When the infant reaches this stage of recognising the loved mother as not created by the infant but as a person in her own right, the question arises how to survive without her. Here the question of creativity becomes more important. The idea of the inside starts to form from the infant taking in mother’s milk, and yet before this, the foetus has already been fed through the umbilical cord and taken in her parents’ voices. Therefore, there is already developing the notion for the foetus of inside and outside as they hear their parents’ voices at a distance to their womb environment yet become familiar in preparation for birth and the physical holding that then can take place between parents and infant. The experience of something good inside must be responsible for the start of differentiation between inside and outside. By eating the good image of our self, they will since be able to identify with the good mother who is feeding them with something good. The transition between feeling capable and losing that stance of a capable self reasserts the search for confirmation that they can do alone. They still need help to find this confirmation again, but once they feel secure within themselves, they can solve problems with a sense of agency, achieving a capacity for symbolising. They are not eating food in order to make themselves feel well, for example. In this way, they are strengthening their ego and identity. Their capacity to relinquish the mother will foster the development of language: ‘in the absence of mother I can call her, I can express my need, I can think my own thoughts, I can grow, I can become independent’. This is a difficult moment between letting go of the marsupial space and acquiring the capacity to become separate; able

94  Klein and Bion to know one’s own emotions, needs and desire; and learn how to express them. The incapacity to manage this transition has terrible consequences for the developing child, who thus remains trapped in the phantasy of living in the womb. The child needs to go on creating what is unknown, what is chaos, as they did after birth, going on finding ways of representing what is unknown and chaotic. This is the capacity of the artist who goes on discovering the world. Becoming a person in one’s own right, the discovery of the world around us and the role of the father are important to consider in relation to the developing foetus. In this case, the mother has to let go of her child, has to allow them to become separate, to develop their own potency. The child is going to move away from their mother, give up the illusion, which is possibly stemming from intrauterine life, during which they possess their mother and have created her. Mother becomes part of the order that the child has created inside themselves. She taught them everything that she could, and the child continues the journey of discovery and rebirth to new chaos, new unknowns – to represent it, order it and master it and to go on representing, ordering and mastering, which is always the boundary between known and unknown, fusion and separation. Cavalli (2019) postulates that the role of the father becomes crucial, pointing out to the child the future, the unknown. Once they have learned all they need to know from the mother, the father sends them away to search on their own. The work of the father is to push the child to move on, to move on exploring the world to study and find out who they are and leave the world of the mother behind, going into the unknown yet again. The child then has to find ways to create objects for themselves or forms that help them contain experiences – such as playing with dolls or writing a poem – and then release forever the sadness that then will be felt. The infant then needs to appropriate words now, words that are understood by everybody but represent for them at best their own experience. Every human being needs to create their own life by being and becoming all the time, moving into the future in the same way as the foetus moves out of a normal space into chaos, into the unknown. Like the baby who creates their mother, they create their future by opening up to the unknown. Being and becoming mean sacrifice: what you already are to who you could become. The foetus has to move out into the unknown, guided by internal knowledge which pushes them to go forward to search for what is needed. The child, like the artist, needs to be in a space like chaos, order, chaos similar to the space between womb and extrauterine life. To continue developing, we need to investigate that link, that caesura, to approach it by knowing beforehand that is of no use. Unfortunately, those who have lost the possible link to their internal guide are in danger of remaining trapped in wombs by which promising order are protected from pain. The price to pay is life itself, since such wombs are deadly. Life is always outside where future is; the artist has to find the courage to be born again and again.

Klein and Bion  95 Cavalli’s approach is different from that of Freud, as is evident from her style of address. Overall, Freud considered issues relating to religion throughout his writing career and concluded that religion is an illusion, perhaps akin to the oceanic feelings of the infant floating in bliss in the womb, protected from the horrors and joys of life outside, similar to the nightmares and more pleasant dreams which are taken to the couch in psychoanalysis. It seems that religion, which may possibly originate emotionally prenatally, is similar to our phantasies during sleep, drawing on the realities of waking life and in relation to those which may be created from the unconscious and conscious dynamics, both spiritual and secular, material and psychic aspects from the internal and external realms of existence. The foetus has ideas of mother, father, caregiver and siblings from their emotional experiences in the womb, as they hear their voices, are close in on sexual intercourse and all bodily experiences of the mother. The unseen cinema is rife for feeding phantasies in the foetus, especially without being able to see the outside world, for which the mind compensates. Frosh (1997) acknowledges that Christianity is comforting yet confining in relation to feminist and Freudian terms, with similar contradictions in terms of the certainties of Jewish fundamentalism and patriarchal authoritarianism, in relation to a defence against the anxiety of the uncertainties in postmodern existence. Wisdom (1944) considered belief in God to be a belief that the healthy development and growth of plant life is the work of an unseen gardener, which would otherwise wither. Additionally, Wisdom (1950), wrote about metaphysics and other minds, where he compared the belief in God to belief in the unconscious and likened both of these beliefs to viewing a snake in the grass. In terms of Mitchell’s (1974) thinking in ‘Freud, feminism and God’, he considered psychoanalysis and feminism, which was important for the women’s movement in relation to her account of psychoanalysis, inspiring Althusser and developed by Lacan. Mitchell encouraged the relevance of Freud’s writings in feminism, at least as it was interpreted by Lacan. For example, Freud’s theory of Oedipus and castration explains both genders’ unconscious phantasy from early childhood of the father as quasi-god or superego. Mitchell argues that psychoanalysis explains both genders’ initiation via the unconscious into patriarchy and its symbolism, including its symbolism of man as patriarch or phallic god. According to Freud and Lacan, God can be considered the symbol of our longing for and looking towards our fathers for protection and refuge from helplessness and risk of psychosis, involved in various self-aggrandising and self-annihilating delusions of being fused with the mother of our infancy. Furthermore, the attachment considered here is relevant clearly to that of the mother and the foetus. Feminists contend this issue with the ‘master discourse’ of Enlightenment philosophy, including the father-centred modernist discourses of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Feminists insist that we are not produced by a single discourse but that we are produced as sexed

96  Klein and Bion subjects by a multiplicity of discourses (Chodorow, 1994), including those of religion and psychoanalysis. Contrary to patriarchalism, psychoanalysis draws on often religiously informed, mother-centred symbols and motifs. Jung developed his ­analytical psychological theory of the collective unconscious and its archetypes with myths and legends of women as goddesses and heroines (Bolen, Dessel, & Shepardson, 1992; Goodison, 1990). Mother-based psychoanalysis argued against Freud; for example, Romain Rolland countered Freud’s father-based account of religion by stressing the religious ­sentiment involved in ‘a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded, as it were ‘oceanic’ (Freud, 1930, p. 251). Freud likened this feeling to our sense of boundless oneness with our mothers as babies. On the other hand, Chodorow (1978) accounted for the reproduction of mothering. With reference to Winnicott (1953), a mother-based psychoanalysis, he described religion as a transitional object created like other transitional objects to bridge the gap between the inner reality of our subjective fusion or ‘oceanic’ unity with others, in the first place with our mothers and the outer reality of our objective separateness and differences, as individuals, from them. Such a feminist perspective frequently denies the divisions of love and hate involved in one’s sense of connectedness and fusion in relation to others. This mostly includes the relationship of the psychoanalyst and the analysand, which Klein (1946) conceived of in the form of projective identification, the mother’s stance of reverie and her containment (Bion, 1962). Dorothy Dinnerstein (1976) expanded on Klein’s theory, claiming that both genders avoid the guilt and depression involved in facing and bringing these divisions together, by escaping them for the unrealistic solace of idealising and idolising men. Men are particularly likely to be idealised and idolised as they are absent from childcare, possibly as an escape from the phantasies of love and hate with which we endow the woman who first loved us. Klein (1928, 1957) discusses how girls often find refuge from nightmare ambivalence about their mothers in celebrating their masculinity, their having a penis, and girls often find refuge in shifting their love, affection and desire from the mother to the father and to other men. This insight is worth considering when thinking about the images of God in relation to both genders, possibly stemming from prenatal and perinatal existence. Presumably, the flight into idolising men and masculinity does not facilitate the integration of the division of love and hate and of envy and gratitude which may impel this perceived escape. These divisions remain to plague the very idolisation looked to as refuge from them. Hence, the ills done by the idolising or idealising phantasy of the parents as superego figures, all too often reinforced by religious idealisation of fathers and mothers as gods and goddesses, are arguably often a major source, according to Klein and Freud, of the suffering that brings men and women into psychoanalysis. Analysis needs to confront and bring together the love and hate of those we are emotionally, physically and spiritually closest to, on a more realistic basis.

Klein and Bion  97 Henri Rey (1977) postulated the schizoid mode of being and the time continuum (beyond metaphor) involving fleeing the guilt and depression involved in bringing together, integrating and working to repair the damage done to love by hate, by imagining themselves to be godlike above all such pettiness. Rey, illustrates the point in terms of a patient who symbolised this high and mighty state of mind in terms of a dream in which he had a magic wand – a long penis-like pole reaching to the sky on the end of his nose. Making sense of dreams, and dreaming up as posed by Ogden (2009), indicates a picture of the dreamer’s personality becoming godlike in their living image. Bion (1961), in his exposition ‘Experiences in Groups and other Papers’ and further discussed in a religious context by the group analyst Earl Hopper (1988), the group mood of defending against its reality-oriented or egooriented work, such as facing togetherness and connection with others as parents and children, by taking refuge in the ‘basic assumption’ fantasy. According to Bion, meeting together in groups to depend on the shared leader elevated to the status of a god without whom nothing can be done but grieve. According to Sayers, By combining feminism and psychoanalysis, I have sought to recount and explain my own and my patients’ oscillation between belief in god and belief in community with others, including struggling with the divisions of love and hate involved. However, learning from Freud, Sayers hopes that she does not similarly wrong her patients in understanding their religion, at least the god of Christianity as more phantasy than fact, as a metaphor on which Sayers and they draw in externalising, so as to share and think with others about their inner world. (Sayers, cited in Stein, 1999, pp. 160–161) Neville Symington refers to ‘participated being’ as the foundation of religion and science in psychoanalysis, writing about a religious man who doesn’t believe in God. Bion looked towards the dark and formless infinite of human awareness, represented as spirituality and the experience of ultimate truth. Bion described these experiences as at-one-ment or, in contrast to the representation of knowledge, as Bion’s K. Furthermore, maternal reverie and the container–contained relationship, the ‘contained evokes unpleasure in trying to get rid of it while the ‘container’ accepts and modifies these primitive emotions and transforms them into a coherent meaningful pattern. In maternal reverie, the infant’s own feelings are similarly too powerful to be contained in their personality and they therefore arouse in their mother feelings which they wish to be rid of. Such powerful feelings can also be witnessed in the parental couple during pregnancy, when the risk of domestic violence increases. The mother is expected to accept these unwanted feelings and modifies them so that that can be taken back by the infant in a more tolerable form. This shared activity determines the infant’s

98  Klein and Bion later capacity for thought, because the product of the container–contained relationship is meaning and because the relationship between mother and infant provides the basis for learning from experience. Maternal reverie describes a mother’s capacity to be fully preoccupied by her infant, and if infants are loved in this way, they will develop the capacity to think and the means by which to gain some control of their internal and external world: ‘mental health is therefore based on the responses of the parents to the needs of the infant, their capacity to intuitively contain the unthinkable, unknowable and indescribable experiences of the infant and survive’ (Stein, p. 182). Intimate relationship prototypes for later intense emotional interactions, which Bion named O, refer to individual and highly personal experiences which he described as ultimate reality, absolute truth, the infinite or the thing-in-itself. According to Bion, O also represents ‘darkness’, ‘formlessness’ and unknowable aspects of psychic reality. As Bion holds, there is a primitive and fundamental psychic need to know this absolute or ultimate truth whose presence can be recognised and felt though it can be described as an aspiration in the mind. Verbal, musical and artistic modes of communication are all transformations of O as they attempt to achieve contact with psychic reality and allow the undefinable characteristics of O to evolve into conscious thought. O is a state of becoming, a feeling of oneness with the world, a feeling of being one with the whole and a feeling of connectedness with others. Furthermore, Bion refers to the transformation of becoming as inseparable from ‘becoming one with God’ because the feeling of at-one-ment with God resembled the sensuous fulfilment and harmonious mental growth in successful reverie. By containing uncertainty, loneliness and unthinkable experiences, the mother–infant relationship thus serves as a potential prototype for the later belief in God. The quality of our parenting will determine whether God can be ‘good enough’. In the infant’s initial defencelessness and neediness, the human model of God will readily come to reflect an ultimately benign but powerful parent idealised as a religious god or goddess. Therefore, Bion helps to describe the images of God which can possibly be imagined by the foetus. When considering Bion’s model of the container–contained relationship, the position of the foetus in relation to containment and their possible predisposition to forming images of God arises. Suzanne Maiello explores the prenatal experiences of containment in the light of Bion’s model of the container–contained relationship (Maiello, 2012). Maiello examined the idea of the possibility of Bion’s equivalent of O, the unknowable and unreachable ultimate truth, or what she refers to as ‘proto-experiences’ in relation to the prenatal child in the contact of Bion’s model of the container–contained relationship. One can imagine the physical predicament of the foetus in the mother’s uterus, perhaps representing the beginning of an exploration into the foetus’s experiences of being contained. Winnicott (1964) writes that it is the father’s role to protect the mother– infant dyad by turning outwards to deal with their surroundings. He

Klein and Bion  99 provides a space in which the mother can turn inwards to the circle created by her arms, at the centre of which is the infant. In contrast to the mother’s provision of O, the father’s role is that of K, providing an important link with the outside, including reality and K. The evolution of organised religion may be more akin to paternally generated processes of ‘knowing’, or K, as an attempt to explain the formless, infinite and ineffable experiences which mirror those of infancy and childhood and which ultimately similarly applies to the foetus. Seeking God can therefore be seen as an attempt to restore the containing reverie of the mother or the external protection of the paternalistic figure. Those who seek to re-create a sense of maternal holding look for spiritual experiences, while those who seek paternal protection look more to organised religion. The basic human dimensions of spirituality, O, derive from instinctual archetypal roots and should not be given religious overtones as if they prove the factual existence of God. This results in the anthropomorphic model of God; in other words, a dead or imagined object is animated and endowed with human attributes in order to be worshipped in a structured and ritualistic way, specifically chosen as dead, so that thoughts can’t be proven or disproven by localising individuals or social thoughts and feelings in a God who confers an authoritative sense of the truth, and the human craving for validation is satisfied. Personal desires are externalised and handed over to the notion of God yielding meanings and answers, then seen as God given. In this sense, God is an externalisation of the internal object world, but his concrete embodiment allows absolute values to be deemed as ‘in the eyes of God’. These concrete representations are in direct contrast to Freud’s description of the truth of religious doctrines as dependent on inner experience. Bion’s conception of O relies on individual relationships with internal representations of loved people, which may come to reflect an inner sense of God. Numinous events (instead of organised religion) represent a capacity for tolerating uncertainty without rushing to premature conclusions, allowing a state of incoherence and incomprehensibility to endure until a new coherence emerges. The feeling may be a sense of awe and inspiration, leading to bliss, wonderment and ecstasy reminiscent of contact with a caring mother and the development of a capacity to think. So-called mystics and geniuses have appeared in all religions at all times and in all places with the capacity to describe this power of force of being in direct contact with the sense of O/God/mother. Such thoughts naturally extend to the foetus, as Bion refers to in ‘Caesura’ (Bion, 1989). According to Bion, it is not possible for the ordinary member of a community to make direct contact with or be at one with O/God/mother, nor is it a function of society to make the ideas available to ordinary members of the group. Laws in society, dogma in religion and rules in maths can all be represented by K, acting for the benefit of those who are not by nature able to have a direct experience of O. According to Bion, the ‘psychoanalytic

100  Klein and Bion discovery, like spirituality, requires a transformation from K to O, a move from “knowing” to “being”. The value of both religious and psychoanalytic interventions will be therapeutically greater if they are conducive to transformations in O’ (Bion, cited in Stein, 2000, p. 186). Bion therefore describes a continuum of development from religion through psychoanalysis to spirituality. Bion (1989) offered the grid as an instrument for the use for psychoanalysis, and he summarised extensively where the left-hand column denotes categories in which any statements can be positioned, which imply developmental aspects. The horizontal axis holds the use of the statement. A possible addition to Bion’s grid is Stephen Pepper’s rationale of theoretical principles. In relation to knowledge and truth philosopher Stephen Pepper (1891–1972) worked and wrote primarily in the tradition of pragmatism. His ideas join a number of important issues in modern thought, such as social sources of knowledge, mind, logic, ethics and valuation, and his principal work was in aesthetics. He is probably best known for his book World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence (Pepper, 1942). In this book, Pepper develops a root metaphor method and outlines what he considers to be four basically adequate world hypotheses, world views or conceptual systems: formism, mechanism, organicism and contextualism. He identifies he strengths and weaknesses of each of the world hypotheses and the paradoxical and sometimes-mystifying effects of the effort to synthesise them. Pepper’s rationale of his theoretical principles will be outlined in what follows, starting with an exposition of formism. Although formistic thinking can come in varying degrees of complexity, it is similar to what has been called everyday thinking or immediate communication thinking (Bartlett, 1958). There is a relatively quick placement of a single instance into a general category without the intervention of elaborate processes. In the formistic mode, events are seen as discrete and limited. Du to their definite and clearly bounded nature, particular events can be placed in specifiable categories. For the formist, the world consists of a limited number of forms or types. When confronted with a behavioural or perceptual event, the formistic thinker can give meaning and structure to that event by classifying or categorising it. The assignment of an event to a particular class is made on the basis of a definition or similarity. For example, there are certain characteristics which define the category of apples. As we examine a round, red object, we decide to label it an ‘apple’ or to the extent that it is similar to other objects which we have already labelled ‘apples’. Since each category can be defined – that is, its properties can be listed and specified – an event is placed in a particular category as it approximates the ideal form of that category. The formistic process of organising events thus consists of knowing how to apply particular labels or categories. These categories exist independently of one another, and the number can be expanded or contracted without disruption to the overall system of categories.

Klein and Bion  101 Mechanistic thinking, deriving from mechanics, denotes thinking of the ‘experimental scientist’ (Bartlett, 1958). It had also been referred to, in research on the human brain, as the quintessential form of left-hemisphere thinking (Galin & Ornstein, 1972). In the mechanistic mode of thinking, each behaviour or event has a discrete and particular existence in space and time. Historically, this discrete quality is one of the factors that has encouraged the quantification of events. For example, psychological concepts such as drive and habit strength have been quantified and used to explain particular behaviours in a mechanistic manner. While the clear and unconfused nature of the elements is a vital part of mechanistic thinking, the essence of this mode is the emphasis on causal laws and connections. When we pause to ask why or when we respond with a causal reason, we are engaged in the process of organising phenomena mechanistically. Initially, a connection is postulated between two elements, with one of the two seen as operating on the other. But, as in chain reaction or as in the activity of a series of billiard balls on a table, the element designated as an ‘effect’ in one dyad may operate as a ‘cause’ in another. Rather than being just a series of causally linked pairs, there is a more connected and comprehensive, albeit linear, character to mechanistic thinking. Due to this connectedness, elements exert a constraining influence on one another. A particular element cannot change or deviate without producing changes in other connected elements. Moreover, the mechanist believes that the laws of causal connection between events are constrained by objective reality. Pepper recognised organistic thinking, also referred to as ‘systems thinking’ (Angyal, 1965), ‘pattern thinking’ (Dienes & Jeeves, 1965) and the ‘thinking of the artist’ (Bartlett, 1958). Rather than focusing on single elements or linear relationships, the organistic thinker sees the world in complex constellations or patterns with an implicit order or unification of their own. A single element or piece has no relevance away from the whole of which it is a part, and once embedded in that whole, it contributes to the totality without any separate status or meaning. For example, a complex jigsaw puzzle can be examined by looking at a single piece in isolation, and we may be looking at a seemingly meaningless piece of cardboard. Once in the puzzle to which it belongs, however, the piece takes on meaning by virtue of its relationships to the whole. Once we know the whole, we may see that the single piece is capable of suggesting the whole of which it is a part. Similarly, the whole suggests each of its parts, and then when we examine the puzzle, we have a clear suggestion of that which is missing. One of the critical features of organistic thinking is the fixed nature of the whole. The particular pieces of a puzzle can form only one whole. They are connected to one another in a specified and invariant order and cannot be connected in any other way. This absolute positing does not allow for the random joining of parts, and while there may be times when the organisation seems flexible or changing, it can ultimately follow only the fixed order that was present from the beginning. Consequently, the whole

102  Klein and Bion may seem to emerge gradually, unfolding over space and time until it reveals its inherent structure. In this sense, the individual is a passive recipient who makes themselves available to see the organisation, rather than actively working to construct it. The flash of insight is an example of organistic discovery. Insight comes as an ‘aha’ response to a sudden grasping of the meaning and order of things. Pieces that seemed unrelated and meaningless a moment before suddenly come together to form a coherent pattern. On the other hand, contextualism has also been referred to as ‘relational thinking’ (Lee, Kagan, & Rabson, 1963). This modality is fundamentally different from the other three in that the use of ‘I’ is subjective rather than objective. For the contextualist thinker, there are no absolute truths or standards. Rather, events or elements take their meaning from the contexts in which they are embedded. These contexts are not fixed but rather are variable and subject to manipulation and reconstruction. Moreover, a single element can exist as part of more than one context at the same time. There is a fluid, open, and variable quality to this mode of thinking. We can use the process of forming images from the clouds to illustrate some of the properties of contextualism. We can lie back and look at the clouds; we can squint and perhaps see a face; then as we turn our heads, we might see a dog in the same group of clouds. Someone else looking at these clouds at the same time might see a lamb eating clover. The image in the clouds is constructed by the observer. If the same observer changes positions or if the particular observer changes, then the image changes. The image has no existence independent of an active observer. For the contextualist, there is no absolute or trans-situational meaning. Meaning is determined and limited by the context. In another sense, however, meaning is limited because the context or situation is always changing. Each situation is new and fresh, with no residual meaning inherent in the elements from previous contexts. This relativistic, fluid quality makes it difficult to pin the contextualistic thinker down on any point, because what is true today in one context may be questionable tomorrow in another. Berger argues that a theory provides a framework of general ideas that permit a broad and cohesive view of the complexities that may be involved in any given human interaction. Theories can be used to organise our assumptions and guesses into hypotheses that can be tested and proven valid or invalid, an important step in the scientific method. (Berger, 1988, p. 31) In the literature of religious development, concepts such as conceptual framework, paradigm, theory, model and metaphor are used variously, often in a confusing manner. In contemporary theory development, psychological theories, like all others, require reassessment from time to time, not only to consider how they might be further developed but

Klein and Bion  103 also to take note of limitations on their explanatory power and on their educational or therapeutic value for contemporary children, adolescents and adults. (Streib, 2002, p. 141) By way of critique of psychological perspectives on theories of religious development, Reich argues that depending on the theoretical orientation adopted, development in psychology implies a progressive maturation, an unfolding or, in contrast, a restructuring of the psyche and its organisation. Hence, the concept of development would seem applicable to religion only if religiousness is based on some psychologically meaningful reality. (Reich, 1992, p. 148) However, this statement raises further questions as to how to assess meaningful reality in the singular and whom to ask. It makes one consider a more pluralistic sense of psychological meaningful realities across the lifespan, specifically in relation to the prenatal and perinatal phases of development. Rizzuto (1991) asks several pertinent questions in relation to her psychoanalytic position and its limitations: Does the ‘subjective dynamic’ of the theoretical application fit with our wish to embrace a whole lifespan approach to religious development? How inclusive can it be? Additionally, how does this theory enable us to understand religious development? Does it work as a theory of religious development? In relation to the prenatal and perinatal phases of development, one can understand Rizzuto’s perspective on the development of the psyche, in which psychoanalysis attends to the human mind, as we develop as individuals and integrate what is happening to us in our experience and in the world we inhabit. Rizzuto describes psychic reality as the following dialectic polarities: dependence/autonomy, giving love/receiving love, closeness/distance, understanding others/be understood, making sense of self/self-contradiction and life/ever-present proximity of death. In relation to the development of the religious psyche, according to Rizzuto, both organised and personal religion is about transforming representations of God. From a psychoanalytic perspective, representations of God are dependent on development and experience in the first five years of life. Most cultures appear to consider that it is in the sixth year of life when individuals are ready to be introduced to formal religion. However, it is clear that with the development of the foetal brain around 17 weeks, the foetus is already being socialised into a particular culture through their family interactions, including religious influences. In relation to the psychic reality of God, Rizzuto contends that there is in psychic reality a transitional space for creativity, as presented by Winnicott, where object, self or any other representation can be a creation of the experiencing subject, which may not meet with an externally existing reality. It can reasonably argued that such a transitional

104  Klein and Bion space of creativity is applicable to the womb space. Rizzuto postulates that this transitional space is present throughout life, accommodating any new developmental function and any level of development and is specifically apt for all cultural and private creations, religion being one among them. Rizzuto maintains that the psychic history of God is the opposite of other transitional objects because God is a non-experiential object, and rather than losing meaning, the God representation becomes more important through the lifespan. Rizzuto appears to propose a religious parallel of Erikson’s seven stages, such as trust versus mistrust in a fully trustworthy divine being. Rizzuto concludes about the value of psychoanalysis in understanding an individual’s God representation. Rizzuto claims that understanding of religious development comes about by understanding psychic processes as a way of integrating religious experiences and life circumstances, which is an ideal descriptive sequence for relating to a divine being. The capacity to transform religious experience throughout the lifespan is considered by Rizzuto, and one may wonder about the possibility of such experiences in utero by the foetus. Moreover, Rizzuto considers that psychoanalysis allows the attribution of subjectivity to religious experience and in the polarities of living; it brings together intrapsychic and interpersonal tensions. It seems that Rizzuto does make a case for a psychoanalytic theory of religious development across the lifespan. She applied Winnicott’s ideas about transitional space, which are most apt in relation to prenatal existence and faith; perhaps the primal and intuitive-projective stages of faith development proposed by Fowler are also relevant (Fowler, 1987). Cantwell-Smith (1977) refers to faith versus belief: ‘faith is a quality of the person not of the system’. According to Fowler, faith attempts to make sense of our ordinary existence and involves patterned knowing (belief), patterned valuing (devotion, commitment) and patterned meaning involving narrative or liturgy (Fowler, 1987). However, Fowler’s prescriptive linear religio-developmental model appears abstract and difficult to measure empirically and tends to be judgemental. Vergote is keen to establish the psychology of religion as an empirical science, and to develop this, he sets boundaries which are based on observable features of human behaviour. He claims that religion is a complex phenomenon which cannot be defined by classing it simply as a meaning system or as a strategy of adaptation to the world. It is not purely intellectualistic or fundamentalistic, internal or external, yet these are poles which religion encompasses and which are interwoven and work interdependently. It is the dynamic between these poles and the correlations between them which one can observe and begin to collect data about. Religion consists, according to Vergote, as an ‘encounter between man and the sacred, or divine and of man’s response to this by praxis’ (Vergote, 1969, p. 11). It involves the whole person: emotional, intellectual, physical and the context which they are in as a member of society or culture.

Klein and Bion  105 Religious significants such as the symbols, metaphors and images of God are all multidimensional, and individuals will have multidimensional responses to them, as Vergote thinks. In his later work, Vergote broadened his concept of images of God and was no longer just a personal and transcendent idea (Vergote, 1993). Additionally, Vergote considers that religious belief and practice is a developing and dynamic process in the individual. Ideas and feelings change in response to life and experiences. It is a personal and dynamic process of conflict and resolution, and studying this process within its context will show the underlying representations, feelings, structures and patterns of behaviours that comprise the psychology of religious development. Furthermore, Vergote (1982) refrs to cultural identity and the identity of the individual who belongs to this group, possibly beginning to develop in the womb, in relation to the external family. Perhaps the foetus is born into fixed life forms, patterns of behaviour and representations that belong to a community, its habits and its customs. A different perspective from the religious developmental model and psychoanalytic is that posed by Alister Hardy, an English zoologist, and in relation to the work of the religious experience research centre established by him in Oxford. Contemporary perspectives on his work are also offered by David Hay, a British psychologist of religion who collaborated with Hardy, from the University of Nottingham.

Alister Hardy, religious experience and his hypothesis Alister Hardy (1896–1985) was educated at Oxford University and was chief zoologist on the discovery expedition to the Antarctic of 1925–1927 and was a professor of zoology at the University of Hull, the University of Aberdeen and the University of Oxford (1928–1963). He was a Gifford lecturer at the University of Aberdeen from 1963 to 1965, lecturing on science and religion and was the author of numerous books, including The Living Stream (1965), The Divine Flame (1966), The Biology of God (1975) and The Spiritual Nature of Man (1980). He maintained that true biology encompassing the whole of life should not ignore the religious experience of humankind. In his lectures, he proposed that ‘religious awareness is biologically natural to the human species and has evolved through the process of natural selection because it has survival value for the individual’, which is Hardy’s hypothesis. Hardy’s hypothesis supports the biologically determined view of religion, or of God being genetic, even if components of this are emotionally passed on, which colour possible images of God in utero. What prompted Hardy to make his claim? What is the evidence from others for Hardy’s claim? What is the evidence provided by Hardy’s own work? What is the current state of Hardy’s hypothesis? These are some of the questions open for discussion. David Hay (1935–) is a lecturer in biology in the Department of Education at the University of Nottingham and is

106  Klein and Bion a research collaborator on Hardy’s original hypothesis, which can be found in Exploring Inner Space (1987) and Religious Experience Today (1990). The status of Sir Alister Hardy’s hypothesis about religious experience at the end of the twentieth century relates to Hay’s article (Hay, 1994), which was an invited essay for the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, with two commentaries by Robert Ellwood and one by Jose Nieto. In relation to considering the biology of God, there is additional influence from the person–God relationship of the parent and how this affects life in the womb and postnatally, as postulated by Reich (2003), and from culture, gender and faith, as discussed by Ozorak (2003). On the other hand, Crapps outlines the character of religion of spontaneity, which he claims has the goal of overcoming the ordinary to transcend the self. William James’s psycho-theological interpretation of mysticism is based on four characteristic features that separate it from other states of consciousness. First, ineffability involves a difficulty in putting the experience into words and presumably is most relevant to prenatal and perinatal experience. Second, the noetic quality is that which is gained from knowledge and is special, revealing and illuminating, though it remains inarticulate. Third, transient experience is brief and cannot be maintained over time. Fourth, passive experiences describe how the devotee is held by a superior power. Evelyn Underhill names five characteristic features of what mystical experience is. The active and personal refers to the devotee not waiting for the experience to happen. The transcendental and spiritual experience, according to Underhill, describes the focus as not the visible universe but the unchanging deity. Divinity, on the other hand, is an object to be loved and not to be explored. Underhill thinks that the aim is to achieve a unitive state of a form of enhanced life that changes the character of devotees. Additionally, according to Underhill, true mysticism is never self-seeking. Furthermore, Underhill presents a theory of how mysticism progresses towards intensity through awakening, purification, illumination, the ‘dark night of the soul’ and the unitive state. This process can equally be understood in psychological terms, depending on one’s worldview, all being equal. There are different ways of describing experience, and Crapps (1986a) writes about the dynamics of the mystic way. First, such experiences are partially an uninhibited affirmation of basic human values: an awakening perception of the universe as integral and one that is self-validating, ego transcending, disorientating in time and space, with wonder, awe and unitive consciousness. Pahnke considered that aspects of mysticism may be explained by heightened perception. Crapps’s language uses images of sexuality, a dominant metaphor being marriage and intimacy. Additionally, Crapps thought that mysticism is fantasy, escaping into a private world of illusion, which raises the question of the moral consequences. Additionally, there is an infantile desire for escape and security, apparently involving the mystical union with God, representing the wish to return to the security of

Klein and Bion  107 the mother’s breast or womb, indicating withdrawal and dependency. In relation to sociocultural factors, the context of the experience, such as tradition, may give mystic encouragement and support to what might otherwise be considered eccentric or atypical. Moreover, Crapps discusses the dynamics of glossolalia, which is the phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language, especially in religious worship, practised particularly by Pentecostal and charismatic Christians. According to Crapps, a requirement of glossolalia is an openness of personality and perhaps a drive for security and personal expression. Glossolalia can be likened to children’s language and could therefore be a sign of repression and relation to authority. This phenomenon is a reminder of Ferenczi’s paper ‘Confusion of the tongues between the adults and the child’ (Ferenczi, 1955), perhaps highlighting the vulnerability to the wishes and whims of authority in both situations. The issue appears to be one of containment or a lack of it and the need for a nurturing, safe parent figure to help. Moreover, when considering containment of the foetus in Bion’s terms, psychoanalytic perspectives on protectiveness and psychic envelopes becomes of interest in relation to the foetus and their management of feelings and survival, through the possibility of creating images of God. First, Freud’s concept of the protective shield against stimuli in ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ (Freud, 1920) describes a barrier to protect the psychic apparatus against overwhelming trauma. Freud’s protective shield can be applied to the prenatal child and to when the shield is damaged or breached, through, for example, domestic violence, which has shown to escalate during pregnancy. Such an unreliable shield, in Freud’s terms, brings the risk of confusion regarding the boundaries for the internal and external, conscious and unconscious, mind and body, self-preservation and sexuality, at such a delicately early phase of development – perhaps posing the possibility of the foetus being a sexual being may raise outrage, just as Freud had done, by considering that children can be sexual beings from an early age. From a different perspective Anzieu conceived of the skin-ego, which he defined in terms of the various senses of the body. Anzieu proposed that the various layers of felt sensation of the body-ego can proceed to form the psychic envelope. The perspective of psychic envelope illuminates early trauma to include the prenatal period of development and the impacts that this can have on later life. Esther Bick had also construed, through observation, the aspect of psychic skin, which established the idea in relation to infancy but would be appropriately applied to the position of the prenatal child in utero. The maternal containing function allows for an initial psychic skin to develop, which can be imaginably possible from conception onwards, this defining the foetus’s or infants psychic space, leading to a sense of self-containment (Bick, 1968). From this departure, Houzel conceived of this process as stabilising drive forces (Houzel, 1987, 2005, 2012). Daniel Stern’s psychoanalytic developmental approach defined the narrative envelope, which he thought derives from the intersection between psychoanalysis and

108  Klein and Bion neuroscience. This perspective offers a different way to conceptualise developing preverbal communication and the nuanced distinctions between different forms of psychic envelopes. To further examine the applicability of the psychic envelope, four notions, as described earlier, will be explored in more detail in what follows: Freud’s ‘protective shield’, Anzieu’s ‘skin-ego’, Bick’s ‘psychic skin’ and Stern’s ‘narrative envelope, which are argued to be just as applicable to the prenatal foetus as it is to the postnatal child. First, Freud had considered the function of a contact barrier, in 1894, when he formulated his model of the mind, followed by his introduction of the notion of a protective barrier and filter to defend against anxieties from the external world, which may have an overwhelming effect (Freud, 1950/1920). Freud adopted the metaphor of the exterior layer of an ‘undifferentiated vesicle of sensitive substance’, which becomes sacrificed on contact. Freud (1894) initially considered trauma as originating sexually, in relation to the infant’s need for care. After World War I, he revised his theory of anxiety, describing the first infant situation as framed by ‘helplessness’, or Hilflogsigkeit (Freud, 1926), which generalises the early risk of trauma (Freud, 1950/1926). Freud’s idea of a protective filter lies at the centre of the idea of a psychic envelope. Clearly, the psychic envelope, as posed by Freud, is recognised in relation to the amniotic sac in the uterus. From a different perspective to that of Freud, Winnicott (1958, 2005) considered psychic conflict in relation to the border of the mind; the border between inside and outside, in terms of how Winnicott conveyed an ‘intermediate zone’, or a transitional space. One wonders where this space may reside for Winnicott in relation to the prenatal and perinatal infant – perhaps in the womb or through birth itself. Additionally, Winnicott proposed that a ‘good-enough’ maternal object can provide a holding for the baby’s mind, which is split in relation to the ‘needs of the ego’ and the sexual drives, which would sustain a ‘continuity of being’. The extent to which the prenatal foetus is continuous with the postnatal infant so far remains underresearched. However, according to Winnicott, the envelope or container is indicated at the level of the self, in terms of obstacles to the satisfaction of the drives. Furthermore, for Winnicott, a person being overwhelmed is explained by an impingement of instinct on the self and the needs of the ego. This state results in confusion between narcissism and sexuality, the self and environment, inner and outer worlds. As is so often witnessed when the foetus’s defences are impinged upon, the result can be the erection of ‘the false self’. This false self can be fed by premature and intrusive satisfactions, which may hide the true or real self and does not allow the development of a ‘good-enough’ distinction between self and environment. Where the foetus is impinged upon by invasive drugs, violence or neglect, where the parents are not able to hold the foetus in mind, from this early phase of development, the tiny infant possibly learns how to become self-sufficient in the face of a precarious existence. This state of being would inevitably influence

Klein and Bion  109 the attachment style and personality of the growing foetus. Furthermore, it would make sense to conceive of a less contained and more contained foetus imagining godlike figures in their mind, varying from the persecutory to the benign in relation to the emotional configurations in the imagery present in the foetus’s mind. In relation to psychotherapy, Winnicott had portrayed his distinction between neuroticism and psychoticism in terms of the experience of holding; those who had gained the benefits of a ‘good-enough mother’ on one hand and those who had experienced impingement and invasion on the other. In terms of the latter type of experience, just as the foetus and infant needed to experience ‘good-enough’ caregiving, the patient needs to take in a ‘goodenough’ therapeutic experience. Therefore, if the couch is representative of a symbol of maternal love for the person who is considered neurotic, it is  experienced physically in relation to a loving and caring experience by the psychotic (Winnicott, 1953). Although Winnicott makes a distinction between concrete and symbolic love between the neurotic and psychotic position, it seems that there would always be an element of feeling the loving experience in both groups, to know that it represented maternal love. However, Winnicott perhaps is stating that the psychotic patient cannot conceive of the representation. It would seem that the foetus’s construction of self depends on such a process of ‘good-enough’ caregiving, as depicted by Winnicott. It was Bion (1962, 1970) who developed a significantly new psychoanalytic paradigm in relation to the function of containment, which alternately can be conceived of in terms of a psychic envelope. Bion introduced the idea of a membrane in relation to the treatment of psychosis (Bion, 1962). Psychosis is defined differently in psychiatric terms than it is in psychoanalytic terms, which is important to hold in mind when distinguishing different descriptions of experiences. In psychoanalysis, psychotic individuals manifest a confusion doubly: in relation to the delineation between the conscious and the unconscious and between the patient and the analyst. In psychoanalysis, Bion recommends that the psychoanalyst develop and maintain a membrane-type skin between themselves and their patient and that the patient do the same between the conscious and the unconscious, which clearly takes time. If this does not take place, Bion believed that verbal language might be perceived only as an explosive act, where the psychoanalyst’s interpretation may be received by the patient as an act devoid of any deeper meaning. Such thoughts are possibly directly applicable to the foetal situation, and if true, they would have significant impact at this early phase of developing the self, when the cells and anatomy are first forming and knitting together in utero. In relation to the concept of projective identification, Bion considered the idea of a conflicted meeting between the contained and the container. Bion related there being ‘beta elements’, which by their nature of being a priori are incapable of being assimilated by the foetal or infant psyche.

110  Klein and Bion The beta elements are primitive, each being ‘a thing-in-itself’, which needs to be evacuated. The capacities of the container to contain such elements may enable the foetus to become psychologically experienced by the foetus. Where the infant can be observed, the foetus mostly cannot, which takes extra efforts of reflection by the mother to imagine their state of being without anything observable to validate such efforts. However, this ‘learning from experience’ (Bion, 1962) is represented by the mother–foetus dyadic model, where the beta elements possibly exuding from the foetus must be digested by the mother, through what Bion described as her alpha function, referring to her capacity for reverie, gradually possibly leading to the foetus benefiting from what were initially inaccessible emotional experiences. Where the mother is capable of containing the foetus in this way, the foetus may possibly be able to make use of alpha elements, such that they can dream its fears. If Bion’s process of containment described here fails, then a ‘nameless dread’ results. Following the continued experience of containment, the mental apparatus emerges, with its inner delineation between the conscious and unconscious and its boundary in relation to external reality. The psychological result is the establishment of a double limit, that of the conscious and unconscious and of the internal and external. The idea of a psychic envelope can be taken from Bion’s model, which can take two forms. First, in relation to a healthy mother–foetus dyad, the psychic envelope contains alpha elements, similar to the contact barrier, proceeding the positive influences of the alpha function on creating links with the relationship between the container and the contained. This model distinguishes the conscious from the unconscious, where the subject can dream or participate in autoerotic activity. Second, unfortunately, the failure of this process can lead to confusion where the psychic envelope corresponds instead to a ‘screen of beta elements’, which becomes destructive for the foetus and possible future relationships. Additionally, Marty (2010) postulates that psychosomatic psychopathology involves a lack of containment of drive excitations. The idea of the protective shield offers a basis for comprehending the disturbance of the ‘biological logic’ in terms of somatic functioning. As the preconscious is established, this involves a fresh psychic organisation. For Freud, the preconscious is the part of the mental apparatus involving a meeting of unconscious representations: objects and feelings with conscious representations of words. The lack of a protective shield has the outcome of a difficulty in linking words with feelings and in ‘operative thinking’ – pensée opératoire. Psychosomatic disorders can therefore be seen as the outcomes of the protective shield being overwhelmed, resulting in a lack of differentiation between body and mind. Such a model of the mother as the protective shield provides a perspective on the psychopathology of the foetus. Kreisler (1977) organised

Klein and Bion  111 etiologic influences within a psychosomatic frame into two orientations. One describes an overload of excitations which penetrate the protective shield. The second orientation describes the deficiency or absence of the shield, generating greater functional disorders and primary depression. The two orientations can create psychosomatic disorders. The body becomes disorganised once excitations cannot be processed mentally, especially where foetuses are involved. In relation to this point, Debray (1998) contemplated the psychosomatic balance in relation to the father–mother–infant triad, which is equally applicable to the father–mother–foetus configuration, stressing the need to protect the narcissism of the parents, providing the foundation for the protective shield to be built. It is fascinating to consider much of psychoanalytic thinking which has been applied to the postnatal child also in relation to the foetus. In terms of psychosexual development, the mother’s affection in part represents the archives of her own psycho-history and adult sexuality in relation to the repression of her infantile sexuality. One can also consider the possibility of foetal sexuality and wonder how this may be communicated through the possibility of foetal images of godlike figures. The maternal seduction of the foetus and infant may fuel the foetus-infant’s epistemophilic drive, curiosity and desire to discover and its further sexuality and styles of thinking. Another effect of this shared pleasure between mother and foetus-infant is the foetus-infant’s capability to develop its own auto-eroticism – when it can reproduce this pleasure for itself. The foetus-infant’s libidinal activity therefore creates an ergogenic body, constituting primary narcissism. However, for both these developments to occur healthily, an adequate protective shield is needed. If seduction is necessary for the foetus-infant, a lack of or excess may cause traumatic distortions between self-preservation and libidinal satisfactions (Gutton, 1997). Anzieu conceived of the skin-ego, which was the first outline of the notion of an envelope. Anzieu discovered that some patients were not helped by the traditional psychoanalysis frame, whereby progressive analysis depends on the patients’ capacity to express verbal language in a free associative way so as to represent their own traumas. Anzieu first developed a transitional psychoanalysis by employing a prosthesis-framework for these patients: What the patient no longer tolerates in the usual analytical framework reveals the early impediment of the environment which has left its mark on his Self. In this case, a new framework must be created by the two contracting parties (the psychoanalyst and the patient), an intermediary between the traditional psychoanalytical framework, which remains the objective of the psychoanalyst, and the prosthesis-framework, precisely adapted in order to compensate the shortcomings of the patient, who claims it explicitly or implicitly. (Anzieu, 1979, p. 203)

112  Klein and Bion Winnicott has recommended that the psychoanalyst first listen to and acknowledge the ‘needs of the Ego’. The traditional framework, which relies on the patient’s ability to use verbal language, does not support this – such that laying on the couch devoid of eye contact with the psychoanalyst may exacerbate the patient’s primitive anxieties, especially their paranoid fears, creating an insecure medium for language to be used. Interpretations would need to be adjusted to the patient’s range and level of symbolisation. When the patient struggles to transform early traumas into words, the psychoanalyst may refer to Freud (1950) and offer a construction that helps them to imagine the situation. When explicating the skin-ego, Anzieu (1989) relied on knowledge developed when working as a psychologist in a medical ward, where he referred to the work of Brazelton, describing how the infant needs an envelope after birth to maintain its homeostasis, if not before birth. Anzieu’s conceptualisation depends, however, on Winnicott’s work, in relation to the biological foundation of the skin-ego associated with the ‘needs of the ego’. Anzieu’s concept relates to the development of psychological functions which are closely related to the physiological functions of the skin: barrier, surface of meaning and filter (Anzieu, 1974), among nine other functions which were later proposed (Anzieu, 1989, 2011). Following Anzieu’s concept of skin-ego emerges that of the psychic envelope. Freud (1950/1925) offered the metaphor of the mystic writing pad to designate two levels of the skin-ego. These are that first there is an external face receiving inscriptions but which does not store them, resisting destructiveness and sustaining rigidity. Second, a changeable inner face stores inscriptions and their meaning. Together, they become envelopes. There is therefore a double function: the external aspect of the inscriptions and the inner aspect of the protective shield, yielding a range of psychological configurations, depending on the lack in the layers. Anzieu (1989) referred to the prohibition to touch, outlining the format of the earliest relationships, before the oedipal prohibition. This implies how the infant gives up the fantasy of a ‘common skin’ to progress to the skinego. The former expressions of caregiving are the more tactile; the change to verbal representation has a requisite of distancing, leading to a prohibition, enabling the baby and possibly the foetus to leave behind the ‘body-to-body exchanges’ with their mother, enabling speech for individualisation. In relation to this, the oedipal prohibition becomes possible. According to Anzieu, such a prohibition indicates a double evocation. The first is in relation to the skin and to tactility. Later on, the toddler acquires the required abilities to actively explore and more specifically concerns physical touch. The first prohibition enables the infant to give up the ‘intrauterine fantasy’ and to achieve the ‘fantasy of a common skin’. Due to this second form of prohibition, the child gives up the ‘fantasy of common skin’, then acquiring a skin-ego, creating an inner world containing psychic conflicts, without the risk of leakage. Dolto considered this position

Klein and Bion  113 as one of a symboligenic castration (Dolto, 1984): a prohibition producing a representation, a symbolisation, rather than an ‘amputation’ of the body image. The infant, and possibly the foetus, accesses the representation of the differentiation between their body and that of the mother’s body, and in this way, a symbol is created, which enhances their development. If this process fails, on the other hand, confusion arises in relation to the body image of the infant and possibly foetus, where the infant and possibly foetus cannot imagine that the differentiation and the prohibition are experienced as an intrusion or as an attack. At the time of the Oedipus complex, the incest prohibition – the ‘prohibition to touch’ could serve a positive role, when the primary development of the self is taking place. Such envelopes are considered to develop during the earliest maternal caregiving phase, and it seems that there is every possibility that the foetus is included in this phase of development. Initially, such envelopes are defined by sensory aspects: smell, touch, thermal perception or sight. According to René Spitz (1965), who defined the first proximal senses (touch and smell) from those distal senses (sight), Anzieu progressed onto this idea of the precession of the touch and smell envelopes, from that of sight. The ideas which Anzieu directly inspired focused on sensory qualities such as vision, sound and voice (Anzieu, Haag, & Tisseron, 1993). A conclusion may be that of a topological perspective on trauma, as offered by Anzieu. His conceptualisation illuminates the relationship between the concept of a protective shield and that of trauma. The idea of a skin-ego created possibilities of establishing the notion of a psychic envelope. Anzieu claims that there are markers of early childhood traumas, and this should include foetal traumas such as near miscarriages, drug use, domestic violence and illness, which may be able to be seen through the flaws revealed in the adult’s skin-ego, through the quality of the adult envelopes. According to Freud, the notion of a traumatic overflow was mostly conceived in relation to its intensity; on the other hand, Anzieu stresses the topographical dimension of trauma. Trauma needs to be investigated for the ego to be reconceived and reconstructed, so that it can recover its capacities for synthesis, thinking and language use. Anzieu’s model is primarily constructed from abnormal adult psychology and remains, arguably, a powerful tool for assessing abnormal child and infant psychology. It should be extended to an assessment of foetal life, as is argued throughout this book. However, Anzieu’s infant remains a baby reconstructed from adult analysis, and the foetus again needs to be held in mind in this context in order to gain a fully informed impression of who is being analysed. There remain a number of unanswered questions: How do these various kinds of envelopes fit into place? Is the skin the only ‘model’ of the existence of envelopes? Can we isolate in the infant or in the foetus an envelope centred on a single, visual, tactile or olfactory meaning, as Anzieu indicates? With the infant and foetus, do we see the development

114  Klein and Bion of an intermodality of all the senses even earlier than Anzieu suggests? My response would be in the affirmative. In what follows, Houzel’s conceptualisation will be examined, introducing the idea of an envelope which can be conceptualised as detached from the metaphor of the skin. Following this explication, Stern’s reconceptualisation will be investigated, in the light of viewing the narrative qualities of the envelope. First, let us look to Bick’s conceptualisation of the psychic skin alongside Houzel’s idea of the infant envelope, extended by this author to that of the foetal envelope. Although Houzel may be acknowledged as establishing the concept of the psychic envelope (Houzel, 1987, 2005, 2012), his contributions were in relation to those of Bion, Bick and other post-Kleinian psychoanalysts, which enabled his theory to be more connected directly to the infant’s body image, which this author extends to conceiving of in terms of the foetus’s body image, thus recognising and reemphasising this extra psycho-history pf the patient, which might otherwise have gone ignore or denied. Klein contributed enormously to the internal world of the baby, which becomes aptly applicable to foetal life, possibly even more so due to the intensity of feelings evoked in the womb, offering up different possibilities in relation to the disposition at this early phase of development for images of God. On the other hand, Bick emphasised the significance of the first psychic skin, where she demonstrated the importance of the containing function of the mother for the infant’s earliest endeavours, and these are extended by Bick to the foetal self (Bick, 1968, 1986). Therefore, the envelope follows on from the introjection of the maternal containing functions: The thesis is that in its most primitive form, the parts of the personality are felt to have no binding force among themselves and must therefore be held together in a way that is experienced by them passively, by the skin functioning as a boundary. But this internal function of containing the parts of the self is dependent initially on the introjection of an external object, experienced as capable of fulfilling this function. Later, identification with this function of the object supersedes the unintegrated state and gives rise to the fantasy of internal and external spaces. Only then the stage is set for the operation of primal splitting and idealization of self and object as described by Melanie Klein. Until the containing functions have been introjected, the concept of a space within the self cannot arise. Introjection, i.e., construction of an object in an internal space is therefore impaired. In its absence, the function of projective identification will necessarily continue unabated and all the confusions of identity attending it will be manifest. (Bick, 1968, cited in Briggs, 2019, pp. 55–56) Bick describes a process which relates to the first weeks of the newborn baby’s life. I argue that that there is every possibility that such positioning

Klein and Bion  115 of the personality is equally possible in relation to the foetus. Conceivably, when the infant or foetus is overwhelmed by primitive anxieties, its psychic space becomes threatened. Bick (1968) introduced the notion of the second skin, which can be conceived of as a defensive envelope. Such a defence enables the infant and foetus to fight through the fear of not being contained and the terror of a never-ending fall. These remarks describe a form of ‘self-containment’. The ego appears to defend itself against the fear of ‘non-integration’, generating catastrophic anxieties, via a ‘pseudo independence’ vis-à-vis the object. Bick’s conception of the psychic skin is clearly related to Anzieu’s skinego. In his writings, Anzieu refers to Bick. However, there is a difference of perspective between the two, wherein Bick worked with children, so her concept fits infancy better than that of Anzieu, which came from working with adults. The metaphor of the skin is also used differently. Bick attempted to demonstrate how to understand the development of the mental space in infancy. Those who proceeded her, namely Meltzer, Tustin and Haag, all went on to explore connections between such a mental space and the body. In relation to the construction of such a mental space, Meltzer (2005) introduced the idea of a geography of fantasy, a mental space that is constructed in infancy and arguably in utero, through an encounter with the other and in relation to one’s own body. The mental world can be internal (the self) or external (the others), where the body may be experienced as having an interior and an exterior. This space has several dimensions. The development of these different dimensions depends on the capacity of the subject to think, love and improve experiences through contact with others. This idea can also be considered in relation to foetal development. Klein and Meltzer examined the negative effects of intrusive projective identification, particularly in relation to internal objects. On the other hand, according to Bion, when the object is an inadequate container, the baby and foetus risk pathological identifications concerning parts of their own body. According to Bick and Tustin, Haag (Haag, 1990, 2004, 2006) investigated ‘architecture’ by revealing the importance of the first folds in the skin of the baby’s body, where, at the bodily level, these folds duplicate the ties that the baby has with its mother. This idea can be equally extended to possibilities in relation to the bodily state of the foetus. Therefore, for example, the unification of the split around the sagittal axis, between the two halves of the body, the right side and the left side, constitutes the container–­ contained relationship, as designated by Bion, which the infant and foetus have constructed with their mother. Such a ‘geography’ of body image therefore depends mostly on the introjection of the mother–infant/foetus relationship – or, more precisely, on the boundaries which the infant/foetus determines for their psychic environment. Haag (1993) specifically studied the importance of the interpenetration of gazes and the function of a ‘background object’. In eye-to-eye

116  Klein and Bion communication with its mother, the infant’s eyes plunge into the depths of her eyes. In this movement of projections ‘in the head’ of the other, the infant encounters a bottom, a capacity, an enigma, a mindful and attentive presence. A small variation in emotion is returned compared to what was projected. This returning loop is at the origin of the feeling of being. The presence of a thinking mother limits the amount of projected emotional variation, enabling the securing of a returning loop and thus the possibility of the infant’s linking their own projections to the returning perception. This insightful idea can be conceived of in relation to the foetus being held in mind or not, where the need of the foetal being is to be recognised and looked after in utero, which may set up a similar loop, as described by Haag. Such an enclosed space, especially for the foetus, or background to the encounter, constitutes a sort of primitive mirror for the infant and foetus. Without such an experience, the infant or foetus is at risk of losing their limits and of resorting to hallucinations, stimuli from hard objects or the like in an attempt to suppress the anxiety of disappearance from the mind of another, which can possibly be similarly compared in the case in autism. The returning loop represents a primitive form of the back-and-forth ­movement from the core of the self. Since this experience is continually repeated, the first psychic container also has a rhythmic structure. It can be described as the ‘hearth’ from which the baby can perceive the external world as different from the internal one. Haag linked these returning loops to Stern’s narrative envelope, as will be discussed in what follows. In Houzel’s work regarding the infant envelope – and, I add, the foetus envelope – as a stabiliser, he developed Anzieu’s thoughts, adding the perspectives of Bick, Meltzer and Tustin in the UK to that of Haag in France. Houzel defines the psychic envelope as ‘the demarcation line between the internal world and the external world, between the internal mental world and the mental world of others’ (Houzel, 1987, p. 24), which is relevant to thinking about the foetus and their sensitivity to managing their emotions through possible images of godlike figures. Houzel focuses on the dynamic aspect of this concept: ‘The psychic envelope should not be conceived in a static way, but rather as a dynamic system, that allows for a synthesis of dynamic and topographic points of view, i.e., the synthesis of the concepts of force and shape’ (Houzel, 1987, p. 40). Houzel portrays the concept of attractor in relation to catastrophe theory to demonstrate this dynamic aspect: The concept of attractor allows Bion’s and Bick’s descriptions to be better understood, making the nipple/breast the container of the primitive oral impulses. The nipple/breast does not contain in the sense of a recipient, but allows a stable shape to be provided and therefore a meaning, to the baby’s oral impulses; it is an attractor for the dynamic system of these impulses, in this sense, it contains them. (Houzel, 1987, p. 41)

Klein and Bion  117 Houzel then extended this narrative to the family group, where he describes that the family envelope is a group structure common to the members of the same family, which ensures the succession of generations and their differentiation, which allows for the complementarity of maternal and paternal parental roles, which guarantees the constitution of the basic identity and of the sexual identity of each of the children, and which finally contains in respect to the same filiation all the members of the family and leads them to share the same feeling of belonging. (Houzel, 2005, p. 136) From this viewpoint, the psychic envelope integrates the psychic work of both maternal and paternal containment. The difference between the generations and between the genders allows for the stabilisation of the family envelope. In particular, life-threatening issues of transgenerational repetitions with mothers and infants – and the foetus – possibly suffering from deprivation, described by Selma Fraiberg et al. (1975) as ‘ghosts in the nursery’, extend to the foetus and are to be contained and transformed by the family envelope. When families encounter difficulties, in cases of deprivation, negligence or placing children in care, for example, professionals must work together to reconstruct the stability of the envelope so as to guarantee and protect the identity of all the members of the family and especially that of the suffering children. Houzel thus introduced the idea of an extended envelope (Houzel, 2005, p. 140): the various professionals around the family work together to help the family to be less subject to the influence of massive projective mechanisms and transgenerational pathological repetition. In relation to drawing some conclusions in relation to the dynamic containing function of psychic envelopes, Houzel progressed towards a second definition of psychic envelopes, taking into account the psychic life of infants and, by extension, foetuses. Following the topographical perspective, which was developed by Anzieu and his emphasis on narcissism, Houzel insists on the dynamic and drive perspective in the construction of envelopes. Pathology related to envelopes derives from failures in the containing function of the mother, the parents, the family at large and/or health workers. Observational studies of both infancy and autism illustrate how the envelope concept can be related to the development of the infant’s body image. Haag describes this development in its various stages and processes. Dolto (1984) contributed an approach to the body image, and although she does not explicitly refer to an envelope, she clinically describes processes similar to those noted by Haag, using a conceptual framework derived from Lacan. Similarly, studies of parental interactions and projections onto infants show possible paths for exploring this containing function, and one may wonder how these projections influence the possibility of the foetus’s constructions of images of God.

118  Klein and Bion The singular fantasies of the infant or foetus result from dynamics that are due to the containing role of the mother and/or parents and wider systems, such as family and health professionals. The behavioural interactions of mother and infant/foetus carry the imprints of fantasy and unconscious mental life (Kreisler & Cramer, 1981). The infant or foetus receives a family mandate (Lebovici, 1998), which can confirm expectations or repair dramas from previous generations. The tiniest detail in interaction can become the object of fear, of unconscious inductions, and can indicate the fantasies of the mother in relation to the foetus. The conception of the foetus and later birth of the infant initially destabilise the reference of the identification of each family member. Parental projections are more or less constraining, with more or less weight being exerted on the foetus and infant. Palacio-Espasa (2007) describes the various ‘narcissistic scenarios’ of parenting, according to the rigidity of the parents’ projections into the baby and by extension foetus. The baby and foetus identify themselves with the place that the parent gives them, and that place is more or less constraining. The conception of the foetus’s or infant’s psychic envelope can be explored and investigated in relation to how the infant or foetus processes such experiences. Stern (1993, 1995), on the other hand, examined further narratives and the ‘Schema-of-Being-with’. Stern (1993, 1995) introduced the idea of a pre-narrative envelope, which describes the infant’s interactions with their mother, but this idea must equally extend also to the foetus. Stern states that the infant’s experience was viewed to result from a network of schemas of ‘being-with-another’, including narrative envelopes, scripts and sensorimotor, perceptual or conceptual schemas. All of these aspects should be considered further in relation to foetal life, or the start of the formation of the self will be left out. By a process of refiguration, such schemas would give meaning to representations experienced as fantasies, memories or autobiographical representations (Stern, 1995, p. 132). Stern emphasised the various elements constituting the experiences of the infant, which should also be considered in the light of the foetus’s lifespan, in particular the affects and what he referred to as ‘temporary feeling shapes’. This idea refers to a semantic unit, such as when the infant/foetus acts on motives (drinking when thirsty, receiving and adapting to bad news), which is followed by changes in pleasure, emotion and the level of motivation or satisfaction. Such changes occur over time with an emergent feeling, which is new, subjectively experienced, singular and complex. This framework of feeling makes it possible to generate the contour and structure of the infant’s and foetus’s experience, through creating images of God which reflect this range of affect. All of these processes would be at the base of the internal working model that constitutes the internalisation of the process of attachment. Stern’s model reflects an evolution from the non-verbal phase of emotional intrigue to the phase of verbal representations, or arguably in this context to the foetus’s ability to possibly contain their emotions through

Klein and Bion  119 depicting images of God in their mind. The idea of temporary shape is replaced by present moments (Stern, 2004), which are very short, from one to ten seconds. When musical notes become a tune after the third or fourth note, there is a retroactive effect of unification of what has already occurred (‘the past of the present’), and paradoxically, this makes it possible to make a leap, to imagine what will happen, by passing on to ‘the horizon of the future’. Furthermore, according to Ricoeur (1992) psychic time is based on intrigue; the notion of intrigue organises separate events into an immediately deferred action. This deferred action gives shape to feelings, producing a line of tension which links the schema of affect to that of narrative. Stern regarded time as a kind of sixth sense, something transmodal which adds a certain form of sensuality to the other senses. This conceptualisation of infant psychic time can be compared with other works on infant rhythms but is equally possibly conceivable in relation to foetal life. Indeed, it is possible that it could underline the specificity of an early process of transformation. These works also led to a model of therapeutic change in which narrative envelopes hold a ‘language’ function. The Boston change process study group model (Bruschweiler-Stern et al., 2002) investigated therapeutic change in implicit or procedural memory. The findings were in contrast to traditional interpretative change, which was made possible by the emergence of declarative or autobiographical memory with verbal language. The envelope, as a narrative, can be seen as a kind of primary language. Steps in communication and development, when mediated by different forms of psychic envelopes, inform the sense of self-development. It can be argued that communication evolves in ways that are more complex through each phase, becoming more precise and more abstract. There is a wealth of literature on this subject. Different kinds of studies illustrate the various phases which are traversed by, for example, the emerging sense of self (Stern, 1985), by a process of intersubjectivity (Trevarthen & Aitken, 2001), via the conscience (Weinberg & Tronick, 1994; Rochat, 2003) and by emotional and social development (Greenspan & DeGangi, 2001). If, according to Houzel, there is a stabilisation of the envelope between the infant and/ or foetus (this author’s addition) and its mother, then one can observe each phase of development as a form of stabilisation, due to the maturation of the baby (and foetus, as this author wishes to add), in Houzel’s perspective. Stern’s work (Stern, 1985) incorporates the psychoanalytic and developmental perspectives and offers a framework for the kind of stabilisation suggested by Houzel. Stern demonstrates how the self can become increasingly complex while offering the infant, and the foetus, new forms of communication with others. The infant or foetus may feel their authentic self at the same time that they perceive the potentiality of another having a mind. Remaining attentive to one’s self presupposes the capability of perceiving beyond oneself. Intrinsically, the self is dependent on the quality of

120  Klein and Bion caregiving and is established and maintained within the relationship, which the infant and foetus develop with their mother. While attempting to define such meanings for the self very precisely, Stern was not seeking to establish associations between different communicative methods of the infant/foetus and different phases or modes in the envelopes. It is possible to attempt to identify different phases which constitute various modes of being in communication with oneself and others (Mellier, 2012). Psychic envelopes may be distinguished according to these various types of operations, involving intersubjectivity, maturation and the corporeity of the infant and the foetus. A variety of different forms of envelope can be distinguished through the infant’s and the foetus’s communicative modes. The stabilisation of their mode of communication may be due to the infant’s and foetus’s sharing and associating in a privileged but non- exclusive manner, particular components of their experiences: sensations, emotions, states of mind, actions, words and then language. Step by step, the infant and foetus learn how to share and to associate their experiences until their reach the point of abstraction, when then may begin to talk. In this process, their skin-ego is created gradually, through successive traces and through the unfolding of their experiences. Therefore, the developing sense of self (Stern, 1985) guides them towards four possible forms of envelopes in infancy, including those in foetal life, which will be outlined in what follows. First, envelopes with a sensory basis were portrayed by Stern as the emergent self in the field of the emergent interpersonal attachment; initially, the infant and the foetus have to manage difficult experiences, with a plethora of perceptions and sensations, which they try to decipher. Trevarthen and Aitken (2001) underlines the innate intersubjectivity of a newborn, known as primary intersubjectivity. Rochat (2003) introduced the idea of an ecological self: the infant or the foetus possibly feels their body as an entity different from their environment. This phase is deeply connected with the construction of the psychic skin established by Bick (Mellier, 2010). The breast, or umbilical cord, is the first attractor of the infant to their mother (Houzel, 2005) and of course of the foetus. Perceptions are held to be constructed at the same time in the self and the psychic space. Anzieu (1989) considered this the first step in forming the ego-skin, on the basis of sensory perception (touch, smell, vision). For the infant, this is the first differentiation from the mother’s psychic space, and perhaps this is true for the foetus too. Second, envelopes with an emotional basis are linked to Stern’s description of the core self (at about two or three months), when one enters the field of the interpersonal bond: the infant enters the immediate social world with their mother (at about seven to nine months) by learning in a quasichoreographic way their part in the subtle movements between them and their mother. Although Stern has illuminated much of early infant self-development, his work excludes the prenatal phase, when the foetus has already

Klein and Bion  121 developed personality traits and therefore a sense of self. It is important to remember the continuity between prenatal and postnatal development to gain a realistic view of the lifespan of any individual and not one that starts at birth. Alternately, Trevarthen and Aitken (2001) introduced the idea of protoconversation, which will become relevant to that which Stern called affect attunements. This appears to be the beginning of narrative envelopes and is connected with the ‘fantasy of common skin’ described by Anzieu, alongside the emergence of the Kleinian paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. Spitz’s second organiser, the fear of the stranger, is additionally a pertinent point. For the infant, this is the second differentiation from the mother and the parental psychic space. More research needs to include the life development of the foetus; otherwise, a whole nine months is relegated to a void, where there is much to be gleaned that may well change our current contemporary theories of early human development. Third, there are envelopes which are based on ‘state of mind’, and according to Stern, this is the subjective self, within the intersubjective interpersonal field (secondary intersubjectivity). By developing the subjective self, the infant discovers that they have a mind and that others also have a mind (theory of mind). This constitutes a significant step in development, according to Bowlby (1988), namely that of the internalisation of attachment figures. At this stage, we can imagine the beginning of the second form of the ‘prohibition to touch’, as introduced by Anzieu. For the infant, this is the third differentiation from the mother and the parental psychic space. Fourth, according to Stern, envelopes based on actions which create representations are depicting the verbal self (at about 15 months) within the field of the verbal interpersonal attachment. With words, the infant discovers that sound symbols open up new prospects to the imagination and communication while bringing into question their former non-verbal worlds. This could possibly also be true at the late foetal phases of development, as they may be able to mimic the sounds that they hear from the external world. Trevarthen and Aitken’s (2001) work is significant since they emphasised the importance of the companion in infancy and of cooperation, which could equally be possible in relation to the foetus. One can also recognise the third organiser, the utterance of the word no, as stressed by Spitz, and the complexity of the passage to verbal language (Vivona, 2009). Later, the child takes a major step into the ‘world of stories’, as claimed by Stern (Stern, 1995). The child, perhaps, is able to imagine its own story in relation to what happens to others. For the infant, this is the fourth differentiation from the mother and the psychic space of the closed family. However, when considering twin foetuses, they would already have an idea of the other, as has been evidenced through ultrasound; foetuses will play and fight in the womb, already creating their own stories and memories.

122  Klein and Bion Regarding the genesis of psychic envelopes in prenatal and infantile development, it is clear that where a variety of forms of envelope mediate different phases of development and communication, further work is needed. Many fascinating questions arouse our curiosity: How can the change from one mode of communication to another, from one envelope to another, be explained? Is this purely the result of biological maturation? How do aggressive impulses influence the process of differentiation? Is development independent of the relationships in the parental dyad? Is it feasible to communicate about development in infant envelopes without development being a central component? There will be differing views on these issues. It can be postulated that empirically based developmental research becomes oversimplified and risks destroying the specificity of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis and neuroscience are two different perspectives (Bazan, 2011), two different ways of explaining the same phenomena. The successful conceptualisation of psychic envelopes in relation to psychoanalysis depends on one central question: How do we imagine the earliest form of an infant’s unconscious world (Roussillon, 2011)?

Bion’s caesura In relation to the caesura, the link between the intrauterine and postnatal life is re-emphasised by Bion (1989) following Freud, and since Bion’s drawing of our attention to the link between intrauterine and postnatal through to adult life, there have been several critiques of his ideas. Galit emphasises Bion’s thoughts of the caesura, indicating that the existential link with birth was always belonging to both the mother and the infant. Through the experience of being born, the mother would also experience a line of breaks, of both time and space, meaning, continuity and boundaries. All of these are considered to be in relation to a physical and emotional re-configuration of parameters, and they therefore affect the unity of the self. In this way, Atlas portrays the idea of breaks in unity, first expressed in the book The Enigma of Desire, and in it lays out the unspoken features of childhood through the transition of motherhood (Atlas, 2016). According to Atlas (2016), such breaks in unity create a loss of differentiating between subject and object, involving the boundary between self and other becoming a fluidity of inside and outside alongside the fluctuations between conscious and unconscious psychic processes. Such caesuras, as Atlas claims to have observed in her clinical practice, are considered to be unspoken aspects of childbirth, with the transition to motherhood seen as psychoanalytically undertheorised. It may be that observing phenomena in relation to caesura indicates that it can communicate, but perhaps, as Atlas has suggested, this has not yet been taken up and interpreted. If this is the case, one may wonder why this may be. What is it about prenatal life and development and about birth which is denied? The pain involved presumably is difficult to face and perhaps remains undigested, lingering in the

Klein and Bion  123 human psyche, not forgotten and not remembered. Atlas states the remarkably simple yet necessary observations that Having a child does not only refer to the moment of birth but also is about the ongoing process that includes the complex relationship between the body and the psyche as the physical experience is so interwoven with an emotional one. (Atlas, 2016, p. 201) It appears in Bion’s work of 1977 (Bion, 1977) that he contemplated birth as a prototype of the idea of the caesura, from where the infant’s dramatic transition from living inside the mother’s body to becoming independent and living in the outside world could become seen as a model for possibilities of continuity alongside change, as Atlas states (Atlas, 2016). Bion alludes to the caesura as being a rhythmic pause – as in music, the break between two notes – perhaps representing the link between aspects of life which appear separate, such as, as suggested by Atlas, between night and day, life and death, outside and inside, sanity and madness and the past, present and future (Atlas, 2016, p. 201). It was Bion (1977) who proposed examining the link – the caesura: Investigate the Caesura; not the analyst, not the analysand; not the unconscious, not the conscious; not sanity; not insanity, but the Caesura, the link. (Bion, 1977, p. 57) Atlas suggests that the caesura of birth is existentially belonging to both infant and mother. Both the mother and infant are considered by Atlas to move from one state to another, and the gap or link, as Bion conveyed it (Bion, 1977), accounts for the potential to both move forwards and break down or break through. Indeed, Bion had described the notion of a bidirectional penetration; once having been penetrated externally in, which possibly leads to impregnation, once the infant is ready to be born, the penetration occurs where the infant penetrates the maternal body during labour (Bion, 1977). Bion, refers to such a visual description to convey a symbolic nonlinear, bidirectional motion from the inside of the mother to the outside into the world but also in relation to the movement from consciousness to unconsciousness, past to present and present to future – and vice versa. Bion, described such movements in ‘Memoir of the Future’ (Bion, 1991), where he alludes to the emotional and physical motions and interpenetrations in relation to birth and labour as including invisible and visible caesuras. Anzieu (1989) describes the infant’s earliest experiences, where the skin is initially experienced as concrete and as being a symbolic container of psychic and emotional content. In relation to the foetus’s psychic skin (Bick, 1968)

124  Klein and Bion and sense of being bound together, if this becomes damaged – and there are many ways for this to occur, such as through domestic violence – the sense of being becomes unintegrated if not damaged at such a delicate phase of existence as in the intrauterine period of development. According to Anzieu (1989), the surface of the body is the sensory organ. Freud (1923) believed that the ego is primarily a bodily ego. Similarly for the mother, Winnicott conceived of the new mother’s reverie-like state, which he named ‘primary maternal preoccupation’ or an ‘almost illness’ (Winnicott, 1956, p. 302). Therefore, Bion veers towards exploring the meaning of the caesura when he describes the maternal breaks in continuity and the possibilities within the caesura itself. Additionally, Bion (1977) makes a different reference to defining the caesura as the emotional turbulence involved through a transitional stage in one’s life, with disrupted continuity and ambiguity, such as portrayed by Julian in Pigsty (Pasolini, 1969, cited in Garcia, 2013). In Klein (1930), in her work with the four year old boy Dick, she formulates that although she had not yet distinguished between depressive anxiety and persecutory anxiety and the depressive position, curiosity was conceived as motivation to discover the mother’s body. This curiosity then was transferred to other objects through symbol formation. Klein (1930) combines libidinal, sadistic and epistemophillic impulses aimed at the mother’s body to form the process of symbol formation. However, Klein characterises sadism and the subsequent anxieties, for continuity in the development of a symbolic relation to both internal and external worlds. Klein speaks to Dick’s indifference to his surroundings: Complete absence of affect and anxiety, a very considerable degree of withdrawal from reality, and of inaccessibility, a lack of emotional rapport, negativistic behaviour alternating with signs of automatic obedience, indifference to pain. (Klein, 1930, p. 230) Klein argues that Dick had an incapacity to manage anxiety and a premature empathy led to heightened defences against the sadistic possession of the mother’s body and subsequently to there being no capacity to symbolise the contents of the mother’s body and objects of external reality. It can be considered possible that when a foetus is isolated and starts to gain awareness and feelings and thoughts about their situation and environment close to them and externally in the world, their anxiety could be containable through symbol formation, as images of God provide to children and adults alike. Similarly, Klein claims that the earliest stages of the Oedipus complex happen at the same time as the eruption of oral sadism and the father’s penis is perceived as well capable of sadistic attacks on the mother’s body, generating enormous anxiety and fear of punishment by the parents and fear of retribution from the attacked objects. It seems clear that the Oedipus

Klein and Bion  125 conflict could necessarily start from intrauterine phases of development, where the foetus from around 17 weeks onwards is capable of unconscious and conscious phantasies, especially being at such close proximity to the parental couple, witnessing their coitus and daily living. It is possible to imagine that anxiety would mobilise defence mechanisms which may be violent and incapable of being subjected to repression. Whether the capacity to form images of God is similar to or the same as symbol formation, Klein held that identification precedes symbol formation: Side by side with the libidinal interest, it is the anxiety arising in the phase that I have described which sets going the mechanism of identification. Since the child desires to destroy the organs (penis, vagina, breasts) which stand for the objects, he conceives a dread of the latter. This anxiety contributes to make him equate the organs in question with other things; owing to this equation these in their turn become objects of anxiety, and so he is impelled constantly to make other and new equations, which form the basis of his interest in the new objects and of symbolism. (Klein, 1930, p. 219) It seems, therefore, that Klein considers symbol formation as reliant on anxiety and desire for knowledge and impulses which are both libidinal and destructive. The desire to know the contents of the mother’s body, Klein states, is concurrent with the feelings of sadism at this phase. When considering that the foetus’s brain is claimed to be fully developed by around 17 weeks, it would make sense that it is possible for the foetus to feel, have thoughts and phantasies both consciously and unconsciously as they manage their isolated existence in the womb. Like the older newborn infant who starts to play early on, exchanging eye contact and facial expressions with parental figures, the foetus is known to play in the womb, sucking its thumb, kicking against the uterus, playing with a twin or triplet and so on, as observed by Piontelli (1992). Just as it may be possible for the foetus to experience the imaginary twin, for example, the imagining state could include an image of God evoked by a myriad of dynamics, at least involving the mother, within whose body the foetus is housed. There may well be a series of unpredictable threats to the foetus’s wellbeing, some causing the foetus to be miscarried or to die in the womb. The possibility of the foetus being able to have images and ones of god figures which contain fears or an internal injured object which is externalised into a father figure (Bion, 1950), whether threatening in relation to the injured part of the foetus or benign in relation to the loved/loving part of the foetus’s personality. These oscillations of love and hate were formulated by Freud’s dialectical operations of a pairing of opposite emotions, which could be understood as competing in the guise of the death instinct, operating with a creative parental couple. Bion claims that binocular vision is initiated by

126  Klein and Bion the mother for the capacity to observe the intrapsychic self-conflicts of the internal world. This point about splitting and binocular vision raises the further important question about personifying personality splittings, and this is similar to the capacity for symbol formation, which Klein had postulated. Klein also emphasised the manifestation of anxiety, aggression and the epistemophilic instinct in relation to the mother’s body and its contents and then to the parents’ relationship. Significantly, Klein emphasises the sadism and tolerance of the resulting anxiety in terms of the process of symbol formation, where splitting of the personality in relation to forming images of God may distribute anxiety, as posed by Carla Garcia, Tor, and Schiff (2013). Bion’s second thoughts on the imaginary twin in relation to the growth pattern on the development of the Oedipus complex correlated with a set of representations that he was formulating: The value of the notes lay not in their supposed formulation of a record of the past but in their formulation of a sensory image evocative of the future. The notes did not make it possible to remain conscious of the past but to evoke expectations of the future. (Bion, 1967, p. 124) It seems that the germinations of Bion’s framing of caesura can be seen here. The past and future have equal importance in the concept in relation to Freud’s insight regarding the continuity of intrauterine and postnatal life in the light of the caesura of birth. Bion considers that the foetus may experience primitive sensory impressions and feelings, perhaps taken forward into postnatal life and, as Garcia comments, may be viewed as ‘a shadow cast by the future’ (Garcia et al., 2013, p. 585). In this sense, Bion’s caesura seems to represent a way of thinking about phases of emotional turbulence and transition from one configuration of mind to another, where disruption takes place but where there is also continuity linking the states of mind. Just as Bion finds in his analysands images that evoke the future, so too do these exist for the foetus, who possibly holds images in mind which foreshadow future life or are predispositions for being able to imagine God. The contact with different times and spaces can be considered an expression of the caesura. The narrative of the foetus, once born, intertwines the narrative with the mother and others, through this binocular vision of the internal and external worlds to attempt to bring them together in caesura. The editing of the narratives poses the idea of the death instinct at work or that of the epistemophillic instinct. When continuing to pursue the idea of the possibility of the prenatal disposition to imagine godlike figures that are based on emotional configurations, evoked for myriad reasons during intrauterine life and most likely with great intensity, among only a few others, including Freud and Rank, Bion had been able to accommodate the intrauterine life in his psychoanalytic

Klein and Bion  127 expositions. According to some, including Bergstein (2013), early development indicates ‘primitive, irrepresentable, seemingly unreachable’ aspects of the self. Speculative possibilities lead to a puzzle of just how irrepresentable early emotional aspects of the self, as designated by Bergstein, may be. In relation to adult life, primitive anxieties, as defined by Klein (1946), were described at the earliest phases of post-birth infantile psychic life in terms of a successful completion of development through certain positions. One can imagine early postnatal persecutory feelings being contained in images of frightening godlike figures. Therefore, unless there is a foundation on which to base the notion that post-birth imagery in the infant’s mind had grown and developed during the perinatal phase of development, there remains the possibility of the prenatal infant being equally as able to imagine godlike figures, possibly with more intensely disturbing presentations in the foetus’s mind. Just as when the patient’s dreaming may stop – or, as Bergstein considers, connects with a caesura and the psychoanalyst dreams what the patient cannot – the foetus’s dream encounters a caesura; here it is possible that the mother may dream what the foetus has ceased dreaming about. Strachey stated in a footnote to Freud that the word caesura derives from classical prosody, referring to a specific form of interruption in a line or verse, whence the line then would continue: Getting in touch with primitive mental states and with the origin of the Self is aspired to, not so much for discovering historical truth or recovering unconscious content, as for generating motion between different parts of the psyche. The movement itself is what expands the mind and facilitates psychic growth. Bion’s brave and daring notion of ‘caesura’, suggesting a link between mature emotions and thinking and intra-uterine life, serves as a model for bridging seemingly unbridgeable states of mind. . . . The analyst’s dreaming and intuition, perhaps a remnant of intra-uterine life, is elaborated as means of penetrating and transcending the caesura, thus for facilitating patient and analyst to bear unbearable states of mind and the painful; awareness of the unknowability of the emotional experience. (Bergstein, 2013, p. 621) In 2013, Bion is considered Bergstein brave and daring for putting forward his theory of the caesura, linking intrauterine life with postnatal existence. One needs to raise the question why such thinking would continue to be considered daring and brave, when prenatal and postnatal life are inevitably linked. Is it that individuals resent or resist thinking about prenatal life? If so, why so? To what extent is the psychoanalytic community open to considering prenatal life in relation to that which is postnatal? It seems that for Bion, in relation to Freud’s innovative observation, there is a likely continuity between prenatal existence and postnatal existence, a time of dramatic separation yet one seeming under-researched. Yet birth perhaps

128  Klein and Bion provides a model for surviving gaps, spaces, silences, pauses and breaks, to embrace the continuity linking disparate states, such as experience and interpretation, wakefulness and sleep, sanity and insanity and so on and the caesura between one state of mind and another and between one person and another. Although Bergstein recommends a third possible caesura between self and self, it is unclear how this is different from that between people, involving transferences and counter-responses. The responses may be separated by caesuras, which can be understood to a certain extent by adopting the analytic stance and accepting that it would perhaps be impossible to understand all the nuances of such associations and caesuras, so instead, the nature of their continuity needs to be determined. It would therefore be important to accept that if infants and individuals across the lifespan can imagine godlike figures with emotional content, then foetuses would possibly be able to do so too. There is the perinatal phase of development, which is relatively unknown, yet it is possibly the most significant of transitions from intrauterine to extrauterine life, and increasingly few psychoanalytic thinkers ‘dare’ to write about the possible continuity between prenatal life and postnatal life. Bion supports the view that postnatal life is a continuation of the feelings, thoughts, dreams, memories and desires of prenatal life (Bion, 1977). Bergstein claims that Bion ‘assumes’ such a speculative link between prenatal thoughts and feelings with later adult life, yet perhaps Bion recognised how much further we need to evolve to accept that there is a possibility, and by assuming that there is, we might encourage others to think about this seemingly dark and unchartered territory of our lives. Most videos showing intrauterine development are accompanied by religious music and the remarkable human creation, as divine. Perhaps, Bergstein is right: ‘it is not so much gaining knowledge of actual intra-uterine events that is significant, but rather resting at any convenient, theoretically familiar stop on the way’ (Bergstein, 2013, p. 623). By 1976, Bion illustrated his perhaps intuitive speculations in relation to the continuity between intrauterine and postnatal life, through the vignette of a baby who was satisfactorily born yet who yelled without being able to be soothed. From this scenario, Bion suggested that this was an event already started in utero, masked only by the ‘impressive caesura of birth’ (Bion, 1976). Therefore, a symptom would not be able to be understood if it is assumed to have evolved after birth. Bion then considers the analysand who refuses to lie on the couch, which can be interpreted in many ways: envy, hostility, love. But here a different perspective is offered, namely that it may be possible that lying on the couch subjects the analysand to pressures which may be impossible for them to tolerate or verbalise (Bion, 1977, p. 44). Furthermore, Bion raises the question of such pressures possibly originating from primitive foetal experiences. Bion states that he can envisage situations in which there were varied pressures of the amniotic fluid,

Klein and Bion  129 where the senses found bright lights or loud sounds intolerable, which are possibly remembered from intrauterine life, alongside capacities to survive prenatal life such as using ‘embryological intuition’ (Bion, 1977). Again, referring to intuition makes a connection with mystical experience, since intuition is not possible to be corroborated by another or by science. According to Mills (2002), there is the possibility for the foetus to some way know themselves, for them to have self-awareness, through exposure, at least, to family members or other siblings in utero. Mills considered that the embryonic ego may initially be aware of itself as a ‘prereflective, unconscious self-consciousness’, or otherwise expressed as ‘inwardising self-intuition’ (as cited in Bergstein, 2013). There may be too much of an assumption to think of the foetus as without rational thought. Klein (1946) wrote about archaic mental states, posing more than the possibility of prenatal aspects of the personality, which may be evacuated during the birth caesura, indicating that they are psychically irrepresentable, as speculated by Bion (1977). One may contend that for thoughts to be irrepresentable, there are thoughts that are representable, and Bion encourages imaginative reverie almost on these issues, which equate to hypothetical considerations and not scientific facts. It seems that Bion attempts to give permission for ‘the right to indulge your speculations . . . in order to give your imagination an airing, to give it a chance to develop into something that might be scientific’ (Bion, 1977, p. 47). It remains possible, in this mind, that foetuses may self-regulate perhaps catastrophic experiences through imaginings that may form godlike figures. The foetus no doubt communicates with the mother, and Bion formulates the idea of links between the foetus and mother as LHK. In 1962, Bion poses that emotional experiences cannot be imagined apart from as part of a relationship that is based on love, hate and knowledge. In relation to K, Bion thinks that only through ‘investigating the caesura’ (Bion, 1977, p. 56), the link or synapse, can the mother know her child’s mind (and her foetus’s mind) by exploring her own mind, whereby the foetus can start to know their own mind and that of their mother. As Bergstein (2013) write, the caesura is the place of spontaneity in terms of emotional aliveness but also the threat of drowning. Bion’s conceptualisation of the caesura makes reference to two models of thinking, namely the alimentary model and the synaptic model. In the former, the thoughts are linked with food, where the mind represents the digestive system. Transformations, as Bion considered them, can take place once primordial thoughts and sense impressions are communicated via projective identification. This mechanism allows for metabolism, detoxification and digestion through the maternal alpha function and are returned to the foetus through modified and more-bearable communication. Bion’s synaptic model, where the etymology of synapse means link, implies a gap in which communications can be made and adds to the alimentary model in that it acknowledges the disconnection in relation to the caesura. Where there

130  Klein and Bion may be contention about projective identification not adequately answering further questions about how this takes place, Bion remained interested in the break and how the process of communication evolves and transforms in relation to two synaptic membranes. For Bion (1979), the caesura is identified with a forward slash to designate a space between two psychic states and the potential for dynamic change. The caesura is a model for the space, likened to the turbulent waters between the river banks; catastrophic change and danger can emerge, an impossible place which Bion motivates us to reside in. Bion considers that when two personalities make exchanges, an emotional storm is inevitable. Bion focuses not on the aim or the end cure in terms of moving forwards but rather on the motion involved in expanding the mind and creating emotional and psychic growth and development. Such movement is a multidirectional back and forth between the conscious and unconscious, enabled by the contact barrier discussed earlier, referred to by Freud, to describe an entity which is neuro-physiological and clinically manifests semblances of dreams (Bion, 1962, p. 26). The dynamic motion between caesuras is facilitated by dreaming, separating and linking the unconscious and conscious, where ‘dreaming resembles the placenta which is responsible for feeding the foetus but also functions as an immunity system filtering dangerous matter and preventing its penetration’ (Bion, cited in Bergstein, 2013, p. 625). Bergstein comments thoughtfully about the placental economy, as an archaic register present before birth and the link between the mouth and the nipple, which conveys a ‘primordial, paradoxical form of linkage-separateness’ (Bergstein, 2013, p. 625). The placenta has been portrayed as a mutual by-product, as partly maternal and partly foetal, and the foetus produces the placenta, which has been differentiated from the endometrium, although deeply embedded in it. Despite the placenta having been created by the foetus, it acts independently of them. In the womb too, there appears a lack of coalescence between foetus and mother, not a vacuum between them but a semi-permeable linking and separating membrane, as portrayed by Irigaray (1991). The placenta is therefore a powerful metaphor for contemplating and comprehending the role of the contact barrier and that of dreaming. This is an important aspect of thinking about the possible disposition or position of the foetus to envisage images of God. Perhaps just as Bion illuminated that he considered dreaming to continue throughout night and day, images possibly created by the foetus may be considered similar to dream images. A further similarity may be gleaned in relation to the possibility of foetal imagery of god, like dreams, preventing waking and protecting sleep from the external world, for the working through of emotional experiences to enable waking without the unconscious permeating consciousness. Bion had maintained that dreaming function is a process of sense impressions which threatens to overwhelm the psyche and at the same time protects the personality from psychosis (Bion, 1962). In

Klein and Bion  131 foetal terms, the ability to contain disturbing or conflicting feelings in utero may preserve the foetal sense of self: In the same manner that dreaming protects and maintains the separation between sleeping and waking, simultaneously bridging them, so can one imaginatively conjecture how it creates a bridge and continuity between two minds, ad yet always keeping in mind the unknowability of the other. However, this meeting of minds (as well as the incredible failure) creates an emotional turbulence. (Bergstein, 2013, p. 626) The possible foetal capacity to create images of God can perhaps be likened to Bion’s impressions of dreaming and reverie and, in view of Meltzer’s (2005) contributory understanding of counter-dreaming, by way of bridging the gap between one mind and another. In waking life, the image of God, possibly stemming from prenatal and perinatal life, is located on the periphery between conscious and unconscious mental life. The image of God offers a way of gleaning more from the unconscious but can also threaten to disrupt psychic equilibrium, igniting a possible catastrophe emerging from the chaotic nature of mental states which may veer between the psychotic and non-psychotic aspects of the personality, especially where there is no external reality to refer to in relation to the foetus. Perhaps not enough psychoanalysts are interested in reflecting on prenatal life, and this amounts to a huge loss for humanity: ‘The trouble with psychoanalysts is that they are not interested in mental pain; they are only interested in psychoanalysis’ (Mawson, 2011, p. 251). Bion understandably adjures attuning to and listening in on the silences and spaces with what he describes as embryological intuition, which was influenced by Martin Buber’s associations to Jewish myth: ‘in his mother’s womb, man knows the universe and forgets it at birth’ (Bion, 1977). Bion used an extremely helpful phrase to learn how the foetus may discern the intrauterine environment, alongside the possibility of being in touch with feelings of terror through the senses (Bion, 1977). It appears progressive to surmise continuity between prenatal existence and post-birth existence, therefore broadening the lifespan to include prenatal life, when we listen to and consider the patient in front of us. Clinical observation and comprehension of presentations would allow the analyst to see traces in relation to the earliest phases of emotional development. Bion articulated that such speculative imagination gives rise to re-creating the conditions in which the seed of a scientific notion can thrive (Bion, 1977): ‘I wish it were possible to discuss these matters without having to invent a language as if it were scientifically accurate. But it is the best we can do until such time as it becomes possible to use it scientifically’ (Bion, 1976, p. 273). Bion, like this author, recognises the need to elucidate embryonic thoughts, forming a connection between sense impressions and consciousness, as

132  Klein and Bion further postulated by Meltzer (1978). Bion considers reverie as instructive in this process of listening to the gaps. Furthermore, Bion’s paper ‘Caesura’ outlines his method on discourse – guiding us to broaden and deepen our reverie to encompass the embryonic by giving up memory, desire and understanding to re-question what seems to be known or that which deceives – when he says to Lou Andreas Salome in a letter, ‘I have to blind myself artificially in order to focus all the light on one dark spot’ (Bion, 1977). It is thanks to Bion that foetal life is acknowledged and taken seriously. He alludes to an unconscious state which has a different quality, namely that of an inaccessible mind state, which is inaccessible, Bion surmises, due to the foetus excluding this state as soon as it can. One may wonder how this would be possible? Because the foetus likely has feelings and primitive notions, alongside being able to hear sounds, voices from the external family and the mother’s heartbeat, Bion thought that the foetus might manage such sensations by evacuating these into the amniotic fluid (Bion, 1977). Another possible pathway is that the foetus envelops such experiences, making them inaccessible for assimilation by the foetus or a more developed individual unless they experience a receptive other to create a K link as the foetus identifies with the other’s capacity for dreaming and yet with the unknowability of Freud’s ‘dream’s navel’ dropping down into the mysteries of the still unknown. Trying to get in touch with the emotional experience through the ‘language of achievement’, with consideration of its unfathomability, where the ‘language of substitution’ is necessary, Bion (1970) writes about his interest in the unconscious experience: We are concerned both with the translation in the direction of what we do not know into something which we do know or which we can communicate, and also from what we do know and can communicate to what we do not know and are not aware of because it is unconscious and which may even be pre-natal, or pre-birth of a psyche or a mental life. (Bion, 1977, p. 54) Bion speculates about the aim of eclipsing the caesura, to access primitive mental accolades, which are not repressed thoughts and feelings but unthought thoughts and unfelt feelings, and the alpha function can attempt contact with these aspects, where the analyst ‘must be capable of imaginative thought, or dream-thought, that embraces the intra-uterine experience as a “world” quite different from the “world” of projective identification’, as articulated by Meltzer, 1986, p. 36). It is thought that through free-floating attention and dispelling preconscious assumptions, the analyst can start to illuminate representational traces which were evacuated forcibly from the patient’s mind, as discussed by Parsons (2005). It seems that the free-floating attention aims to identify archaic sensory pre-representations, such as possibly in utero, which were unable to have become conscious, remaining

Klein and Bion  133 as underlying, irrepresentable competence, which Bion made reference to as ‘proto-mental’. Bion’s line of thinking appears to indicate a predisposition in utero for thought and representation. The foetus is exposed and, one may venture to state, aware of external figures in their family whom they can hear, already laying the groundwork for curiosity, thought and the capacity to feel and possibly create images in mind, perhaps as a way of self-containment. It is possible to conceptualise the foetus experiencing a transformation from beta elements through alpha functioning which may possibly result in an image being created by the foetus, indicating growth of the self, as Bion thinks, and if the foetus is capable of accepting that they are not the image, their sense of self develops and grows. Bion’s ‘proto-mental’ states points towards a creation and degeneration of truth and could arguably relate to the unrepressed unconscious, as considered by Mancia (2006) and Matte Blanco (1988). In this form, however, the possible repressed unconscious experiences could be representable and then capable of emerging in dreams, slips of the tongue and so on, able to be interpreted in consciousness – or, in the case of hallucinating the object, as described by Freud (1917). M’Uzan (2000), it alludes to the analyst experiencing quasi-hallucinatory phenomena or a form of perception, where regression facilitates the movement from verbal communication and object representation through to non-verbal expression. The unrepressed unconscious seems to refer to impressions without representation, therefore without the need to be accompanied by mental states, disallowing it from consciousness, as Bergstein writes: Even so their presence is betrayed by the emergence of baffling and disturbing behaviours, as well as pre-representational experiential elements, uncanny sensations stirred up, not yet formed into any coherent image. . . . These may include sensory impressions, stereotyped actions, physiological reactions, posture, intonations and rhythms of speech, and isolated fragmented images or affects. (Bergstein, 2013, p. 631) Bion did refer to the caesura bridging dreaming and hallucinating, acknowledging their similarities alongside their differences: The proper state for intuiting psycho-analytical realisations . . . can be compared with the states supposed to provide conditions for hallucinations. The hallucinated individual is apparently having sensuous experiences without any background of sensuous reality. (Bion, 1967, p. 163) Perhaps one could imagine that the foetus is in the most optimal position for the hallucinatory function, expressed otherwise in dreaming while asleep,

134  Klein and Bion and in waking states, dreaming is usually limited to reality testing. Freud (1917) declared that at the start of our mental life, we did have the capability to hallucinate the satisfying object when we felt need of it. The process of hallucinatory satisfaction of our wishes had to be abandoned to set up a sort of reality testing. Furthermore, Freud, distinguished between the person diagnosed with schizophrenia’s hallucination and the hallucinatory delirium from a mental defect. In relation to the person with a mental defect, through brain damage or neurodevelopmental difficulties, where there is a daydream, which can be further defined as a hallucinatory wishful psychosis and which is just as applicable to dreams and amentia: ‘The formation of the wishful phantasy and its regression to hallucination are the most essential parts of the dreamwork, but they do not belong exclusively to dreams’ (Freud, 1917, p. 229). On the other hand, Bion makes a distinction between hallucinations stemming from hysteria and those stemming from psychosis. Bion refers to the experience of the patient as being recognised, at times, as a hallucination and at other times as a dream. Here, Bion is in transition between the dream and the hallucination. In relation to the foetus, one may wonder about the range of mental states that may be attributable in utero, as described here. One may hope just as the psychoanalyst is encouraged to attune their receptive mind to that of the patient, the mother is able to hold her baby in utero in mind, and clearly this is achieved on a sliding scale depending on the mental health of the mother and relationships that she holds. In this respect, Freud (1912) states that the analyst needs to Turn his own unconscious like a receptive organ towards the transmitting unconscious of the patient[foetus]. He must adjust himself to the patient as a telephone receiver is adjusted to the transmitting microphone. Just as the receiver converts back into sound waves the electric oscillations in the telephone line which were set up by sound waves, so the doctor’s unconscious is able, from the derivatives of the unconscious which has determined the patient’s free associations. But if the doctor is to be in a position to use his unconscious in this way as an instrument in the analysis, he . . . may not tolerate any resistances in himself which hold back from his consciousness what has been perceived by his unconscious. (Freud, 1912, pp. 115–116) It was Bergstein (2009) who further stated that ‘The element that the patient internalises is the function of dreaming, the function of seeking meaning, and not a specific meaning’ (Bergstein, 2009). Additionally, Bion seems to reveal a truth in relation to the birthing foetus and their exposition of new thoughts being pushed aside in order to maintain psychic equilibrium, just as the arrival of the newborn foetus in relation to the group in attention and interpretation, where the group’s resistance can be palpable to accept

Klein and Bion  135 the creative genius born into the group and poses a threat of catastrophic change and emotional upheaval in the family (Bion, 1975, p. 27). Similar to the newborn arriving in the family, fears of catastrophic change occur when new caesuras emerge: The discovery of new caesuras entails deconstruction, or destruction of the familiar thought or idea and necessitates mourning the loss of the old perception [family], hence the tendency to hold tightly onto the familiar. However, this is the potential for growth and discovery. Analytic transformation is possible through the breakup of the familiar meaning and a ‘breakthrough’ of the new discovery. Often this entails a threat of catastrophic ‘breakdown’. (Bion, 1977, cited in Bergstein, 2013, p. 639) It is possible that the foetus is aware of the changes in their body and mind taking place in utero and senses the future turbulence of birth, possibly evoking catastrophic, anxiety-ridden feelings, which may be contained if in a containing maternal relationship, through images of godlike figures. Hence, the foetal, turbulent emotions would have a container. One may consider the situation of the foetus when not in a containing, maternal relationship and the difficult relationship ensuing from this point. One can imagine the degree of hatred that may be felt by the foetus that is made to hold such feelings through domestic violence, drug intakes or neglect of the foetal needs. The distress would be enormous, perhaps resulting in the most persecutory of images, unthought of by many and remaining unbeknown to those who will not or cannot consider the possibility. According to Bion, the main objective is to unfold the emotional experiences which the foetal patient is still unable to dream about. It is therefore necessary to anticipate such experiences through identification and reverie with the foetal patient and the concomitant feelings evoked of madness or distress. Furthermore, possible foetal images of godlike figures may be the solution to what Winnicott had termed transitional phenomena and to what Siegelman conveys as transitional objects: Transitional objects are the first material objects that are both surrogates for the mother and extensions of self, existing midway between inner and outer, baby and mother, real and illusionary. . . . This transitional object is the first symbol, the first mediator between the baby’s needs and the outer world, the first thing that ‘stands for’. (Siegelman, 1990) The caesura, the metaphor of birth, speaks of the foetus’s passage of rupture, from one state to another, involving intense experience through the transition since the rupture provides hope. Therefore, one can state that the rupture of membranes forgoes the journey of the foetus as they progress

136  Klein and Bion through birth, through possibly difficult terrain. According to Civitarese (2009), The caesura of birth is a model of birth for every new thought. Just as the caesura of birth renders the persistence of types of consciousness and primitive levels of the mind insensible, so every new idea intuits a new caesura, a barrier, an obstacle relative to the others, which are cast in shadow, if not entirely killed off; an embryonic idea – writes Bion (1977) – can kill itself, or it can be killed, and this is not only a metaphor. (Civitarese, 2009, p. 116) The foetus therefore early on faces the conflict between the known of the womb and the unknown transition of birth from which, one hopes, new thoughts are possible. In many ways, the analyst replaces the maternal and paternal functions, but from the start, the foetus–mother relationship is poignant to say the least. Correale (2015) postulates that the role of the analyst is to assist their patient to connect with bearable loss, so that the loss of familiar relationships does not become persecutory. According to Bion, such an absence becomes nothing, possibly a callous and inflexible superego image. However, if the loss is contained and made able to be felt through internal conversation, the lack transforms into a constructive opening for discovery (Correale, 2015). It is of enormous potential benefit to consider the patient through the lens of their foetal existence and track the ensuing caesura patterns and sequences, as Civitarese (2009) has stated: Sometimes, being able to see a patient experiencing sensations that are equivalent to intrauterine life, like a fetus inside the amniotic cavity of the analystic room, would instead mean being blinded in front of the evidence of the conversation between adults that is taking place. (Civitarese, 2009) The moment-by-moment awareness of the process of analysis reveals the relationship of continuity and discontinuity, the continuing movement from one experience to the next, perhaps understood as one aspect dying to give rise to the birth space of thinking. This experience appears to be one of unity and separateness. Bion poses a similar question in ‘Caesura’: Can any method of communication be sufficiently ‘penetrating’ to pass that caesura in the direction from post-natal conscious thought back to the premental in which thoughts and ideas have their counterpart in ‘times’ and ‘levels’ of mind where they are not thoughts or ideas? That penetration has to be effective in either direction. It is easy to put

Klein and Bion  137 it in pictorial terms by saying it is like penetrating into the woman’s inside either from inside out, as at birth, or from outside in, as in sexual intercourse. (Bion, 1977, p. 45) Perhaps little emphasis is placed on the intrauterine experience where one may feel from birth in retrospect a sense of being trapped in another’s thoughts. The maternal and analytic situation may result in not wanting to let go of the foetus through birth, and therefore, from the start, there is a holding onto the development of the foetus, paving the way for difficulties in separation and forming one’s own thoughts, mind and right to one’s own life. In relation to the caesura, such merging annihilates the possibility of the space, pause, hyphen constituting the caesura, distinguishing the intrapsychic from the intersubjective and setting a limit of bounded space which is one’s own. The hope is for a paradoxical presentation of the caesura, namely that of inner continuity where there appears to be a break (Sandler, 2005). Bion refers to formless and intense feelings, possibly interwoven with fears and inexpressible notions, perhaps considered as if being ‘sub-thalmic, or sympathetic, or para-sympathetic’ (Bion, 1977, p. 43). Such condensed, primordial forms of pre-knowledge can be considered as needing to be formulated and communicated, as Bion recognises in the deception of the grown form of patients: From the point of view of the analyst the fact that the analysand is a grown man or woman can be so obstructive, the evidence of the eyes so obtrusive, that it blinds him to feelings which are not so clearly presented to the optic apparatus. (Bion, 1977, p. 43) Bion’s conceptualisation of the caesura appears to originate in the formulation of the contact barrier, uniting and separating conscious and unconscious states of mind, accommodating the transition from one to the other while preserving the differentiation between them (Bion, 1962). The term caesura alludes to classical prosody, deriving from the Latin term for cutting off, presumably of anxiety in the face of catastrophic change, as has previously been discussed. What seems to be necessary to transcend the conflicts between continuity and discontinuity, psyche and soma, past and present, intuition and concept or transference and countertransference is the tolerance of two or more seemingly opposing perspectives and encountering the double nature of the event’s break and continuity. A further necessary aspect in relation to transcending the caesura is the ability to be open to the unknown, excluding previous knowledge and desire, as mentioned by Bion. Winnicott too had recognised such a paradox which needs to be tolerated in relation to the real or illusory nature of transitional objects (Winnicott,

138  Klein and Bion 1971). When paradox is not tolerated, the caesura presents a gap: when there is only one view, the search for truth is curtailed and caesura serves as a barrier to continuity. Sandler (2005) also focuses on the paradoxical nature of the caesura as a mark of unity and separation, split through the incapacity to tolerate frustration which defines the breach or the pause, rendering a perspective absolute and ends continuity. Bion’s stance is, alternately, one of continuity. The reversible dynamics involved in defences against psychic pain can threaten the individual’s sense of integration. A temporary paradoxical state relates to the capacity for containment in which the contained is suspended. The narratives, characters and plots can be understood in narrative derivatives of the unconscious of waking dream thoughts, where beta elements are continuously transformed into images, and this transformation performs functions of the mind. This aspect of Bion’s thinking helps to illuminate the possibility of the foetal ability to create images or that a disposition is induced for creating images in utero. It seems helpful to designate Bion’s concept of O in relation to the unknown aspects of intrauterine life, as he articulates that we ‘must focus . . . attention on O, the unknown and unknowable’ (Bion, 1970, p. 27). Bion indicates three ways that the analyst/mother can open themselves to the emotional experience of ‘O’, unhindered by thought: first, through returning to primary ignorance, ‘to a frame of mind which as nearly as possible is denuded of preconceptions, theories, and so forth’ (Bion, 1976, p. 307); second, through being in a state of negative capability, as described by Keats, in which ‘a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fat or reason’ (Keats, cited in Bion, 1970, p. 125); and, third, through connecting with an encounter with faith, namely ‘faith that there is an ultimate reality and truth – the unknown and unknowable ‘formless infinite’ (Bion, 1979, p. 31). Bion writes that it is only through these three elements that learning from experience is possible, since transforming O to K is dependent on banishing memory and desire from K (Bion, 1970, p. 30). On considering the analyst/mother position in relation to the foetus/ patient, Bion claims that the important focus of any session is the unknown and that nothing ought to be able to distract the analyst from intuiting this (Bion, 1967, p. 381). The foetus/patient is inevitably involved with this engagement of intuiting the unknown, one can perceive, especially for the foetus that can hear but not see, as for the postnatal infant who can see more. Bion states that O denotes the experience itself, which cannot be known: ‘its existence is conjectured phenomenologically and known specifically, rather than known about. Therefore, the therapist is not distinct from O, s/he becomes O, as Bion states, ‘the psychoanalytic vertex is O. With this the analyst cannot be identified he must be it’ (Bion, 1970, p. 26). Bion seems to be suggesting that there needs to be little or no separateness from the experience – O is ‘to be at one with O’ – but rather to be

Klein and Bion  139 in the position of observer (1970, p. 32). It seems that at once the analyst/mother needs to be at one with the experience with the foetus/patient and at another point be able to detach and think in the session about the experience. Bion’s conceptualisation of O can be interpreted as denoting an external mystical form of God, fuelled by desire. When considering the foetus that may possibly develop the ability to create images of godlike figures, as a way of containing persecutory feelings framed by the paranoid-schizoid position, as recognised by Klein (1946), one may wonder whether such images of God are equivalent to O in Bion’s terms (Bion, 1970). Bob Hinshelwood considers that O is an interesting interpretation of Bion’s work in this area and thinks, alongside this author, that this O is equivalent to K. Given that O is a mystical experience fuelled by desire, akin to that of God, according to Hinshelwood, Bion is more likely alluding to what can be an idealised O but is more like being and becoming rather than knowing. Bion distinguishes O from knowing: if someone comes along in tears because their mother died, one can know the facts are moved by the tears and become emotional to a degree in a their identification. Moreover, one knows know that bereavement is not one’s own, but they become in a sense one’s friend: one becomes in a sense the person who is bereaved, although one knows that it is the friend who is bereaved. He talks about sensuous and non-sensuous knowledge, from his ideas of intuition from Kant, when he studied philosophy at University of Oxford in 1920 and made friends with the philosopher H. J. Paton. Hinshelwood thinks that these influences on Bion are crucial, yet he didn’t properly acknowledge the sources which influenced his ideas (Hinshelwood, 4 November 2019, private communication). Bion embraces a range of different aspects of human life, including the mystical, even though it is probable that he did not follow a belief in God. Bion quotes St John of the Cross, nevertheless, and it seems, according to Hinshelwood, that he was interested in this capacity of mind to house these non-sensuous experiences which mystics believe come from God. But Bion sees them as a separate way of experiencing the world. Freud would refer to this phenomenon as unconscious to unconscious communication. Such experiences are not ones that come through consciously from perception, hearing or touch. Anxiety, for example, is not something that you can see, touch or smell. You can see when someone is anxious, though: they become pale or tremble. But Bion means that if someone is anxious, you know what it is like to feel anxious with them (Hinshelwood, 4 November 2019, private communication). Additionally, the caesura of birth is decidedly the model of birth of each and every new thought, such that ‘The diaphragm, the caesura, is the important thing; that is the source of the thinking’ (Bion, 1979, p. 306). The act of birth gives Bion a real illustration for exploring the metaphorical significance of birth in relation to ‘the course of transition’ (Bion, 1977, p. 49),

140  Klein and Bion from one mental state to the next, creating the space between to examine the part of desire in an analytic session: that dramatic situation, if borne in mind, is easier to use as a model to understand far less dramatic occasions which occur over and over again when the patient is challenged to move from one state of mind to another. (Bion, 1977, p. 48) The caesura of birth is considered to create insensitivity towards the perseverance of more primordial levels of knowledge and of the mind. Therefore, every new notion creates a new caesura, or a barrier to other thoughts, cast into the depths of shadow or ‘positively killed’. Bion further examined how ‘a foetal idea can kill itself or be killed, and that is not a metaphor only’ (Bion, 1977, p. 417f). Likewise, Bion warned of not taking anything for granted or setting things in stone: no dogma or ‘bigotry of certitude’ (Bion, 1975, p. 34) Sandler (2005) states that the caesura emerges as a split, when it is not tolerable, and the ensuing frustration creates the cut, rendering a perspective absolute and therefore concealing continuity, as explicated by Civitarese (2017). This continuity is probably best described by Ogden as ‘an experience of being and becoming’ (Ogden, 2012, p. 292). Similarly, Bion’s recognises such frustrations in relation to the absence of the object and whether these can be measured: ‘Therefore, “excessive” inability to tolerate frustration is likely to obstruct development of pre-conception’ (Bion, 1970, p. 16). In relation to creative experiences, shared emotion is described by Bion as at-one-ment, a feeling of being in unison, of abiding paradox. We learn that at-one-ment, for Bion, means reconciliation, which according to Civitarese (2017) is the only route for an embryonic thought to be born: ‘it is the moment when projective identification is received and can be transformed’ (Civitarese, 2017, p. 1140). There is no other channel of communication since verbal language would not yet have developed. Civitarese (2017) helpfully outlines how Freud’s view of psychic life is based on conflict and is uni-personal, while Bion was more interested in psychic growth and development, with a bi-personal perspective. Censorship can be considered as an example of the caesura, and sexuality is associated with identity, with securing the primal birth trauma and the consequent continuous reconstruction of the self (Civitarese, 2017). Bion refers to the requisites of seeking truth, namely of negative capability, involving consideration of opposing perspectives without wanting to solve the contradiction. Bion’s idea of ‘negative capability’ is developed from Keats: ‘of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ (Keats, 2002, p. xxii). Surpassing the caesura indicates the need for movement directionally. Bidirectionality implies that the dividing barrier of different modes of functioning, separating primordial from more developed psychic functioning, may be accessed in two

Klein and Bion  141 directions: from primordial functioning to more developed and vice versa. There needs to be an understanding of recollecting from the postnatal to the prenatal contents, since Bion states ‘One cannot go back to . . . childhood or infancy’ (Bion, 1977, p. 45), which can be understood in the context of Bion’s holding that analysis is always in the present, even when dialogue is in relation to the past. Bion, furthermore, conceptualised binocular vision as a model whereby the conscious and unconscious occur simultaneously in capturing a psychoanalytic object, similar to two eyes coordinating on two images of the object. Sandler considered that binocular vision was an important competency of the analyst to countenance paradoxes without needing to solve them (Sandler, 2005). This book aims to dispel the possible denial of the continuity of intrauterine and postnatal life, to illuminate foetal development as much more advanced than may be imagined or denied. Through ultrasound scans, Piontelli (1992), a medical doctor, five or six times monthly observed 11 foetuses at 16 weeks until just before birth, three of which were individual and four twin sets. The infants were observed using Esther Bick’s infant observation method (Bick, 1964), weekly for one year, monthly from age one to aged two, and then two or three times in a year until the infant was age four. Through psychotherapy with children from age two who were not included in the prebirth observations, Piontelli claims to have witnessed prenatal experiences playing a part in their presenting pathology. Presumably Piontelli’s use of ultrasound observation gave her evidence of this claim, since it is clear that prenatal life and postnatal life would be continuous. As Piontelli writes, My findings suggest a remarkable continuity in aspects of pre-natal and post-natal life. Each fetus had characteristic ways of behaving which were to some extent and in some form or other continued in post-natal life. Such continuity occurred in spite of the vast changes of post-natal life. Such continuity occurred in spite of the vast changes of birth and the nature of the containing environment. . . . What I think that findings do suggest is that the interplay between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ begins much earlier than is usually thought, and that certain pre-natal experiences may have a profound emotional effect on the child, especially if these pre-natal evets are reinforced by post-natal experiences. (Piontelli, 1992, p. 1) The difficulties in evidencing, through observation or recollection, the ‘facts’ of prenatal life, should not deter further and thorough fruitful exploration into the earliest phases of existence in utero. There can often be a felt sense of internal contact with our prenatal self having a different perceptive quality. Piontelli articulates the issue eloquently: Working with adults patients made me feel that one could not aim to achieve a fruitful picture of the happenings and the possible emotions of pre-natal life just through clinical work and the tools of transference

142  Klein and Bion and counter-transference. Though deep down we can probably all still feel ‘in our bones’ some of the sensations of or the emotions pertaining to fetal life, it is certainly not possible to serve much exact information from such sensations alone. (Piontelli, 1992, p. 6) Anna Freud recognised the difficulty of psychoanalytic theory and observation being taken seriously due to the complexity of emotions and their impact on perception: In recent years direct observation has added much to the analyst’s knowledge concerning the mother–child relationship, and the impact of environmental influences during the first year of life. Moreover, the various forms of early separation anxiety became visible for the first time in residential institutions, creches, hospitals etc., not in analysis. Such insights are on the credit side of direct observation. None of the discoveries were made before the observers were psychoanalytically trained, and that the most vital facts . . . remained unnoticed by direct observation until they were reconstructed from analytic work. (A. Freud, 1965, p. 24) On the other hand, Sigmund Freud already recognised the parameters of observation and the necessary combination of it with psychoanalysis, gleaned from his thoughts in ‘Three Essays on Sexuality’: The direct observation of children has the disadvantage of working upon data which are easily misunderstandable; psychoanalysis is made difficult by the fact that it can only reach its data, as well as its conclusions, after long detours. But by cooperation the two methods can attain a satisfactory degree of certainty in their findings. (Freud, 1905, p. 201) Hearing the voices of parents, siblings and friends, unbeknown at this point to the foetus, would evoke the epistemophilic instinct as they become more alive to and familiar with their current close and more-external environments. Additionally, twins and triplets in the womb have the added early challenge of negotiating the space in the womb. One can imagine the possible consequences for a foetal twin whose twin then dies and the uncomfortable but necessary questions of whether sadism was the cause of the death needs to be addressed in the context of the endeavour of illuminating foetal development in all its phases. All that Klein claims for the infant after birth in the first year would appear to be just as possibly applicable to the life of the foetus, where connection with theism is innate, just as Klein considered it innate to know the mother. The idea of the foetus being capable of functioning as if their thoughts,

Klein and Bion  143 feelings and impulses, which can be overseen and heard by a phantastic, omnipotent and omniscient super-being, which Freud named das uber-ich, the superego (Taylor, 2019), appears anathema to many people. The foetus being capable of having images of God or godlike figures may seem anathema or ridiculous to many, and there are arguments to dismiss this possibility, such that religion is a socially organised aspect of life, which would be unbeknown to the foetus, apart from that they can hear and want to be connected to others and a part of social life. However, as stated previously and throughout this book, the conception of forming images of God is a psychic function, possibly of managing feelings, which arguably would be most intensive or sublime in the phase of intrauterine life, or as a result of it. It is worth considering the impact of the prenatal phase in relation to organisational dynamics, which is an under-researched area of powerfully dynamic life. More and more, Klein’s works appear possibly applicable to the earlier prenatal life of the child. She states that symbol formation is ‘the foundation of all phantasy and sublimation but, more that, it is the basis of the subject’s relation to the outside world and to reality in general’ (Klein, 1930, p. 221). As foetal life is becoming more closely examined, the link between intrauterine life and the external world in relation to what the foetus would become familiar with in the eternal world increases. Perhaps the illusion of the foetus cocooned in their intrauterine sac is gradually becoming dispelled, alongside the possible myth that suddenly at birth all kinds of dynamics and capacities spring to life, which somehow are not attributable before birth. It seems difficult difficult for humankind to grasp how human foetuses are, as infant mental health research is discovering the powers and sensitivities of the infant, a continuous reflection of the foetus’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions and memories. Selma Fraiberg et al. (1975) drew our attention to the ghosts in the nursey, and how new mothers are faced with the benefits and pitfalls of their own mothering as they become mothers themselves with the myriad demands which this entails. As we gain courage to look further back into the earliest development, we can glean more insights about the later life of the individual through understanding in detail about the capacities of the foetus from its earliest existence. Alongside the earlier important point, there is also the preconceptions of the parents about who they are individually and their psychological history, which inevitably becomes part of their projected wishes, dreams and aspirations for their child, before having any knowledge of their child’s personality or wishes, ambitions, dreams and so on. The infant is therefore conceived amid a host of projections, perhaps similar to a God image, and from before the start of the beginnings of life, there is much to be disentangled to be clearer about the individual in their own right, free of such projections.

3 The not knowing position in relation to prenatal and perinatal life The not knowing positionThe not knowing position

There appears to be a central obstacle in relation to thinking about and discussing prenatal and perinatal life, in terms of what can be known about this phase of development. A further dilemma, perhaps, in relation to thinking about prenatal and perinatal life is how one can know about it and therefore to what extent we can gain knowledge about it. Piontelli has made significant steps towards including the prenatal child and family into the psychoanalytic discussion, through observable study that uses ultrasound. Gemma Fiumara (2001) conducted a psychoanalytic and philosophical inquiry into the mind’s emotional life, addressing the place of affect in psychoanalysis. In relation to foetal life, it seems possible that the images that the prenatal child may construct arguably manage their feelings in the womb. How do others respond to this statement? Perhaps Fiumara helps by stating that although affects may cooperate with reason to maintain the foetus’s functionality, feeling can also distort them to the point of paralysis, through intersections, synergies and conflicts which emerge in relation to emotion and intelligence, thinking and feeling (Fiumara, 2001). Furthermore, Fiumara points to how emotions may become more inclusive through visibility, just as prenatal life is now observable: affects inhabit and fuel the illusively empty interiority of our ­epistemologies – while ultimately remaining external to the intellectual productions that would confer cognitive legitimacy onto them. This paradoxical, obscured texture of our culture needs to be made visible for our involving rationality to become more integrated and inclusive. (Fiumara, 2001, p. 3) For this investigation to claim to be psychoanalytic, one may wonder what the criteria are. According to Fiumara (2014), there is a problematic connection between affect and theory itself in psychoanalysis, which is not frequently addressed. There is an emotion–intellectual link which appears as a central question of psychoanalysis, in terms of a theory and philosophically as a practice. Additionally, psychoanalytic research is affect centred and is focused on the mediating forces that intervene between drive and

The not knowing position  145 defence, between conscious and unconscious life. Psychoanalysis, according to Fiumara, is a study of the mind which contemplates affectivity as a central working concept, inseparably linked to cognition, in an obstinate holistic view of our human experience. In terms of foetal life and the capacity to imagine God, mental events are two sided, one side looking in the direction of prepositional logical processes and the other pointing to affectual unconscious dynamics. The meaning of mental events may separately exist on each side, but a fuller significance may derive from their continued interaction. Different creatures constantly concur and share in psychic vicissitudes, thus reciprocally contributing to both sides of mental events (Fiumara, 2014). Adding to Fiuamra’s point about knowledge and the nature of affective mental events and the connection, or otherwise, of logic, is Kant’s exposition about the fragility of ‘pure reason’ in his Critique of Pure Reason (Kant, 1907). Kant expresses a concern for the purity of reason and an interest in whatever is left out of it. Kant wrote about the ‘idealisation of reason’, where knowledge recognises our intense curiosity for whatever terrain surrounds the circumscribed enclosure of our conscious and coherent mind: We have . . . traversed the whole domain of the pure understanding . . . and assigned to everything in it its proper place. This domain, however, is an island and enclosed by nature itself within limits that can never be changed. It is the country of truth (a very attractive name), but surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the true home of illusion, where many a fog bank and ice that soon melts away tempt us to believe in new lands, while constantly deceiving the adventurous mariner with vain hopes, and involving him in adventures which he can never leave, and yet can never bring to an end. (Kant, 1907, p. 193) It seems that Kant is conveying that anything outside of conscious mind we refer to as the metaphoric language of ‘fog banks’, the stormy ocean of our affective lives. Fiumara (2014) argues that it appears inadequate to think in terms of the relationship between emotional life and ‘rationality’ when thinking about the inside and outside spatial view, which may be too simplistic. Furthermore, Fiumara (2014) claims that there is an assumption that the mind is rational and not emotional. Instincts and affects can begin to operate psychically only at the level of mental ego function – depending on reasoning being more acceptable. Thinking about knowledge again in relation to prenatal and perinatal life, Le Doeuff (1989) contends that reigning epistemologies appear to somehow rely on and disavow the role of affects in their epistemic constructions and so affirm rationality. In terms of the foetus, this may give rise to such arguments about when the foetus becomes a person and yet distract from the possibility that the foetus has

146  The not knowing position feelings and their external world and relationships are bound to have an impact: philosophy ultimately creates itself through what it represses – almost as if the ‘psychoanalytic’ function of repression were essential to its practices. It should be interesting then, to districate the corporate cohesion of rationality so as to allow our affective life to speak out from the centre of our culture, rather than letting it mutely function in there. (Le Doeuff, 1989, p. 63) The dialectical approach to knowledge claims consensus as an essential aspect of rationality: The variegated specificities of cultures and experiences make the goal of generalised consensus in cognitive or evaluative issues rather ideal and unrealistic. (Rescher, 1995, p. 43) In relation to the prenatal and perinatal phases of development, a distinction perhaps needs to be drawn between ideals and idealisations. An ideal, arguably, belongs to the practical order and functions as a guideline in our actual proceedings. The goal of an appropriate endeavour is the ideal, viewed as desirable. An idealisation involves the projection of profound affective components that disregard limits or limitations of various kinds – the affective production and expression of a hypothetical state of things representing the result of profound psychic yearning. Idealisations can be considered as ultimately the result of a laborious emotional experience and not only part of a reasoning process, as stated by Freud in ‘On Narcissism’ (Freud, 1914) and in relation to The Ego and the Id (Freud, 1923). This point can be illustrated further with reference to the story of Babel in Genesis 11:9, evoking nostalgia for an ideal original condition which has had to be relinquished in the process of developing a more complex construction: total unequivocal communication. The myth arguably proclaims the need for an emancipatory separation as a condition for the development of what might be more-powerful forms of world control. Rescher suggests that ‘the consensus theory of truth’ rests on our affective attachment to the notion of an ideal rationality (‘identical circumstances’) in which ‘ideally rational’ inquirers will proceed in the same way and onto the same conclusions: ‘But it is rationality and not consensus that is doing the work for us here’ (Rescher, 1995, p. 55). Perhaps the difficulty in accepting the possibility that the foetus experiences feelings, thoughts, dreams, wishes, ambitions and so on represents a wider issue regarding the repression and denial of feelings as somehow degenerate or inferior. A comparison can be found in Nozick (1981), but Rescher states that we rescue our so-called beloved Western logos not

The not knowing position  147 through consensuality but through the ideal process by which consensus should come about (a comparison with linking rationality with emotions, where only kindlier emotions are acceptable and anger is found deplorable). Nozick (1981) remarks that perhaps philosophers ‘need arguments so powerful that they set up reverberations in the brain: if the person refuses to accept the conclusion, he dies. How is that for a powerful argument? . . . A “perfect” philosophical argument would leave no choice’ (Nozick, 1981, p. 4). Perhaps, the philosophers help get nearer to the truth of the matter in relation to the possible denial of prenatal and perinatal existence, as psychologists such as Stern have attempted to dispel in relation to early postnatal infancy (Stern, 1985). One might imagine expressions of intense righteous rage at the highest levels of inquiry, namely legitimised splitting and control, such as was evident in the Freud and Rank contentions. Perhaps there has been and is a maintained idealised image of the foetus floating in the blissful entity of the mother’s womb. Bradiotti claims that philosophy has managed to disguise its inherent ‘power’ by propagating an image of the human subject as a conscious, rational, self-transparent entity: the instigation of rationality as the founding myth of Western philosophy and regulating principle of human affairs’ entails a joint process of abstraction and violence; while playing a normative role it both disguises the power it exercises and makes it ubiquitous (Braidotti, 1991, p. 278) Neuroscience has made progress in relation to knowledge of prenatal and perinatal life by demonstrating what logically looks like scientific proof in relation to how the brain develops and regarding affect. However, according to Ricoeur, ‘pure reason’ is ‘an illusion that conceals the play of forces under the artifice of order.’ This presents an entirely arbitrary unity, the fiction called ‘thinking’ apart from the bristling multiplicity of instincts. Finally, it imagines a ‘substratum of subject’ whereby the acts of thought would have their origin: ‘This final illusion is the most dangerous. . . . In this way we take as cause, under the title of “I”, what is the effect of its own effect’ (Ricoeur, 1992, p. 15). In relation to considering foetal development and whether ‘mind’ is applicable to the being at this early phase of development, it can be said that the inner functions of analysands, patients, subjects and individuals are not distinct at a later developmental phase. However, it can further be argued that the foetus nonetheless has thoughts and feelings, dreams and desires which are their own and perhaps are more distinct due to their isolated position, apart from the projections and transferences which can enmesh one’s identity with another in families. There are apparent projections from the parents from the start, in terms of what they want their child to be in relation to major identity issues, such as gender, personality and life-course profession.

148  The not knowing position The development of one’s mind is a common struggle in life cross-culturally. According to Caper, Indeed developing a mind of one’s own is generally seen as a primary goal of the psychoanalytic experience. In exploring the issue of the individuality of mind, it is often argued that the therapeutic process should aid analysands to utilise the complex vicissitudes of identification with the analyst only in order to progressively identify with their own experience, and to create a privileged relationship with one’s own inner world. This is not just a problem of the patient or of the therapist who tries to analyse him – but a problem of all interpersonal or cultural relations. (Caper, 1997, pp. 265–278) According to Arnold Modell, ‘alongside the need of the infant for relatedness there is also a need for a private space’, where it seems that the infant can be fuelled from within as well as from without (Modell, 1996, p. 71). Disengagement and engagement are likewise-important aspects of developing a sense of self, according to Modell. A private mental space encourages the instinct of epistemophily, which is about our human desire for thinking, a potential capacity which is to be protected from excessive intrusion: a space for the generation of personal values and meaning. In relation to the foetus, there would clearly be far less choice where intrusion is concerned, less choice in terms of another space to move to and can be considered seriously in relation to intrusions of various kinds, possibly influencing miscarriages. In terms of what one can know about the prenatal and perinatal phases of development, there are hierarchised knowledges. For example, knowing how (to do something) is delegitimised before moving on to knowing that something is the case. Assenting to propositions or attributing epistemic characterisations to them remains at the ‘heart of contemporary epistemology’ (Alcoff & Potter, 2015, p. 226). Overwhelmed by the problems of truth, we may weaken our capacities of insight and risk selective blindness, which is certainly found to be true currently in relation to accepting that the foetus has feelings and thoughts. Wittgenstein claimed that ‘philosophers constantly see the methods of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness’ (Wittgenstein, 1958, p. 58). On the other hand, Scheman considers that ‘Part of the requirement of such ground would be a universally valid epistemology, and the irony is that part of the oppressiveness of the hegemonic construction of knowledge is its claim to be providing precisely that’ (Wittgenstein, 1958, p. 124). Such thought-provoking statements raise the question whether experience is more valuable than knowledge or vice versa. In relation to a psychoanalytic paradigm, experience can only be the criteria for change in psychoanalysis.

The not knowing position  149 Knowledge, on the other hand, depending on how it’s defined, is in analytic terms tentative, perhaps changing from moment to moment. On other hand, the prioritising of the not knowing stance, of not claiming to know what is in the kind of the foetus/patient, is all important to recognising that there are different minds in the room. At the same time, where not knowing becomes a mantra, meaning is likewise lost, since claiming to not know when one does have some idea is a mockery of what is true. However, in society at large, ‘knowledge’ does seem to be valued over experience – for example, government funds are more available for quantitative rather than qualitative research. It seems that a balance is needed, one which is questioning of what knowledge actually means and the knowledge claims being made, alongside a valuing of the detailed experiences of an individual, requiring a capacity to hear what others have to say about their personal experiences. Moreover, it can be argued that theory is only oppressive when it perpetuates existing power relations, when it tacitly presents itself as the single voice of knowledge (Min-Ha, 1989, p. 42). In a similar vein, Foucault writes that ‘In the classical age, discourse is that translucent necessity through which representation and beings must pass’ (Foucault, 1970, p. 311) and Adorno writes that ‘intuitions prevent reason from reflecting upon itself as a mere form of reflection or arbitrariness, in order to prepare an end for arbitrariness’ (Adorno, 1982, p. 47). In relation to philosophy on the one hand and the epistemophillic instinct for curiosity and discovery on the other, there might be a latent function of knowledge. According to Scheman, one of the main unsettling difficulties of our culture is that epistemic subjects surreptitiously seem to become normative agents (Scheman, 1993). It can further be thought that reflective knowledge comes from those appearing to exercise cognitive power that ‘legitimately’ produces distinct ‘objects’ for inquiries. Epistemophily, then, is the desire for thinking, and epistemophily is a response to the need or seduction of a reassuring, cognitive vocabulary; hence, there could be a plea for a maturational coexistence between philosophy and epistemophily (Fiumara, 1966). Perhaps a threat to our epistemophily forms when we think of the world – people, nature, culture – as consisting of ‘objects’. In this way, philosophy is recognised to be different from psychoanalysis, where the idea of ‘object’ helps us focus on our capacity to overcome our subjective, narcissistic position and thus appreciate independent autonomous aspects of those with whom we interact. It can also be questioned whether this is the case. On the other hand, an important consideration is that there must be some problematic limit in our epistemologies if we hear what nature ‘tells us’ only when it is so seriously damaged that we cannot help but heed it, because it is damaging us. The language of epistemophily manifests itself through a language that originates from passionate listening, a language that can both understand and carry, which is aware of limits and makes connections possible. The listening style especially reveals itself in enlivening confrontations with heterogenous discourses, where its forces is evidenced

150  The not knowing position in metaphoric efforts to generate ‘impossible’ questions and connections. Hierarchy and homogenisation can be said to go hand in hand, as the first is always grounded on the assumption that differences are differences only of degree on a homogenous scale (Fiumara, 1966, p. 23). On a different track, in relation to psychotherapy and religion, Gallway considers the Freudian position, whom he thought saw the individual as harbouring a reservoir of unstructured hedonistic drives that had to be repressed and modified by social pressure to conform to a more civilised way of behaving (Freud, 1905). Freud the physician did not believe in the supernatural origins of humankind. Freud also introduced the idea of the death instinct: an innate tendency in the mind to return to a less complicated and highly energised system, reflecting the return of organisms to inorganic simplicity. This tradition was modified by the object-relations school, following Fairbairn, who saw instincts as goal directed and object seeking, where the more adaptive role was attributed to the inherent drives in human nature (Fairbairn, 1952). According to Gallway, Klein kept the flag flying for innate badness in human nature; primitive envy as a manifestation of the death instinct is parallel to the notion of original sin (Klein, 1975). Gallway thinks that Klein’s idea of a depressive position in which an individual’s innate ambivalence must be faced as a platform for the development of sanity can produce when it is addressed as an experience similar to religious conversion. Analysands are invited to face their primary envy, hatred and destructiveness towards the ‘good object’, and their sense of guilt at this point will be as intense as any patient’s visit to the confessional. Repentance becomes part of the cure and thus must be allied with the parallel cures of religious conversion. In Gallway’s view, the infant is born with a knowledge of itself as an entity but needs the affirmation of good mothering to fully discover itself and its own innate potential. In this formulation, the discovery of the self goes hand in hand with the discovery of a loving protective other. . . . This dual discovery of a self-dependent upon a dependable other is the basic primary identification, which I have called the vital concept’. (Gallway, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 70) Furthermore, Gallway writes that Religion seems to me to detach the importance of the vital concept, particularly the concept of the dependable other, by transposing it into a supernatural being almost invariably with a masculine identity. The beauty of the dependency on the parents, so central to the vital concept, is dehumanised into absolute obedience to this almighty being who is given supposedly infinite powers of creation, knowledge and control. . . . Once one has stepped outside religious belief, it becomes

The not knowing position  151 in many ways extremely puzzling as to why anyone should believe, let alone obey, this kind of authoritarian mythology. (Gallway, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 71) A father perceived as being in heaven and omnipotently looking after us is described by Freud as infantile. The need to be looked after, in the absence of a parental figure, may well be infantile and is a powerful yet easily denied human need. David Hume argues that the existence of evil was incompatible with the concept of an omnipotent and a morally perfect God. P. J. McGrath (1995) was interested in evil and the existence of God and the apparent neglect of the world (innocent suffering, natural disasters, appalling cruelty). For Gallway, such arguments have limited appeal, where the mystery and power of God is stressed as much as his goodness. Kierkegaard postulated that God’s love is beyond human understanding (Kierkegaard, 1843) and referred to the story of God’s command to Abraham to kill Isaac, his only son, to argue that no human being could put anyone through such an experience in the name of love – involving such mental torture. Additionally, Kierkegaard thinks that belief in a benign God is the expression in mystical terms of the sense of existential safety derived from the knowledge of the nature or the genesis of the self within the context of healthy sexuality and loving nurturing. Biologically and psychologically this sense of safety springs largely from the mother for it is she who generates the life that one enjoys and does the major share of the early linking functions. (Kierkegaard, 1843, p. 72) In Hinduism and other religions, The fear of sexuality and the control of women, as well as their subordination are central themes of religion from Hinduism to Christianity. The flight from fear and weakness into grandiosity has been the mainstay of religious tyrannies throughout the ages and remains so in many cultures: it is the institutionalisation of religion which results in these abuses, for institutions become easily self-serving to a growing sense of self-importance, thereby losing track of their dependent social function. (Gallway, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 73) Russell (1957) asks, has religion made useful contributions to civilisation? In his book Why I Am Not a Christian, he details his view about religion’s contributions to civilisation and quotes Matthew (10:35–37), which demonstrates that Christ appears to have had somewhat destructive thoughts about filial affection in the family. Additionally, Russell also points out that the Christian Church, both Protestant and Catholic, shows no intention whatsoever of following some of the recommendations of Jesus Christ, to

152  The not knowing position give away worldly possessions to the poor, not to fight, not to judge, not to punish adultery and to be obedient to the Almighty. It requires caution to consider such statements unquestioningly, with all the nuanced historical complications in Irish-British societies. Karl Popper points out how women and children tolerated being treated as slaves, with a gloss of sentimentality to hide the repressive reality. Arguably, the situation is not the fault of religion as a mythological device, but rather the situation is driven by the need for particular men to seek positions of power through the priesthood. An alliance develops between priests and the state authorities, producing powerful reasons for the dividing of the state and church and provides a powerful reason to check the power of the state through open, democratic government. Popper draws a parallel between scientific refutability and democratic freedom. Foucault and Szasz disagree that psychoanalysis has no intention to control or dominate, trying to set the individual free from fear of authority. Gallway contends that Freud showed a distinctly diminished view of women and an overemphasis on the role of the father. Female analysts, especially Melanie Klein, have adjusted this so that not only has the central role of the feeding mother been explored but the drive to grandiosity made accessible through the description of early psychotic mechanisms. (Gallway, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 77) Perhaps what can be accepted is the possibility of the foetus’s disposition to an emotionally invested image of God or a godlike figures in utero as a way of containing a range of emotions, acutely felt, like the image of perceived parental figures in godlike form, as Gallway states: ‘Religious talk of them still being alive somewhere, of existing in some heaven with the possibility of reunion detracts from the achievement of mourning and the appreciation of what one has lost’ (Gallway, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 80). This insight points to that which may be well known, namely that the foetus may imagine frightening or benign figures, as a way of containing feelings to countenance loss. The idea of the foetus mourning needs to be taken seriously. Loss is particularly pertinent in relation to the images that we form relationships with, perhaps from the earliest phases of life. Judith Hubback writes about her reflections of an analytical psychologist on God, religion and spirituality, where she states that Jung was not in agreement with Freud that religion is due to neuroticism. Rather, Jung’s style was associative rather than logical. Jung did not need to believe; rather, he knew – that is, his subjective experience of God was as an inner image of God. Others see God as an objective fact or transcendent being. In thinking about the prenatal situation regarding the possibility of the foetus being able to symbolise, Bion offered a highly exploratory and deep thinking perspective in relation to

The not knowing position  153 seeking into the unknown, the new and not yet explored and evolved realms of life, which would lead in his view to growth and development and was similar to Lacan in this way (Bion, 1965, 1970). Unique to Bion was his conceptualisation of the beginning of symbolic functioning, in relation to the capacity to tolerate frustration and experiences which are unprocessed. These data can then be metabolised and transformed into a sensual image that can be dreamed (Bion, 1962). The foetus is capable of dreaming, since if the foetus has a healthy brain which is processing stimuli and REM, then it is possible to dream. In relation to the brain development of the foetus, the functionality of the brain would enable dreaming, particularly after seven months in utero, where the foetus spends the majority of time in sleeping cycles. In Bionian terms, the beginning of symbolic functioning represents the first stage of metabolising raw experiences using alpha functioning, necessitating additional frustration tolerance and of the unknown; the initial elementary sensual images cannot be processed further until they are transformed into thoughts (Bion, 1962). Where there is intolerance of the unknown, possibly learned by the foetus of the mother’s capacities, emotional evacuation can result through beta elements and projective identification with different presentations, with resulting psychopathology. In Bion’s later theorising, unmetabolised, raw experience became known as O, representing the new, unknown and yet-to-evolve experiences, alongside tolerance, relating to and processing difference. In relation to Jung, he researched the psychology of early Christian Gnosticism, which emerged as an important part of his interest in the history of the exploration of the unconscious and the symbols that emerge. Just as Bion quoted from St John of the Cross, Michael Fordham (1958) and Paul Kegan made connections between religion and analytical psychology, including psychological thinking in relation to the mystical sixteenth-century St John of the Cross. Fordham linked St John with work on early infant development. Jung advocated for the psychologist to study the image of God and the idea of God, which is different from theologians answering questions about who or what the deity is. Differently from Freud, Jung did not see religious belief as neurotic, but rather, ‘everything to do with religion, everything it is and asserts, touches the human soul so closely that psychology least of all can afford to overlook it’ (Jung, 1958). For Jung, the soul is an intrinsic part of the psyche, though it is not easy to give a simple definition of soul. About God, Jung wrote, It would be a regrettable mistake if anybody should take my observations as a kind of proof of the existence of God. They prove only the existence of an archetypal God-image, which to my mind is the most we can assert about God psychologically. (Jung, 1958, para 102)

154  The not knowing position With the upsurge of publicly disclosed incidents of paedophilia in general and notably more recently in the Catholic Church, ‘we moderns are faced with the necessity of rediscovering the life of the spirit: we must experience it anew ourselves’ (Jung, 1961, para 780). Jung’s interest in psychological balance and in all of the aspects of the psyche indicates a striving for wholeness, illustrated in ‘the utterances of the heart – unlike those of the discriminating intellect – always relate to the whole’ (Jung, 1977, para 9). If religious concerns are kept separate, then the psyche is impoverished – patients need the analyst to pay attention especially to the healing of defensive splits, to bring together thinking and feeling towards individuation. Although it is a perspective that spirituality can best be processed and thought about in emotional terms, many people cross-culturally relate to the spiritual as a definable aspect of life, some relating to spirituality rather than to religion. Whichever view one does decide to adopt, it is crucial to acknowledge to ourselves how personal spiritual and religious beliefs and holdings are. It seems that spiritual and religious matters may be at the core of the person, and one could perceive a foetal core becoming non-verbal, where the more developed individual no longer explains through logic but through belief stemming from something much deeper and personally rooted, perhaps a communication of the innate religious foetal self, holding onto faith for survival, which in many cases is not enough. The archetypes define the psychological instincts, and Jung conveyed an instinct for spirituality stemming from this archetypal root. Like the Oedipus complex, the archetype of spirituality is found at work in many cultures expressed in diverse ritual. After studying the intensity of pain in Job, Jung (1958) states that the totality of God contains both good and evil. This view coincides with the idea that images of God, especially those possible images at the foetal phase, are of emotional content as recognisable at the paranoidschizoid phase of development (Klein, 1946). According to Hubback (cited in Stein, 1999), an either/or approach to the question of what is meant by ‘God’ is unhelpful and inappropriate; there is no categorical answer to suit everyone. Freud’s view of God, as has been discussed earlier, was of a projection of a father imago: the infant needs the father so that it can be protected from external dangers, in its helplessness and inner frightening fantasies. The first days of life and presumably those in utero are dangerous and filled with fears of death. In analysis, through the projection of its aggressive-destructive energy either into the analyst in the transference or against the persecutory environment, the earliest phantasies can be detected with certainty, whether they are interpreted reductively or in a symbolic-archetypal way. Protection is given to the infant in the safe holding boundaries of arms and laps; the psychological structure and tone are those of the relating, laid down in these earliest days. Then working through the archetypal Oedipus

The not knowing position  155 complex will offer the child the possibility of developing later – religiously in depth, detached from the personal parents if so wished: The impact of object-relations theory has spread from its beginnings in clinical theory and practise into the area of reflecting on God and spirituality. . . . present-day analytical psychologists are viewing and understanding the psychological foundation of belief in God as intrinsically that of relating to a power beyond the personal self, with the mother-infant relationship as the prototype. There is a strong appreciation of the psychological value of a God, or God like power, relating to and respecting us, as well as vice versa. (Hubback, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 98) Perhaps it is also important to consider the overlaps between psychology and theology. According to Murray Cox, apothatic and phatic language are linked to the establishment of attachment or its relinquishment. Both appear to circle around the epicentres of intimacy and ultimacy. Phatic language, in which psychological contact is more important than the content, is vital in establishing early mother–infant bonding, whereas apophatic language is often a feature of religious discourse and conveys a kind of ironic denial – a ‘speaking of or away from’. The clinician will immediately tune in to the theme of ‘talking past the point’. Christianity and the ideal of detachment are theological pulls that call for discussion, something on which Rowan Williams (1979) has written, whereas attachment is a current clinical centre of interest and research: psychoanalytic psychology has much to say on the importance of holding and being held, initially by a mother and subsequently by those other holdings that afford safe emotional anchorage. This means that it can also explore the sequelae of a break in the containing or a breakdown in the holding capacity of the mother, a therapist, an institution or that of a wider cosmos still. furthermore, psychoanalytic theory can help us to understand the religious colouring of much psychopathology and the distorted psychological contours of much religious pathology, as well as every kind of sexual-religious perversion. (Hubback, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 45) Hubback explains that the title of the chapter where this quotation comes from (‘Good-Enough God’) exemplifies the discriminating power of allusion. She continues that missed allusion is one of the inherent poverties that characterise much psychological and theological discussion. By definition, Hubback claims, we recognise allusions that are ‘apparent’. But we do not know how many we miss. Clinicians fail their patients when failing to ask themselves what they might be missing, what ‘else’ they might be seeing. Psychology and theology may equally fail each other and in so doing themselves

156  The not knowing position by failing to answer an invitingly reciprocal question: ‘What seest thou else, in the dark backward and abysm of time?’ In relation to thinking about the different images that a foetus and individuals across the lifespan may hold in mind, Hubback states that The reductive core at the heart of the analytic process can certainly give a running commentary on the kind of God that a man might long for at different stages in his journey along the developmental line. . . . What psychoanalysis cannot do is to add a cubit to the stature of the ontological validity of religious phenomena per se. It is not equipped to speak for or against the autonomous ultimacy inherent in the experience of one’s encounter with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (Hubback, cited in Stein, p. 45–6) The words of Hubback are bold and passionate when she draws comparisons between theology and psychoanalysis: There is a kind of baffling certainty about the richly textured link between the centrality of the cross in Christian theology and the reliably inscrutable depth of the unconscious in psychoanalytic psychology. (Hubback, cited in Stein, 1999, p. 61) There are some more similarities between theological paradigms and psychoanalytical ones, such as those that Paul Tillich discusses: Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received. Not many theological systems have been able to balance these two demands perfectly. (Tillich, 1951, p. 3) Additionally, Tillich writes that Christian theology is the theology in so far as it is based on the tension between the absolutely concrete and the absolutely universal’ and that ‘there is only one genuine paradox in the Christian message – the appearance of that which conquers existence under the conditions of existence. Incarnation, redemption, justification etc are implied in the paradoxical event. It is a not logical contradiction which makes it a paradox but the fact that it transcends all human expectations and possibilities. (Tillich, 1951, p. 3) The psychoanalytic idea of positions, as proposed by Klein, may be considered as similar to those of polarities, with the resonance between the capacity for intimacy and ultimacy, which are aligned with alterity and the concept of the familiar stranger within oneself, which invokes Buber and his encounter

The not knowing position  157 with Levinas. It is pertinent to postulate the incongruousness of polarities, through such religious words as ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’ and a sense of rushing from one life to the next without grieving the disparity between psychology and theology. Tertullian’s impassioned cry speaks of a plea for a deepening exchange between psychology and theology: ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? – The academy with the temple?’ (Whale, 1967). The rocks are full of the fossils of great creatures which had so much protective armour that they became insensitive to changes in their environment and so perished. . . . So it is possible that the same may happen to the church when it becomes insensitive to environmental changes which are necessary for its continued vitality. (Raven, 1949) Kierkegaard suggested that hope is a passion for what is possible, not wishing for the impossible, which he thought was intrinsic to a sacramental view of life. Kierkegaard postulates that one of the many centralities of the Incarnation is not that the good-enough God ‘knows’ about the storm but that he is part of the storm. This applies to both the intrapsychic storms and those in the outer world, which both psychology and theology address. Berkeley attempts to synthesise thoughts on religion and psychoanalysis but finds that adequate language is not available, such that there is a ‘depth which articulation would only violate’. Perhaps a link can be fostered between the centrality of the cross in Christian theology and the depth of the unconscious in psychoanalytic psychology. Judith Issroff wrote about reflections on God (Yehovah) and religion. For Issroff, belief, ritual and spiritual experience are the cornerstone of religion. Are belief and ritual necessary for spiritual experience? Does spiritual development necessarily follow from belief and ritual practice? Isroff believes that this is not the case. When considering where one personally stands in relation to religion, one may ask, ‘Where is my faith?’ Isroff claims that Judaism without the affirmation of some version of the traditional biblical view of God, Torah and covenant is but a socially constructed ethnic religion. . . . I cannot accept the Torah as divine revelation and more than that, my thoughts, nor attribute any superordinate significance whatever to the existence of the Jewish people. (Issroff, 1999, p. 100) Jung (1958) believed that the function of religions is to protect us from an experience of God. Spiritual excitement can accompany sexual experience. Pontalis (1981, p. 60) discusses the basis for mystical or religious experience: the body’s reflexivity; reactivation of pristine memories taking place with a concomitant ‘fantasy of circularity’ with an externally perceived

158  The not knowing position presence (‘God’) – results in psychosomatic feeling of being in touch with profound and incommunicable ‘true self’ (‘female element’). (Pontalis, 1981, p. 60) These words appear to reflect the notion of Winnicott’s continuity of being experience. It can be argued that this notion helps understand religious experience but not the presence or absence of God. Winnicott observed that through ‘being God’ (in dreams and play worlds) human beings eventually arrive at the humility proper to individuality. Can we equate ‘being God’ with that childhood or foetal stage of hubris? Once we have reached the developmental phase when we can entertain the possibility of this far from primitive notion, how do we give up experiencing ourselves as being omnipotent/God? This notion relies on an assumption that we as babies or foetuses can experience ourselves as omnipotent/God, when we are talking about a notion beyond our comprehension. The absurdity can be allowed from here (Issroff, 1999). Winnicott’s later formulations delve into the earliest areas of human development, which draw attention to realms which directly connect to theological issues. In Play and Reality, Winnicott offers three ideas (Winnicott, 1971). First, Winnicott, considered the inner subjective sense of an ongoing continuity of being (the lifeline), which can be considered in the light of the umbilical cord for the foetus. Second, Winnicott offers a description of ‘the female element’ present in everyone. Third, Winnicott’s earlier 1958 apperception of what he referred to as ‘true self – whatever that is’ expresses his ‘relief at discovering after eighteen years of analysis’ that there was a vital aspect of himself, which ‘would remain forever incommunicado and incommunicable’ (Winnicott, 1958). His concepts have interesting parallels and relevance to diverse cultural mythologies (in many cultures, the ideas mean something similar if not identical – such as Bantu, Taoist, Hindu, Islamic, Delphic, Confucian, Buddhist). Issroff (1999) states that Winnicott’s concepts are further related to the refined abstract monotheistic Judaism, Yehovah. Yehovah is alleged to have revealed himself as ‘I am’ (‘unit’ status – an extremely important stage in Winnicott’s developmental stage, where he was trying to fathom the inscrutable essence of God); Winnicott, however, does not talk about transcendental God. Pontalis (1981) alludes to Winnicott’s ‘being’, which enters psychoanalysis and is easy to avoid by calling it mysticism. Winnicott (1989) regretted that Jung had ended his successfully useful life ‘in the futile pursuit of the centre of himself’. Winnicott (1989) stressed the inherent paradox in any transitional object ‘in that although the object was there to be found it was created by the baby’. He linked this to the interminable discussion around the question: is there a God? If God is a projection, even so is there a God who created me in such a

The not knowing position  159 way that I have the material in me for such a projection? Aetiologically . . . the paradox must be accepted, not resolved. The important thing for me must be, have I got it in me to have the idea of God? – if not, then the idea of God is of no value to me (except superstitiously). (Winnicott, 1989, p. 205) On the other hand, Rubestein (1992) suggested that ‘The term God is very much like the unstructured inkblot used in the Rorschach Test’. Kristeva, (1987) states that all biblical gods(selves) are ‘gifts of the self’; we are not dependent on a wholly external god but are also inspired by our own spiritful nature (Kristeva, 1987). The fascinating Meissner (1984) expounded on God as transitional object, where every subjective notion of God and religious belief is concerned with the subjective use of ideas as objects in the realm of transitional phenomena (Winnicott, 1958, 1971, 1989) or as externalisations of the inner object world. There appears to be a clash between supernatural and natural perspectives of the believer’s faith, which is the most significant and least resolvable point of divergence between religion and psychoanalysis. The supreme deity is endowed with superego/ideal ego functions by individuals and communities. Each human needs ideals, needs to idealise, needs gods and needs idols to idolise when one is not at ease with one’s self – identity at an individual or social level. God is perceived as a symbol of the ethical ideal. God is considered indestructible, and Winnicott’s distinction is between object relating and the use of an object (Winnicott, 1971, 1989). What is being postulated is that not all human beings form a stable relationship with god or each other; the concept of an ongoing indestructible supreme creative spirit, namely God, is invaluable in relation to maintaining a sense of difference between that which is beyond human intervention, comprehension, scientific exploration or explanation of nature and intervention in natural processes. Additionally, Winnicott draws a distinction between three items: external/internal worlds and belief in external reality and the belief that there is something that will survive human omnipotence and fantasised capacities for destructiveness versus comfort. Winnicott writes that omnipotence gets externalised and handed over to the notion that God is as a supreme being and creator. The true-self part of the original, ongoing continuity-of-being is indestructible (Winnicott, 1971, 1989). What remains incommunicable and inviolable is the core existential essence of being (‘female element’ or true self) which is the soul of religious discourse, whether located externally analogous to what is known as Yehovah-God or located internally as that part of divine nature known as soul. And this discourse is beyond any individual or collective human omnipotent capacity to destroy in phantasy or actuality. Winnicott (1989) again opines that the way the world becomes experienced as external and rea – ­distinguished from dreams and the inner world relieved of childish residues of omnipotence to develop a more successful way of perceiving, evaluating

160  The not knowing position and using external reality, including the notion of God – makes it possible to construe as a statement about a godless creation of the human world. Issroff writes about being alive in the presence of God and having a firmly internalised and constant god object, which makes use of almighty Yehovah-God for solace, healing and restoration of the personal sense of continuity of being. She considers that a traumatised person can find solace and heal when the ‘lifeline’ sense of continuity-of-being has been restored. The experience can be externally located as a projection when understood as an encounter with Almighty God. Issroff reflects that for those who cannot bear much reality, God is there. It is an interesting proposition to consider that early types of mental functioning relate to religious phenomena. The infant’s, and possibly foetus’s, experience of their mother and identification with the mothering process occurs so early in development that it precedes the availability of sufficient capacity for illusion necessary for the subjective self to play with the objective world in the ‘potential space’ of transitional phenomena. A subject has to have achieved ‘a unitary self’ to be able to use an objective object subjectively. Winnicott’s idea of ‘female self’ is in line with what Campbell claims: The divine lies within you. Our Western religions tend to put the divine outside of the earthly world and in god, in heaven. but the whole sense of the oriental is that the kingdom of heaven is within you. Who’s in heaven? God is. Where’s god? God’s within you. And what is God? God is a personification of that world-creative energy and mystery which is beyond thinking and beyond naming. That divinity which you seek outside, and which you first become aware of because you recognise it outside, is actually your inmost being. (Campbell, 1989) In Freud’s The Future of an Illusion (1927c), the following question is raised: ‘If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on inner experience which bears witness to that truth, what is one to do about the many people who do not have this rare experience?’ Winnicott helps us to understand why such inner experiences are so rare that during the earliest stages of development, the dependency on environmental provision and the effects of its quality are self-evident. Lack of ‘good-enough’ care leads to personality fragmentation. The answer for Freud is that this may be because when such a dissociation or split exists for the individual concerned, the ‘female’ element is not experienceable. Psychoanalysts may not be able to reach these experiences, because of needing to defend against ‘primitive agonies’ by ‘flight to the split-off intellect’, which is a basic personality faulting where existential and experiential ‘in-touchness’ is missing, or the ‘female element’ dissociation also exists, such as is explicitly discussed by Winnicott (1960, 1989). Winnicott’s concept of the ‘female element’ present in everyone bears obvious relevance to the complex, ancient indwelling spirit, the Sheninah

The not knowing position  161 in Judaism, meaning dwelling, resting – Freud’s ‘cathexis’. There are many interpretations and usages of this concept not dissimilar to the variations in the way Winnicott (1971, 1989) discussed related phenomena in different places. Winnicott’s essential significance of ‘being as distinct from doing’ is in line with a metaphorical understanding of Sheninah, defined as ‘absolute rest – the eternal ground for motion’ (Cohen, 1929). Sheninah is a female word described in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) – ‘the daughter, princess, the feminine principle in the world of the divine Sefirot . . . while Tiferet and Yesod represent the masculine principle’. ‘The main goal of the realm of the Sefirot (and of religious life as a whole) is to restore the true unity of God, the union of the masculine principle and the Sheninah, which was originally constant and undisturbed’. Zen Buddhism indicates that introspective experiential knowledge is the only way to achieve spiritual development. There is an aspiration towards achieving the enlightenment of realising sartori – knowledge of the ‘true self’. Is this true self the same as Winnicott’s true self – or Winnicott’s ‘female element’? In another group of Kabbalistic symbols, ‘the Sheninah is the battleground between the divine powers of good and evil; because of her femininity and closeness to the created worlds she is the first and main target of the satanic power’ (Kung, 1981) – which is close to Winnicott’s statement about hatred against women being primary because of the hatred of having been born. Winnicott did not focus on the ‘religious’ experiential Yehovah issue, though, in being dissatisfied by male/female language. He was close to this in his paper ‘Playing, Creativity and the Search for the Self’ (1971a). Winnicott speaks of his patient who talks of her ‘returned empty’ feeling of not being her fear – ‘don’t make me wish to be’ – and explicitly of his ‘having taken away her god’. Winnicott reports ‘I referred her to God as I am a useful concept when the individual cannot bear to be’. Isroff follows on with a useful and pertinent question: How do we find the location of God, self and experience? Whether God should be regarded as part of the human psyche or distinct from it or whether we should regard the psyche itself as a manifestation of ‘God’, neither depth psychology, theology nor philosophy can answer. But the location of ‘God’ can be examined in terms of the different realities encountered psychoanalytically. Pontalis (1981) concludes that the self ‘is found in the in-between of outside and inside, the ego and non-ego, the child and his mother, the body and the word’ – the description of and the area of transitional ‘potential source’, including religious phenomena. According to Isroff, Winnicott’s finding postulates a continuity-of-being that can be considered in several ways, all relevant for the location of God: 1 A principle – if there is a conceived continuity-of-being was-is-will be, Yehovah-God is locatable in the collective mind of humankind, our rich storehouse of external cultural collective consciousness (memes),

162  The not knowing position

2 3 4 5 6 7

internally perhaps part of our collective unconscious archetypes or tribal memories. An experiential sense, located innerly, termed part of the ‘true self’ or an aspect thereof, the ‘female element’ located in all of us. An external location in all religious beliefs and doctrines. An inner and outer location. A part of mythology in the area of transitional reality. No place, as in the belief of atheism. A real, external location beyond human comprehension as the notion termed God responsible for the creation/maintenance and re-creation of everything in universal and eternal terms.

Crapanzano (1992) states that ‘much of what we in the West call psychological and locate in some . . . internal space (‘head’, ‘mind’, ‘brain’, ‘consciousness’) is understood in many cultures in manifestly non-psychological terms . . . located in other “spaces” ’. Different cultures use other symbols, metaphors and figures hung together To declare such articulations inadequate is an act of intolerable cultural arrogance. To reduce such articulations, as many psychoanalysts have, to some sort of projective mechanism of the established givens of psychological make up is to perpetuate a closed system of thought and to ignore, if not the real possibility of human variation, then variations in human expression. Issroff writes that after Auschwitz, we stand . . . unaided by any purposeful power beyond our own resources. . . . We live in the time of the death of God. This is more a statement about man and his culture than about God. The death (eclipse) of God is a cultural fact. . . . Buber felt this . . . the time which Nietzsche’s madman said was too far off has come upon us. (Rubenstein, 1992) According to Buber, the death of God is the death of God in contemporary thought, in the sense of a wound of the order of being (Buber, 1967). Winnicott’s lifeline concept, identical with the traditional Jewish Hayah-Hoveh-V’yehiyeh, or was-is-will be Yehovah-God (Issroff, 1983) dominated Winnicott’s consciousness and history and is well recognised and described in Eastern philosophical and religious traditions. Winnicott (1971) wrote about the ‘female element’, the inner reality deriving from continuity of being, akin to the Jewish concept of Shehinah – ‘divine spark’. If God is a projection, is there a God who created me in such a way that I have the material in me for such a projection (­ Winnicott, 1989)?

The not knowing position  163 On the other hand, R. D. Laing writes, ‘The life I am trying to grasp is the me that is trying to grasp it’ (Laing, 1967), and continues: while we may need to make use of a wide range of symbols and myths to help us to think about God, we should not treat these myths as if they were literally true. If we can distinguish between the psychological truth and the literal falsity of a dream or a poem, so we should recognise that many of the stories, anthropocentric symbols and visual images we have of God are pointers to meaning, not truths in and of themselves. (Laing, 1967) It is further fascinating to contemplate whether it is possible for the foetus to have images in mind, just as they are able to dream and whether the idea of such images possibly taking the form of images of God may not be so far removed from the realms of reality. Robinson (1963) states that ‘Any image can become an idol, and I believe that Christians must go through the agonising process of detaching themselves from this idol’ (Robinson, 1963). It may only be later on in relation to the developmental trajectory and in analysis or elsewhere that the foetus is able to grow to the point that they can let such an image be dispelled and perhaps mourned.

4 The perinatal origins of images of God The perinatal origins of images of GodThe perinatal origins of images of God

‘I saw that the second Person, who is our Mother substantially – the same very dear Person is now become our Mother sensually. For of God’s making we are double: that is to say, substantial and sensual. Our substance is that higher part which we have in our Father, God almighty. And the second Person of the Trinity is our Mother in kind, in our substantial making – in whom we are grounded and rooted; and she is our Mother of mercy, in taking our sensuality’. (Julian of Norwich, 1973, pp. 159–160)

Perinatal influences on the formation of God representations have been documented in religious development for many years. Freud, among others, referred to the religiously connected ‘oceanic feelings’, ‘the source of the religious energy which is seized upon by the various churches and religious systems’, in Freud’s view (Freud, 1930, p. 64). This feeling of ‘eternity’ is described as an unbounded subjective state, relating to the infantile stage of limitless narcissism (Wulff, 1997, p. 320), one of ‘almost intangible quantities’ and therefore difficult to study (Wulff, 1997, p. 285). One may assume that the oceanic feelings are healthy archaic uterine experiences. Although one may argue that the oceanic feelings are more akin to mysticism than God representations, this being upheld depends on one’s definition of God representations. The uterine experience, for example, most likely contributes to a sense of affinity with the notion of God’s presence in the universe, originating in the foetus–mother relationship. The oceanic feeling described by Freud is noticeably a potentially powerful feeling which could override logic and questioning, as if it had no counter-experience. The birth process may have lasting influences on personality development and by implication can affect the formation of our God representations. With the wealth of more undefinable oriented experiences, this will have implications on understanding the origins of these experiences. The traditional opinion, in contrast, denies that neonates are neurologically adequate to register, code and store perinatal experiences. It would seem that the experience of birth has been sorely neglected; as such a significant phase of

The perinatal origins of images of God  165 existence, this may in some ways seem surprising. One can appreciate that perinatal experience, in other words the act of birth, would be a difficult act to research, alongside the pain involved for mothers and the lack of explicit memory for infants. Sigmund Freud was keenly interested in the workings of the human mind, taking him to explore telepathy and hypnosis, which is now considered unacceptable in psychoanalytical communities. Similarly, Stanislav Grof, both a Freudian psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, explored the depths of the psyche through mainly large-group work. The perinatal perspective, postulated by Stanislav Grof, may not be in line with Rizzuto’s and Freud’s more traditional psychoanalytic thinking, yet it is deemed fair to pursue possible parallels between postnatal and perinatal life, to possibly further our understanding of the origins of God representations. Grof hypothesised an understanding of the perinatal perspective through his extensive observation of adults reliving birth experiences and their consequent God representations and expressions. It is therefore suggested that the pre-dispositional formations of God representations originate in the womb, before the time claimed by Rizzuto and Freud. If this is so, the implication of this perspective can only add to the importance of Rizzuto’s and Freud’s hypotheses of the vicissitudes of God representations at different developmental stages. It appears necessary to expand the parameters of the psychoanalytic framework to include prenatal and perinatal influences. Religious experiences of death and rebirth, formerly explored experimentally with LSD25 and then replaced with the holotropic breathwork technique, demonstrate that adults appear to be able to relive birth and uterine experiences, according to Grof. He claims to enable people in large groups in natural settings, such as on the desert or high in the mountains, to access deeper levels of memory, to overcome deep-seated difficulties such as addictions and therefore attachment issues. Grof reveals that representations of God, linked with their underlying birth experiences, are not limited to blissful unifying moments but at times are ‘agonising encounters with loneliness, hopelessness, guilt and death’, proceeded by ‘a dramatic death-rebirth struggle that may be accompanied by visions of explosive energy, orgiastic cruelties, . . . bloody torture and execution’ (Wulff, 1997, p. 92). This series of such struggles, accompanied by physical symptoms, often including visions of sacrifice and wild ritual associated with ancient religious practices (Wulff, 1997, p. 920) and mandala-like configurations (Grof, 1985, p. 93), suggested to Grof that breathwork offers ‘indirect’ access to the archetypal layers of the unconscious as conceived by Carl Jung (1875–1960). Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) emphasised peak experiences as being key to the spiritual realms – self-actualising experiences being like those reported by visionaries of their religious experiences. In relation to perinatal links with God representations, Jung contends that humans display predispositions through a preformed psyche. Jung considered there to be an a priori factor in all human activities: ‘the inborn,

166  The perinatal origins of images of God preconscious and unconscious individual structure of the psyche . . . the preconscious psyche . . . of a new-born infant – is not an empty vessel . . . on the contrary, it is a tremendously complicated, sharply defined individual entity’ (Jung, 1972, p. 11). In my opinion, there is also an inevitable capacity for being disposed to the formation of God representations through the cellular absorption of affective and environmental influences. Jung’s view is contrary to the Freudian model that mainstream psychiatry and psychotherapy have accepted: the notion of the newborn child as a tabula rasa, whose development is entirely determined by childhood experiences. Current medical theory still states that the experience of birth cannot be stored in the child’s memory. The reason given by medicine is the immaturity of the cerebral cortex of the newborn. The more tangible noxious aspects that the foetus may contend with are nicotine and other drugs, poor nutrition and the less tangible – distressing emotions experienced bio-chemically via the umbilical cord. Jung’s ideas on pre-dispositional states offer insights into patterns of functioning, described by Jung as images, which are the form of the activity and the typical situation in which the activity is released (Jung, 1972, p. 120). In relation to the cross-cultural origin of God representations, Jung considers that ‘these images are “primordial” in so far as they are peculiar to whole species, and if they ever “originated”, their origin must have coincided at least with the beginning of the species’ (Jung, 1972, p. 12). Jung’s four archetypes – mother, rebirth, spirit and trickster – form his hypothesis of the collective unconscious as the gathering place of forgotten (repressed) contents (Jung, 1972, p. 3). Fuller describes ‘the possessors of “the numinous”, perhaps the inexpressible divine, when the archetypes (God images) approach consciousness as symbols’ (Fuller, 1994, p. 86). Jung writes that his conception of the collective unconscious at the deeper level is universal rather than personal, consisting of collective representations across cultures. Jung expressed rebirth through transcendence and transformation, in relation to understanding underlying aspects of images of God. Freud believed personality was laid down at birth, or before, whereas Jung considered possibilities for renewal and change. Jung links transcendence of life and the continuation of life through transformation and renewal, through the death and rebirth of a ‘god or godlike hero’ (Jung, 1972, p. 51). Ideas on structural alterations of the personality are claimed by Jung as implying the phenomenon of possession. Unfavourable images of God stem from the darkness of the unconscious. Characteristics of the anima are female: fickle, capricious, uncontrolled and emotional, daemonic intuitions, malicious, mystical. Those of the animus are male: obstinate, harping on principles, dogmatic, world-reforming, argumentative, domineering. All ideas of rebirth, according to Jung, are founded on natural transformations, the process of individuation (inner transformation and rebirth into another being) with symbolism expressed in dreams. The ‘other being’ is a part of ourselves – the comforting and protecting personality maturing within us,

The perinatal origins of images of God  167 with whom dialogue can be held, used in gestalt technique, and relationships with our God representations. In thinking about the effects of birth on our formation of God representations, Sallie McFague proposes the models of God as mother, lover and friend. The model of the mother highlights the physicality of birth and symbols of life’s continuity being created: blood, water, breath, sex, food, conception, gestation and birth. She argues that this model is at the centre of most religions, including Christianity, expressing the (potential) renewal and transformation of life (McFague, 1987, p. 104). McFague argues that our God images are seen through a perceptual grid, as proposed by George Kelly’s personality theory. Bannister and Fransella state that Kelly’s construct theory relies not on a person’s ability to verbalise their constructs but rather on an ability to make discriminations, with applications to an unborn child, emphasising the field of (religious) inter experience rather than behaviour, as in learning theory (Bannister & Fransella, 1971, p. 9). Kelly’s theory raises questions as to what extent our God representations are based on anticipation and prediction and from which stages of life these sources are established. Attribution theory, originating in the work of Fritz Heider (1896–1988), focuses on our perceptions of our world and our judgements on why others behave in the way that they do and our interpretations of religious experiencing (Spilka & McIntosh, 1995, p. 422). Freud’s writings demonstrate his recognition of the significance of perinatal experience for our psychological understanding of the origins of religion and the formation of our God representations. At the heart of the significance of birth, in Freud’s view, is its possible representation of a prototype of later anxiety, arguably linked to issues of coping in religion. Freud postulated three forms of anxiety: reality based, moral and neurotic – the ­former being the most powerful for the formation of our God representations, according to Hood (Hood, Spilka, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 1996, p. 19), resulting from objectively real sources of prenatal and perinatal danger. In The Ego and the Id, Freud postulates the origins of ‘the longing for the father’ emerging (Freud, 1923, p. 58): ‘The superego fulfils the same function of protecting and saving that was fulfilled in earlier days by the father and later by Providence and Destiny’ and that here ‘is once again the same situation as that which underlay the first great anxiety state of birth and the infantile anxiety of longing – the anxiety due to separation from the protecting mother’ (Freud, 1923, p. 58). The separation from the mother, creating inordinate amounts of anxiety for the infant, would be split off and projected defensively into structures of God representations, following Kleinian theory. On the other hand, where birth is less problematic, following undisturbed uterine experiences, greater connection with the representation of the creator God would be feasible: ‘For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139). Keith Ward brings to light the question

168  The perinatal origins of images of God of creation: ‘Why should God create any universe at all?’ – with relevance for the issue of creation between the parent–child relationship, as Winnicott has considered. Ward suggests that ‘whatever we might say about unborn children, it is certainly true that unconceived children have no rights of any sort, which anyone can infringe. So not creating a universe is not wrong. Creating a universe is not a duty. But it is in general a good thing’ (Ward, 1984, pp. 46–48). This central issue raises the question of who creates what, in relation to the foetus and child and parents in the formation of our God representations. Melanie Klein paid attention to the ego’s earlier mechanism of defence, so applying her theory here is useful for understanding the formation of God representations. The infant protects themselves by denying and repudiating unwelcome reality and other ways of communicating experiences that cannot be verbalised into images of God or onto figures of worship. Klein distinguishes four mechanisms of defence: first, splitting of the ego occurs where it cannot prevent the ‘bad’ part of the object from contaminating the ‘good’ part, it divides the ego, or it can split off and disown a part of itself. Second, in relation to uterine life, the foetus introjects via the umbilical cord the emotions from the mother (her own and those absorbed from her sociocultural environment). Introjection occurs when the foetus/infant internalises what it perceives or experiences of the object. Third, projection then occurs, as recounted by Mitchell (Mitchell, 1986, pp. 20–21): the ego fills the object or creates the God representation with some of its own split feelings and experience; fourth, projective identification takes place when the ego projects its feelings into the object, which it then identifies with, becoming like the object which it has already imaginatively filled with itself. The ego uses these defences in coping with the inner world and the continuing interaction between inner and outer. Its destructive feelings, which are emanations of the death drive, create a great deal of anxiety, states Klein. The baby fears that the objects of its rage, including the breast that goes away and frustrates it, will retaliate. Through self-protection, it splits itself and the object into a good part (e.g. a loving God image) and a bad part (e.g. a persecutory God image), thus projecting all its badness into the outside world so that the hated breast becomes the hating and hateful breast – the paranoid-schizoid position, according to Klein (Mitchell, 1986, p. 20). One may surmise that it is Klein’s model of the paranoid-schizoid position that clarifies how repressed uterine experiences become projected into God representations through the process of splitting. Lake claims that the paranoid-schizoid position dates from the beginning of postnatal life, suggesting that the feelings involved originate bio-chemically in prenatal life, contributing to foetal personality structure that could form our God representations (Lake, 1979, p. 44). The depressive position, in Klein’s view, occurs developmentally when the ego becomes more able to sense that good and bad can exist together in the self and other person. The infant rages against the mother for the

The perinatal origins of images of God  169 frustrations she causes, but in place of fearing retaliation, guilt and anxiety are experienced for the damage enacted in phantasy, according to Klein. To overcome this position, the infant wishes to undo or repair the earlier phantasised destruction of the actual and the internalised mother, states Klein. At the same time, the infant internalises the damaged and then restored mother, combining these new internalisations as part of the self’s inner world (Mitchell, 1986, p. 21). Rank, Winnicott and Fodor dissented from Freud’s opinion. Rank (1929/1952) postulated that birth is a universal trauma with lasting detrimental effects that are central to psychical life. Rank thought that the cause of the trauma is birth and developed Freud’s notion that the anxiety of the neonate evoked during the birth process becomes the prototype of all ensuing anxiety. This led to Rank concluding that not only anxiety but all of psychic life can constructively be attributed to the traumas of birth. Additionally, Rank believed that the foetus enjoys a blissful womb existence until the birthing process begins, when there begins involving wrenching, tumultuous trauma. Rank believed that the ego recoils from the primal anxiety of birth and that massive repression enables the burying of memories, of both the birth trauma and the blissful uterine state. The person almost seeks paradise in the world formed in the image of mother, while repression prevents pathological regression, which would make one unfit to progress in life. Rank considered that the rest of life is spent by an unconscious drive to restore paradise lost, since ‘the nucleus of every neurotic disturbance . . . lies in birth trauma’ (Rank, 1929, 1952, p. 46). Rank proposed that the neurosis in all its manifestations are reproductions of responses, alongside failed attempts to resolve the birth trauma and the prenatal state (Rank, 1929, 1952, p. 212). The Oedipus complex becomes dethroned, through the distraction of or refocusing on birth, which is perhaps at the heart of the controversy between Freud and Rank. Whereas Freud took the view that the Oedipus complex is central to understanding humanity, Rank investigated the trauma of birth which replaced castration as the nuclear psychogenic trauma. Therefore, Rank (1936) prioritised ‘the historical and genetic primacy of the birth fear as compared with castration fear . . . seems undeniable’ (Rank, 1936, p. 119). According to Rank, the trauma of birth and the weaning trauma are painfully experienced actual traumata, becoming repressed, and the effects are displaced into the subsuming castration phantasy. Rank, in contradiction to Freud, postulated that the patent’s unconscious uses the analytic process through repetition of the trauma of birth and therefore partially abreacts it (Rank, 1929, 1952, p. 11). A successful analysis would induce a belated mastery of the birth trauma, alongside separation created from the mother, who is represented by the analyst. There can be a strong resistance to severing the transference relationship, since it has come to represent a likeness to the patient’s physiological connection to the

170  The perinatal origins of images of God mother’s womb. Such a primitive and early psychical imprint would likely lead to the development of images, reflecting this early relationship, that are then re-conceptualised within the cultural framework of God. Freud did not think it significant to abreact the birth trauma and in fact objected strongly to Rank’s ‘far-fetched’ theory (Freud, 1927, 1959, p. 62). Furthermore, Freud was critical of Rank for making assumptions in relation to the neonate as being capable of processing visual impressions around the time of birth. Freud added that the interpretations were because they focused on prenatal agony and ecstasy. Again, Freud rejected Rank’s compelling correlations between birth trauma and psychopathology, which Rank argued could be verified with evidence provided through empirical research, where arguably no investigations had been made. This highly controversial juncture, where Freud dismissed Rank’s ideas about birth, has since strongly affect the course of psychoanalysis. However, Winnicott (1958, p. 177) stated that the birth experience is significant and is stored in memory. Birth material, which was thought by Winnicott to be crucial and highly pervasive, compelled psychoanalysts to become more open-minded: ‘Since the birth trauma is real it is a pity to be blind to it’ and ‘in certain cases and at certain points the analysis absolutely needs acceptance of birth material in among all the other material (Winnicott, 1958, p. 180). In contrast to Rank, Winnicott (1958, p. 181) rejected the notion that birth is necessarily an affair that is traumatic and exclaimed that a normal birth process is constructive and non-traumatic and leads to increased ego strength and stability. Winnicott claimed that in relation to the memory trace of a normal birth, there is little sense of helplessness: the birth can instead easily be felt to be a successful outcome of personal effort (Winnicott, 1958, p. 186). Winnicott (1958) speculated that births, which are traumatic in nature, leave a permanent scar in the individual: ‘when birth trauma is significant every detail of impingement and reaction is, as it were, etched on the on the patient’s memory’ (Winnicott, 1958, p. 183). Furthermore, Winnicott (1958) was open-minded to intrauterine trauma and its possible later abreaction. He suggested that in the very close and detailed observation of one case I have been able to satisfy myself that the patient was able to bring to the analytic hour, under certain very specialised conditions, a regression of part of the self to an intra-uterine state. (Winnicott, 1958, p. 191) He, additionally, differentiated this experience from common phantasies which appeared to have similar themes. The psychosomatic continuum seems to have roots in prenatal existence and therefore ought to be more thoroughly investigated and considered in relation to subsequent formations of images of God.

The perinatal origins of images of God  171 The Hungarian psychoanalyst Fodor (1949, 1951) claimed that dreams were often reflections of natal and prenatal material. Fodor’s psychotherapeutic interventions appeared formulated to release memories of the perceived birth trauma, which would then facilitate an integration of prenatal fragments. Furthermore, Fodor appeared to echo the prior reverberations of Rank but placed increased emphasis on the prenatal origin of trauma and consciousness. Moreover, Fodor (1949, p. 383) speculated that the child’s responses to birth are always catastrophic. After nine months of relatively stable and peaceful development, the child is suddenly catapulted into a terrifying world of cataclysmic convulsions and contractions. Fodor (1949, pp. 14–15) described the unplanned and unwelcome changes in three stages: 1 The loss of the bodily waters. 2 The start of labour. 3 The birth. Fodor postulated that the transition from the prenatal to the postnatal life stage of development involved a tumultuous experience, as severe as dying (Fodor, 1949, p. 4). He claimed that the terror and agony of the birth experience leads to a complete dissociation of natal and prenatal experiences from human consciousness (1949, p. 190). The memory traces of such powerful experiences are preserved in the unconscious, as claimed by Fodor and manifest in dream material (Fodor, 1951, p. 17). it would follow that such traces would result in representations of God which might be both terrifying and benign. Furthermore, Fodor (1951) did not accept that that prenatal life is necessarily an idyllic existence – but claimed instead that prenatal trauma is common, if not the rule. Of course, there are conceivably many forms that adverse prenatal experience could take, such as tangibly through parental drug use, domestic violence or physical accidents. Additionally, parental sexual intercourse and failed attempts at foetal termination would inevitably leave impressions on the foetus, perhaps felt as murderous attacks on a sensitive, vulnerable being. The severing of the umbilical cord possibly creates the first postnatal trauma, which becomes construed as the foundation for later castration anxiety. For Fodor (1949), analysis was complete only once it reached the more primitive, foetal levels of the psychical strata. His therapeutic approach was based mainly on dream interpretation, along the lines of natal and particularly prenatal trauma. In relation to natal trauma, Fodor reported that some of his patients, though few in number, seemed to relive their birth experiences, in front of him, on the analytic couch (Fodor, 1949, p. 193). The release, created by the birth trauma, Fodor thought, was crucial and provided the transition to the more crucial phase of prenatal integration. To relinquish the memories of the terrifying pain suffered before birth, patients

172  The perinatal origins of images of God needed to gain an intellectual hold and understanding of their existence and nature. A felt understanding of these primitive fear responses would assist entering the conscious mind and slowly decrease the pressure. Prenatal integration would not be brought about if the patient were unwilling or unable to accept such ‘facts’ (Fodor, 1949, p. 353). Fodor did not offer explanations for this process, which tended to include verbalising emotional experiences of a prelingual phase of development, in relation to whether the process is beneficial or even possible. Many psychoanalysts have investigated the power of suggestion for treating various disorders. Cheek and LeCron (1968) worked with hypnotic age regression techniques and discovered that some patients could be supported to recollect early memories. The retrieving of birth memories appeared particularly relevant (LeCron, 1963, p. 137). It was reported that patients who claimed to re-experience birth often discussed the relief of significant symptoms and conveyed that their birth experiences played a causal role in relation to their symptomology. Other experiences and incidents indicated that hypnotic birth memories may possibly be verifiable. LeCron (1963) portrayed that there were specific details of the foetal position, such as the tilting of the head to one side, which was observed of those who appeared to enter a regression that appeared revivifying, where the person relived a phase that was just before birth (LeCron, 1963, p. 141). Cheek and Verny (1981) discovered that four native subjects, under the influence of hypnosis, reported accurately how their head and shoulders had been positioned during their actual births, alongside the movements involved in their own delivery (Verny, 1981, pp. 99–100). Cheek and LeCron therefore conclude that the birth imprint, which can be understood as a response which becomes fixed by stress, does not fade with ensuing experience; rather it is potentially the causal stimulus involved in a wide range of psychosomatic difficulties. David Wasdell considers the defence of idealisation and its implications on the formation of our God representations: ‘the more primitive the organism, and the more intense the stressing, the more powerful is the splitting or idealisation involved’ (Wasdell, 1982, p. 5). As stress rises to the limits of survival for the foetal organism, the idealisation process is ‘absolutised’ and appears as a flawless holding environment, according to Wasdell. Following, ‘the foetal cosmos is split into polar antithesis, later to be symbolised as light and dark, good and evil . . . love and hate, salvation and condemnation, god and devil’ (Wasdell, 1982, p. 5). A conversion reaction may occur at a later stage of development in a situation of environmental stress, when previously denied good elements of the self dominate while previously dominant idealised bad feelings towards the self are denied, according to Wasdell. Wasdell posits that ‘the result is a release from guilt and unworthiness and an experience of forgiveness, acceptance, wellbeing and joy’ and that it is this ‘kind of modulation of the innate primal defences which underlies religious conversion’ (Wasdell, 1982, p. 8).

The perinatal origins of images of God  173 Furthermore, Wasdell considers loss in relation to the formation of God representations. When loss is intolerable, the defence of denial is mobilised. The lost, idealised, good environment is projected back into the current environment, which ‘in phantasy becomes that which was lost’, and the bereaved person lives in a phantasy womb for the rest of its life, according to Wasdell. Wasdell claims that ‘in so far as reality refuses to be conformed to such an image, the person stays in a condition of search or hope . . . places of worship, sacred symbols, religious rituals, and this mirrors in articulate theology, are all reifications within the adult world of this unresolved position of primal search’ (Wasdell, 1982, p. 10). Wasdell suggests that the idealised holding environment, as emphasised by Winnicott, that existed in the past is sought in the future, sometimes leading to regression. Insight contained in psychological writings on perinatal experiences perhaps indicates substantial evidence to support the thesis of distinct parallels between perinatal and postnatal parental experiences influencing the formation of our representations of God, cross-culturally and within a psychodynamic framework.

5 Epigenesis, attachment and God representations Epigenesis, attachment and GodEpigenesis, attachment and God

Erikson considers conscience to be that inner ground where we and God have to learn to live with each other as man and wife. Psychologically speaking, it is where the ego meets the superego; that is, where our self can either live in wedded harmony with a positive conscience or is estranged from a negative one. (Erikson, 1958, p. 195) Erikson’s psychosocial theory of the life cycle in the chapter ‘The Eight Ages of Man’ is relevant to exploring the possibilities for prenatal and perinatal influences for the formation of God representations, insofar as it offers some parallels with postnatal observations (Erikson, 1950, pp. 247–274). Erikson borrows the term epigenesis from embryology when he describes his approach to the psychology of religious development, one that he (understandably) projected across the entire lifespan, in Wulff’s view (Wulff, 1997, p. 373). Erik Erikson, in altering Freud’s stagebased theory, emphasises the essential need for the establishment of trust between mother and infant. It is a time when religious feelings of hope are being created, through the caregiving in the relationship, inevitably extending from the relationship in the womb. From trust develops hope and faith in a religious tradition or God, according to Erikson. Erikson states that psychological growth proceeds analogously to the development of foetal organ systems. Lake suggests that hope is an expectant attitude of the spirit, bridging the gap between the needy ‘I’ and the source in the ‘Thou’ (Buber’s model) with a trust based on previous experiences of trustability, which strengthens faith. Faith that is based on past good experiences reverberates on the circuits of memory, giving ‘body’ or reliable ‘substance’ to the one who is longed for, when absent from sight, according to Lake. The link between the ‘I’ and the ‘Thou’ retains its substantiality by faith, through hope, in Lake’s view (Lake, 1966, p. 183). The ‘I–Thou’ relationship is the healing aspect of the encounter between the individual and analyst, or with our God representation, which is active in the present.

Epigenesis, attachment and God  175 Each phase of Erikson’s model of psychosocial development represents a crisis to be overcome with the outcome of a virtue; autonomy versus shame involves will; initiative versus guilt involves purpose; industry versus inferiority involves competence; identity versus role confusion involves fidelity; intimacy versus isolation involves love; generativity versus stagnation involves care; and ego integrity versus despair involves wisdom. The lifespan is the social conditions that people typically face during different stages of their life, according to Watts, Nye and Savage (Watts et al., 2002, p. 106). Lake recognises separations of good and bad, heaven and hell and so on as the result: ‘when the foetus in recoiling from maternal distress, splits vertically down the body . . . so this right/left, good/bad, dextrous/sinister division is a basic one’ (Lake, 1982, p. 4). Wasdell claims that in all these instances, the adult is displacing into the social environment the polarities of idealisation, ‘emanating from primal impingement and presenting in the innate defences against anxiety’ (Wasdell, 1982, p. 18). Each of Erikson’s eight epigenetic stages is summed up in a bipolar formula. Epistemologically, Erikson’s model of polarities incorporates a ‘series of potentialities for changing patterns of mutual regulation and restoring self-control in both child and parent’ (Erikson, 1950, p. 60). One pole is the ego quality’s successful resolution of that stage’s challenge. The other pole is that quality’s counterpart, the outcome of consistently unfavourable circumstances. There are distinct parallels between Erikson’s theory and Bernard Haring’s theological perspective on the embryological scene, when the blastocyst develops its own dynamics of life, separate from the mother. After five to seven days of cell division in the tube, the zygote finds its way to the uterus when it pursues its own activities. . . . The blastocyst itself simultaneously takes on the two great tasks of implantation and further embryonic development.   The outline of the placental system and amniotic sac is already in the blastocyst. The ectodermal layer of one of its folds, called the trophoblast, burrows into the uterine lining and. . . nestles there. This pole is to become the placenta, an essentially foetal system, the opposite pole becomes the embryo. So the blastocyst, by its fore-ordained cellular power, is throwing out a lifeline by which it will be attached to the bloodstream of the mother’. (Haring, 1972, p. 77, original emphasis) James Fowler, influenced by Piaget and Kohlberg, organised his stage theory of faith development around the earliest stages of developmental influence in uterine life. Fowler considered faith as a universal, dynamic potential for human meaning-making can be defined in terms of each individual’s centre of values, images of

176  Epigenesis, attachment and God power, and master stories, faith develops in stages towards a point of maximal individuation of the self and corresponding minimisation of the personal ego as the standpoint from which evaluations are made. (Fowler, 1991, p. 27) Piaget understood infant development as a ‘succession of cognitive and emotional separations’ (Fowler, 1991, p. 34), where earliest faith achieves an intact sense of self throughout, via the basic interchanges of care, ‘while it does not determine the course of our later faith, it lays the foundations on which later faith is built’ (Fowler, 1991, p. 34). Erikson asserts that ‘basic trust is the foundation of psychic life but also of religious development’ (Erikson, 1963) and conceivably would affect our formations of God representations. Fowler emphasises the idea of power relations, which are perhaps prevalent from the beginning of foetal life, with dependency on the mother having influence on our choice of God representations. In relation to prenatal influences on the formation of God representations, Fowler postulates primal or undifferentiated faith as largely inaccessible to inquiry – its beginnings traced to an amniotic symbiosis during pregnancy. After birth, bonding and attachment continue, with the primary caretaker of the child experiencing rhythms of intimacy and in the texture of her environment. Balancing this sense of being cared for is the threat of negation, an ‘ontological anxiety’, initially associated with the passage through the birth canal, states Fowler. Trust, courage, hope and love contend with threats of abandonment, deprivation and inconsistency: much that is important for our lives of faith occurs in utero and in the very first months of life. We describe the form of faith that begins in infancy as Primal faith. . . . This rudimentary faith enables us to overcome or offset the anxiety resulting from separations that occur during infant development. (Fowler, 1991, p. 34) Where there is lack of trust, there is fear, perhaps fear of the mother, which sets the pattern for all future relationships with people and with God, because, according to Lake, one’s trust of God has its roots in the infantile trust of mother and father (Lake, 1966, p. 779). Saint Theresa of Avila states that the obstacle to spiritual progress is the lack of the will to love in response to the love of God (Lake, 1966, p. 779). As many thinkers have suggested, it is the truth which frees, and psychotherapy can restore emotional truth and reality to all our relationships, however painful this revelation may be (Lake, 1966, p. 232). It can be seen how God becomes the substitute target of the individual’s anger towards the parents: ‘the infantile situation is aroused in the erring rage and bitterness of the infantile situation, is aroused in the depths of the unconscious mind, and God seems to

Epigenesis, attachment and God  177 be precisely as unjust as the “bad” ’ parents were, according to Lake (Lake, 1966, p. 219). Possible parallels between prenatal and postnatal influences raises the following question: How are attachment issues relevant to God representations? Attachment issues and our relationship with God have strong parallels. The Buddha had recognised the power of attachment and sought to recognise, avoid and transcend it. John Bowlby and neo-Freudians such as Harry Stack Sullivan conceive of the first year of life in terms of interpersonal relationships, meaning more than the orality and expression of pre-genital instincts, as articulated by Freud. Bowlby developed ethological attachment theory ‘to discuss the theoretical implications of how young children respond to temporary loss of mother’ (Bowlby, 1969, p. xi), including similar Freudian and Kleinian themes of love and hate, anxiety and defence, and attachment and loss. All the evidence, Bowlby states, points to the loss of the mother figure as a dominant variable for pathology in young children: ‘the responses of protest, despair and detachment (repressed feelings for mother) . . . occur when a young child is separated from his mother’ (Robertson & Robertson, 1968, 1969, 1973; Robertson, 1958) – ‘the young child’s hunger for his mother’s love and presence is as great as his hunger for food’, generating loss and anger, clinging and rejection, mourning, defence, trauma, sensitivity, splitting, ambivalence, security, displacement and repression, which can be demonstrated in this thesis (Bowlby, 1969, p. xiii). It is my understanding that all the foregoing specific variables stem from prenatal existence and underly our structure of God representations. In drawing on control systems theory, God representations can be understood in terms of their most important relational dimensions. Bowlby considers the nature of attachment: ‘the formation of a bond is described as falling in love, maintaining a bond as loving someone, and losing a partner as grieving over someone’, with the potential loss of the relationship causing anxiety (Bowlby, 1979, p. 69). Therefore, ‘God’ functions psychologically as an object of attachment or loss – as a relationship. According to Greeley, ‘each person’s religious story is a story of relationships’ (Greeley, 1981, p. 18), a deep emotional bond (Kirkpatrick, 1995, p. 452) and religious emotion expressed in the language of love (Thouless, 1923, p. 132) as parental love: ‘I led them with cords of human kindness, with hands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them’ (Hosea 11:1–4). Rizzuto argues that if there is an attachment to God, then we need to resort to the concept of transference: ‘the attachment to parents has now been transferred to God and who is God to accept parental transferences at the unconscious level?’ (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 21). Rizzuto states that attachment is inconceivable without the psychoanalytic transferential processes between parental imagos and God representations. Attachment is one of many components of the organisation of religious development: ‘the phenomenon

178  Epigenesis, attachment and God of religiosity is too complex, too multidetermined, too immersed in the cultural and interpersonal realities to be captured from only one angle of vision’ (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 26). A comparison between attachment theory and object representations as suitable hypotheses for the understanding of God representations is that attachment is an observable behaviour at times subjectively experienced, and object representations are accessed through language, human relations, religious practices and art, according to Rizzuto (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 27). In a series of studies, models of God and of self develop in parallel; loving God representations are positively correlated, through correspondence theory, with self-esteem concepts, according to Kirkpatrick (Benson & Spilka, 1973, in Kirkpatrick). Kirkpatrick and Shaver (1990) conclude that God representations parallel other adult attachment relationships; not everyone is securely attached to God, and negative emotions and insecurity reflect mother–infant patterns of attachment. Although Wenegrat (Wenegrat, 1989) suggests that a relationship with God is constructed from other close relationships (Fairbairn), Kirkpatrick thinks that God’s and the worshippers’ behaviours do not affect each other (Kirkpatrick, 1995, pp. 454–455). Therefore, a reinvention of the past is possible through God, perhaps as a surrogate parent, through the expression of the need for compensation, to create a secure human attachment (Kirkpatrick, 1995, p. 455). Peter Benson and Bernard Spilka conducted a study of 128 Catholic males and found selfesteem to be positively correlated with loving God images and negatively related to controlling and vindictive God images (Benson & Spilka, 1973). Freud considered religion to be based on an exalted father figure. Kirkpatrick suggests, understandably, that religion is conceptualised as an ‘exalted attachment figure’ (Kirkpatrick, 1995, pp. 465–466). The lasting impact of the umbilical connection, a lifeline between the foetus and mother’s blood stream and reconstructed with God, will undoubtedly help us to comprehend the relationship between self and God representations over the lifespan. The quality of the early uterine attachment relationship, in this author’s opinion, lays the foundations for the quality of all subsequent attachment relationships and is probably the most important theory for our unfolding developmental understanding of our God representations. Attachment conditions between the foetus and mother, and infant and mother, provide crucial relational parallels, enhancing our understanding of religious development and the formation of our God representations. Let us now turn to examine possible evidence for the prenatal and perinatal origins of the formation of our God representations.

6 The question of prenatal and perinatal underpinnings of God images Underpinnings of God imagesUnderpinnings of God images

‘There is at least one spot in every dream at which it is unplumbable – a naval, as it were that is its point of contact with the unknown’. (Freud, 1900, p. 186)

Is there any evidence to support the prenatal and perinatal origins of the formation of our God representations? The psychiatrist and Freudian psychoanalyst Stanislav Grof, in California, US, who advocates for the NHS (National Health Service), links the deepening of experiential religious experience to a variety of birth-related phenomena: in foetuses, struggling to be born or delivery, and in adults, reliving aspects of their biological birth, a level of the unconscious referred to by Grof as perinatal, pertaining to events that immediately precede, are associated with or follow biological birth (Grof, 1985, p. 435). The encounter with birth-death ‘is the opening up of areas of spiritual and religious experience that appear to be an intrinsic part of the human personality and are independent of the individual’s cultural and religious background and programming’ (Grof, 1975, p. 95). Grof organised the wide range of experiences of death and rebirth on the perinatal level into four experiential patterns, the basic perinatal matrices (BPMs), drawing from the biographical level and extensive forms of suffering. In Grof’s view, there are links between BPMs and Freudian erogenous areas – the oral, anal, urethral and phallic zones (Grof, 1985, p. 101). According to Grof, BPM I is the biological basis of the foetus’s symbiotic relationship with the mother, which can be undisturbed and ideal or interfered with – physically, biologically, chemically and psychologically. Grof claims ‘pleasant and unpleasant intrauterine memories can be experienced in their concrete biological form . . . subjects . . . can experience an entire spectrum of images and themes associated with it’; here nature and cosmic unity would seem to trigger the underlying structure of images of a loving God (Grof, 1985, p. 102). Uterine disturbances would be associated with images of danger, pollution and ‘insidious demons’ (Grof, 1985, p. 102), and ‘the mystical dissolution of boundaries is replaced by a psychotic distortion

180  Underpinnings of God images with paranoid undertones’. Again, Wasdell questions Grof’s assumption of the ‘ontological validity of the spiritual or transpersonal facet of the perinatal matrices’ (Wasdell, 1979, p. 4). Grof relates psychopathological syndromes to uterine experiences; schizophrenic psychoses with paranoid symptomatology, feelings of mystical union, encounters with metaphysical evil forces and karmic experiences. In naming these syndromes, Grof refers to conditions linked with prenatal experiences in the final fortnight before birth begins, according to Lake (Lake, 1980, p. C56). Grof makes parallels with positive memories in postnatal life and situations from later life where needs are satisfied. It is possible to identify our image of God with that of a symptom, one that can be viewed at ‘a greater distance’ and our understanding altered, thus modifying the image of God representation in relation to the self. According to Grof, the second perinatal matrix describes the onset of biological delivery; the uterine equilibrium is disturbed by chemical signals and contractions. The outliving of these experiences is cosmic engulfment, increasing anxiety and an imminent threat, in Grof’s view. Images of God take the form of a three-dimensional whirlpool: being swallowed by a terrifying monster, such as a dragon, leviathan or python. Grof claims that these images ‘show deep experiential logic’; for example, the whirlpool symbolises serious danger for an organism floating in a watery environment (as does the unattached blastocyst in the womb). The symbolic counterpart is an experience of nightmarish lack of an exit or hell, involving a sense of being stuck, caged or trapped with psychological and physical torture (Grof, 1985, p. 112). Identification with figures of torture may occur: sinners in hell or inmates in asylums, which are archetypal figures symbolising eternal damnation. According to Grof, in this matrix, there is a negative vision of the world; the individual is subjected to an overwhelming destructive force. Links with Freudian erogenous zones are unpleasant tensions and pain on all levels. Associated memories from postnatal life cause severe psychological trauma, emotional deprivation, rejection, threatening situations, repressive family atmospheres, ridicule and humiliation, according to Lake. Grof considers the stark bodily, mental and relational agony due to negative umbilical influx, which become transposed into ‘mythological, metaphysical and symbolised “re-presentations” of that which is not directly bearable’, claims Lake (Lake, 1980, p. C56). These insights offer a perspective that is different from our understanding of ‘psychotic’ experiences. Grof describes experiences in the BPM III as at the second clinical stage of biological delivery, when the foetus is propelled through the cervix, involving a massive struggle for survival. A death–rebirth struggle ensues with possible demonic episodes, in Grof’s view. Related archetypal themes suggested by Grof are ‘images of the Last Judgement, the extraordinary feats of superheroes, and mythological battles of cosmic proportions, involving demons and angels or gods and Titans’ (Grof, 1985, p. 116). The demonic

Underpinnings of God images  181 aspect of this stage of the death–rebirth process can represent difficulties for the therapist and client, according to Grof. Religious and mythological symbolism draws on systems that glorify sacrifice or self-sacrifice – pre-Columbian sacrificial rituals, visions of crucifixion or identification with Christ and worship of ‘the Terrible Goddesses’, writes Grof. Other images relate to religious rituals and ceremonies, phallic worship, fertility rites or the classic symbol of the phoenix, whose old form dies in fire and whose new form rises and soars onwards to the sun, during transition from BPM III to BPM IV, in Grof’s view (Grof, 1985, pp. 118–119). Grof claims that this stage religiously represents purgatory and that Freudian erogenous zones relate to physiological activity, bringing sudden relief after prolonged tension (Grof, 1985, pp. 121–122). Grof relates how BPM IV corresponds to the third stage of the delivery through the birth of the child, when the agonising birth struggle comes to an end and from darkness faces the light. The umbilical cord is cut and is now anatomically separate from the mother. This stage represents the resolution of the death–rebirth struggle, states Grof. The experience of transition from BPM III to BPM IV involves a sense of annihilation of ‘hitting the cosmic bottom’ followed by blinding white or golden light of supernatural radiance, displays of divine archetypal entities, rainbow spectra or peacock designs, writes Grof (Grof, 1985, p. 123). The individual experiences a deep sense of spiritual liberation, redemption and salvation, associated with a surge of positive emotion towards the world and an increased zest for life (Grof, 1985, pp. 124–125). The divine epiphany can emerge at this stage as an abstract image of God or personified representations from different religions or encounters with great mother goddesses such as the Virgin Mary, Kali, Isis or Cybele. Postnatal links involve memories of personal successes and termination of dangerous situations, the end of wars or revolutions. Grof considers that terrorism originates from the terror experienced in the birth struggle, as discussed at a conference in the House of Lords, UK, by the invitation of an interfaith group, The Dialogue Society, when I asked about the cause of terrorism (August 2006). Freudian erogenous zones are associated on all levels in BPM IV, with satisfaction immediately following activities that release unpleasant tension, according to Grof (Grof, 1985, pp. 126–127). Wasdell is critical of Grof’s unquestioning acceptance of his own assumptions and rejects the Freudian psychoanalytic school ‘from which he has departed somewhat tangentially’ (Wasdell, 1979, p. 4). Isabelle Clarke, a clinical psychologist, states that ‘psychosis and spirituality both inhabit the space where reason breaks down’, which is like unitive experiences of the divine and in this author’s opinion is much like the unboundaried oceanic experience described by Freud (Clarke & Kissane, 2002, p. 1). William James also indicated the foundations for a framework

182  Underpinnings of God images of spirituality which recognises the value of psychotic experiences and expansion of the ‘margins of consciousness’ (James, 1902, p. 226): It is evident that from the point of view of their psychological mechanism, the classic mysticism and these lower mysticisms spring from the same mental level, from that great subliminal or transmarginal region of which science is beginning to admit the existence, but of which so little is really known. That region contains every kind of matter: ‘seraph and snake’ abide from side by side. (James, 1902, p. 419) According to Lake, Grof focuses on BPM IV, on birth as deliverance, subjects speaking of profound relief on arrival, looking then for bonding with the mother to occur, resulting in disappointment (Lake, 1985, p. C56). Is there any evidence to support prenatal underpinnings of the formation of our God representations? A contemporary of Winnicott’s was the worseknown British analyst F. J. Mott and M. Lietaert Peerbolte in the UK and Nandor Fodor in the US, who followed leads into uterine life through their patient’s dreams. Mott paid attention to prenatal existence, and in Creative Consciousness, Mott draws a parallel between the developing person at conception and the formation of God representations, stating that the faculties learned after birth are based on social memory, so the lessons learned before birth are drawn from a ‘storehouse’ of organic memory (Mott, 1937, p. 70). The procedure in both cases is the same: ‘the method of integration does not change, but whereas in one case the integration is one of cells into bodies, in the other it is a question of bodies into religious groups’ (Mott, 1937, p. 70). Frank Lake, a medical missionary to India and psychiatrist, established the psychodynamic pastoral counselling training project known as the Clinical Theology Association, now The Bridge Pastoral Foundation. The work of both Peerbolte and Mott are referred to in particular by Frank Lake in his conception of the maternal-foetal distress syndrome. Mott refers to the blood feeling of the placenta as knowledge, which Lake developed into his theory of umbilical affect –; designating the impact of the mother’s state of being on the foetus. Lake’s insight highlights the significance and impact of the mother’s early emotional experiences during pregnancy. There is mounting scientific evidence that ‘imprinting’ occurs with the person, especially through responses to uterine met and unmet needs becoming imprinted onto the cellular structure of the personality, arguably underlying the early dispositional formation of our images of God. Positive uterine experience, as described by Lake, may consist in the ‘flow of the mother’s positive, aware, attention giving emotional regard to the developing foetus within her’, creating a religious experience of union with the absolute, according to Lake (Lake, 1980, p. C41). Negative experience

Underpinnings of God images  183 may consist in the foetus’s presence, needing recognition by the mother, which when denied creates confusion and distress at having no accord in the uterine universe. If Lake is right, he suggests the ability of the foetus to respond, creates personality developmental patterns of action and behaviour for later formations of God constructs. Yearning at this stage becomes fixated, in Lake’s view. The pain of unmet needs is perpetuated in fixated tensions and displaced into ‘hysterical’ conversions, and the persecutory confusion becomes the false closure of paranoid projection into subsequent images of God through splitting, according to Lake (Lake, 1980, p. C41). It is the mother’s countenance that imparts worth to the infant: ‘that one who could give so much gives so little is felt to be persecutory. The infant spirit looks out fearfully towards a “god” whose face is full of scorn at its own, evidently contemptible face’ (Lake, 1966, p. 180). Simone Weil (1909–1943) articulated affliction in innocence in three aspects: mental and emotional distress, physicality and social degradation. Weil considers affliction an uprooting of life, like death, made present to the soul by the immediate apprehension of pain constituting the nail; the point is applied at the very centre of the soul (Weil, 1959, p. 77). Lake recounts that it is the innocent upon whom affliction seizes; it utterly overpowers them, branding every cell of the body (Lake, 1980, p. T12). Weil’s remedy was ‘supernatural love’, which seems to be where this Jewish teacher of philosophy felt herself connected with Christ. It makes sense that the foetus will be imprinted with a maternal-paternalsocial environment experience at such a vulnerable and helpless phase of development (Lake, 1982). Lake’s psychodynamic model of uterine experience appears useful in pointing towards greater understanding of human suffering, although it may be considered unscientific. I think that there are invaluable insights in Lake’s work to be developed, especially the psychodynamic and object-relations parallels with foetal experience and subsequent contortions of images of God. Lake was writing about the development and impact of foetal emotions for the foetus’s later life in a way that has not been done before, comprehensively exploring links between blastocystfoetal-infant developmental affect and the formation of images of God. Lake acknowledges how persecutory representations of God occur, tracing their origins to foetal distress. As with Freud’s Dr Schreber, God becomes the persecutor and sadist in chief, yet Lake suggests that it is part of Christian pastoral care to present the face of Christ’s persecution to the ‘persecuted’ until they can accept his identification with them, rather than phantasised opposition of them (Lake, 1966, p. 1134). Roger Moss, a psychiatrist, counsellor and group facilitator, spoke with me, stating that Lake referred in several places to ‘blastocystic bliss’ and the mystical state of union with the absolute (Lake, 1982, p. 85). Moss says, ‘For me, this does not deal with representations of God, so much as union with God’. However, Moss then refers to ‘with respect’, where Lake states ‘what the human mother is to the human infant, Christ is to the human soul.

184  Underpinnings of God images The ‘ “ground of Motherhood” resides in Jesus Christ’ (Lake, 1982, p. 266). This passage from Lake, ‘touches on the thoroughly familiar theme that our parents give us, through their relationship with us, our first inklings of what God may be like’, states Moss. Yet how does this show itself before birth? Moss postulates that our uterine experiences of God are sometimes very positive: love in its many forms kindles our ability to relate to a greater Love still. This love may be communicated through the mother’s body, her hormones, her psychic closeness, her spoken and intuitive messages. The father’s role is mostly mediated through mother’s responses to him (and I have found myself wondering whether this could be a prototype of the mechanism through which Roman Catholics prefer to approach God the Father ‘through Mary’). Moss continues, referring to more-negative experiences: Quite often, primal explorations discover more negative representations of God – in the rejection or abandonment by the mother, or in the cruelty of the father, for instance. Having experienced this psychotherapeutically, I certainly have a better understanding of the gradual progress of the people of Israel in their understanding of God through the biblical story. But I would also say that all this speculation arises from the evidence of primal ‘work’, as we call it. Each individual comes to their prenatal stuff in an entirely individual way, though there are patterns – such as that of blastocystic bliss. And in relation to experienced states of consciousness, Moss writes that Some people get into a profoundly deep state of altered consciousness, and others do not. It is best not to do much cognitive reflection until afterwards, but I was aware that my reflecting capacity was not totally idle. I say this because I think we have to be aware that the experience reported afterwards is inevitably coloured to a greater or lesser extent, by the subject’s total life experience. Thus, representations of God will be mediated through what has subsequently been learned about God, and through the existential struggles the person may have been through. Moss continues: I have had extensive experience of accompanying people on primal journeys, and one of my abiding sense is that the primal exploration yields a remarkably ‘pure’ clue to the core of a person’s nature. Because of very early traumata, some have the greatest difficulty finding any sense of God unless they get back to the earliest possible stages of conception.

Underpinnings of God images  185 Wilhelm Reich takes Christ as a symbol for the innocence of foetal life; the primal pain from the womb through birth will be inflicted on the growing baby – a kind of emotional ‘crucifixion’. Reich describes how the baby becomes enmeshed in ‘armouring’: ‘the inner qualities become in the formation of a typical character neurosis, entombed behind this armour’ (Boadella, 1988, p. 5). Object relations would recognise the central need for ego formation, which becomes distorted in the interests of defensive character formation. The ‘false self’, described by Winnicott, protects the ‘true self’. (Winnicott, 1965). R. D. Laing describes how through disturbed prenatal and perinatal time, collusive symbiotic relationships may re-enact early foetal or infantile patterns, becoming ‘corded’ rather than ‘bonded’ (Laing, 1959), and this can be extended to a conceivable God construct that is at times of a transitional identity, in Laing’s view. If it is possible to trace memory back to early cellular life, and current neurological research is showing that it is, then this storage of experience is evidence for early prenatal pre-dispositional formations of God representations. Lake suggests that the foetus deals with the umbilical maternal input through symbolic resistance. Lake thinks that different parts of the body are used symbolically to express foetal warfar. Images and metaphors determine the outcome, ‘and it is such that the intra-uterine struggle and its defeats or prolonged running battles enter the emotional and perceptual life of adults as profoundly distorting factors’ (Lake, 2005, p. 51). To reconcile the whole adult-foetal person, the Word of God would have to come in as a reconciling symbol: ‘as metaphors that carry across reality from the Creator, making reparation to the innocent afflicted creature so as to re-establish trust, the images must be really representative of the personal identification of the Redeemer’, according to Lake (Lake, 2005, p. 51). One of Lake’s biographers, Peters, suggests that Lake’s clinical and theoretical developments were considered with scepticism and dismissiveness, mainly for the purported lack of supporting medical and biological evidence for foetal consciousness (Peters, 1989, pp. 161–186). Current medical literature suggests there is a global expansion of medical research focused on stem cells. Doctor Stephen Minger, director of the Stem Cell Biology Laboratory at King’s College in London conveyed in conversation, this is a very, very young field; most people in the world have only been working with these cells for two to three years. Before 2002 if you wanted to do human embryonic stem cell research, it was almost impossible to gain access to cells. In Kierkegaard’s view, Platonic recollection could provide continuity and content to save a soul; the self would become true, good and beautiful through contemplation in the soul’s ascent towards the good (Hannay & Marino, 1998, p. 300). Ann Boyd stated in conversation that Frank Lake was before his time; now his work is being taken up in neuroscience. Boyd states that Lake’s work is not about being scientifically provable but is rather a personal journey of the soul to find a sense of peace.

7 Prenatal religious affect

Prenatal religious affectPrenatal religious affect

Al-Hakim al Tirmidhi, a renowned scholar from the third century of Islam, explicitly extended the idea of two distinct realms to the inner world (al Tirmidhi, 2003). He distinguished between qalb, literally the heart, and nafs, which he located physically in the stomach. Qalb contains the spirit, which responds directly to God (Qur’an 17:85), and is inborn. An angel, acting on God’s command, installs it into the foetus during the second trimester of pregnancy (Al-Bukhari, vol. 8, book 77, no 593). (Davids, cited in Black, 2006)

In attempting to elucidate the possible evidence for prenatal influences on God representations, it is necessary to explore seemingly intangible areas of research, such as prenatal cellular structure and affect. This will help ascertain the likelihood of early imprinting at conception and preconception on consciousness and personality, leading to the formation of images of God. Writing from a postnatal perspective, Rizzuto states that affect is central to human relations; affects are mediated by representational processes; and divine relationships emerge from them (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 25). Affect is arguably the most significant organiser of God representations. Without affect, psychic life would not exist. In relation to this, ‘when religious scientists measure the wish for closeness to God under the impact of a subliminal separation stimulus, they are measuring not only attachment but also affect. Affect is what makes desire a desire’ (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 25). There is ongoing interest in relation to curiosity about how able we are to get in touch with primitive and seemingly unfathomable aspects of the self and connection with the unrepressed unconscious. The possibility of prenatal affect impacting the potential for creating images of God is reflected through a parallel indication, by which a patient ceases to dream and a caesura is created and the psychoanalyst then dreams that which the patient seems unable to represent, as stated by Bergstein (2013). An aim of analysis would be to connect with such primitive derivatives in the self and work through these aspects, thus creating movement between differing psychical

Prenatal religious affect  187 areas. Such movement would facilitate the ability to symbolise and to form differing images of God. Bion (1976), following Freud’s contemplation of the ‘caesura of birth’ (1926), restated and developed this idea of the caesura, as a bold and poignant metaphor delineating the association between thoughts and feelings, which are more mature in appearance, to intrauterine life. The caesura thus creates a model linking seemingly unbridgeable mental states. Bion is revolutionary in posing a stance of encouraging the mind to roam and to dream, thus opening up the possibilities of connecting to intrauterine traces. Therefore, Bion bypasses fears to enter into the depths of intrauterine life, moving towards dreaming creatively and emphasising the analyst’s imagination as speculative and intuitive, perhaps experiences as hallucination, at times. According to Milakovic (1967), the foetus is not an isolated, flourishing laboratory sample that starts living at birth but is in the later months a being with a psychical organisation and instinctive safety apparatus striving to maintain a homeostasis that includes a fluid balance with its environment through the deglutitive (swallowing) apparatus. This deglutitive phase precedes orality, appears in later phases and may emerge in regression. Disturbances in this phase have a share in the genesis of stammering, swallowing, tics, anorexia and depression, and they contribute to a basic lack of satisfaction with tendencies towards resignation, homeostatic quiescence and abandonment of an extravertive attitude. The tendencies may be transformed into various masochistic, conversion and other phenomena and culminate in suicidal fantasies. A sudden eruption of the deglutitive phase occurs in states of collapse and shock. Interestingly, Bergstein (2013) refers to Bion’s conceptualisation of hovering in between the conscious and unconscious, where dreaming is considered as subverting the psychic equilibrium and thus presents as a threat of catastrophe, due to the confusion afforded between the psychotic and non-­ psychotic aspects of the personality, as described by Bion (1957). Hence, Bion offers a speculative explanation of how the patient finds themselves evading the dream, through a more intensely saturated ways of thinking, which is more reliant on the cues offered by the external world. Furthermore, Bion suggests that the analyst’s mode of dreaming and intuitive awareness can be considered a trace of intrauterine civilisation, which becomes elaborated as a tool for penetrating and moving beyond the caesura. The movement in this way is to facilitate the patient and analyst to be able to hold and bear unbearable states of being, alongside the conceivably excruciating glimpses of awareness of the unknowability of affective experience. Such powerful and halting experiences and memories are striking, especially in relation to the multidimensional underpinnings of images of God, which can be illuminated through personal and clinical experiences. It can be argued that there is no self–object relationship early on as the prenatal phase of development presents and therefore no collaborating self– object experiences. If not, then one would further question the viability of

188  Prenatal religious affect the prenatal disposition to form images of God. Additionally, Basch (1988) raises a pertinent question regarding the variability in relation to the adaptability of the prematurely born infant as psychological and therefore the later formation of images of God. Many people may still consider that it is not and conclude that there cannot be any inferences from infantile or foetal behaviour to later phases of development. However, Basch (1988) does not agree with this perspective, given that he equates the psychological with phylogenetics and evolution rather than individual development. Furthermore, Basch thinks that it is not the nature of behaviour but more so how it is directed and generated that defines the psychological. Where early human existence can be considered as relational in this way, presumably the possibility of projection into an imaginary figure heightens the possibility of thinking further about intrauterine life in relation to the different forms of images of God. Moreover, images of God born of intrauterine life can be illuminated through Bion’s notion describing how two people are needed to facilitate the most unsettling ideas in relation to the individual. It is complex but worth considering how in the formation of images of God, which two people are coming together? Such reflections on the model of the container–contained relationship, as exemplified by Bion and then developed in relation to psychoanalytic couple psychotherapy by Bianchini and Dallanegra (2011), may inspire further thoughts about our question. When considering the idea about a person’s ability to mentally manage suffering as inadequate and therefore move to seek out another mind to help bear or overcome such suffering, perhaps where there is no other to help, an absence, God, if known about, becomes a substitute for a caregiver and the container for the treacherous feelings or, at other times, the more caring and benign, calmer feelings aligned with love. From here, this might lead, psychoanalytically speaking, to their relationship with God breaking down, through experienced disappointment, for instance. Within the framework of the container–contained model of relationship in relation to the individual’s psychic functioning (Bion, 1963), this dialectic relationship can be explored. The growth of the relationship is in relation to the contained person projecting their affect through their religious belief into the container of the image of God. Therefore, Bion’s model of the container–contained relationship is limited. One may argue that this way of conceptualising how images of God act as containers of a range of feelings, which are generated from the mind of the individual but not responded to, in an autoerotic view of the situation, is little different from the containing relationship of the caregiver to the child. Furthermore, the function of the container is not reversible in relation to images of God, although it may be experienced as reversible in relation to the normal caregiver–child relationship. However, there are abundant clinical examples where the container–contained relationship does become reversible, as elaborated in films such as Help Me Love My Baby

Prenatal religious affect  189 and acknowledged in Bion’s description of the reversal of the container– contained relationship, where there is an expression of psychopathology. Additionally, in terms of Bion’s model of the container–contained relationship, the projective quality of images of God is not mutually activating, perhaps leaving little scope for change. It can be argued that psychoanalysis has moved on from drive theory, where human motivation is most inspired through the need to discharge particular tensions of a physiological nature. This movement is towards an object-relations theory, which describes how we need particular people through and with whom to enact patterns of relationship for particular reasons, whether conscious or unconscious. When considering the all-important issue of images of God, thought to be born of prejudice in relation to religion, it can be seen that the role of religion is paradoxical. Religion appears to create prejudice and uncreate prejudice, as suggested by Allport, just as he states that churchgoers are more prejudiced than the average non-churchgoer and are at the same time less prejudiced than the average (Allport (1954). He suggests that while the creeds of the great religions are universalistic, all emphasising the bonds of camaraderie, the practice of these creeds is often divisive and brutal. Allport’s paradoxes are insightful: ‘The sublimity of religious ideas is offset by the horrors of persecution in the name of these same ideals’ (Allport, 1954, p. 444). The following are questions for further thought: Is the prejudice shown to outgroups by ‘religious’ people necessarily dependent just on religious factors? If prejudice is dependent on many different factors, what makes one criterion take precedence over another? In relation to prenatal influences on the development of our images of God, Fakhry Davids has contributed a psychoanalytic framework of thinking about a state of internalised racism that is based on John Steiner’s psychoanalytic structure. Questions can be raised, if perhaps tentatively, about how images of God are perceived in relation to their skin colour. There may be no prejudice apparent in relation to these perceptions of God, at the same time. Fakhry Davids formulated a psychoanalytic approach to race and difference (Davids, 2010), the experience of which appears to be based on the parent–infant relationship, linked with John Steiner’s Freudian-Kleinian model of the mind. Nonetheless, parent–infant model or not, the colour of skin and cultural-ethnic issues are rife and can be considered to be innate, just as is one’s propensity for images of God. Regarding prenatal and perinatal affect in forming images of God, at which phase of development does a human being have the capacity to form a relationship? In the womb, the foetus needs their physiological and psychological safety needs to be met, which arguably defines a bonded relationship which equally could also not survive for a plethora of reasons. In the book Beyond Belief, Psychotherapy and Religion, edited by Samuel Stein (1999), David Black, in chapter 1, quotes the following Zen proverb: ‘Do not seek to imitate the men of old: seek what they sought’. Black describes the apparent attraction of the path taken by the fundamentalist and how

190  Prenatal religious affect terrifying it can be to have one’s fundamental framework of apprehension questioned and challenged. Perhaps it is easy to ignore or forget just how deeply personal religious belief is, and the individual personalities are written into the narratives which structure their world. We can likely imagine how having these worldviews challenged can lead to threatening feelings, describable as the ‘nameless dread’ – or in Kleinian terms, the repudiation of reality likened to psychotic terrors – which is often considered as pertaining, in modern psychoanalysis, to the uncontained infant (Bion, 1967). David Black highlights current knowledge on brain development, responding not to genetic patterning but from the ‘emotion laden interactions’, especially in the first weeks and months of life (Black, 2002, p. 323). Anne Baring, a Jungian analyst, considers that ‘the crucially important time for the formation of the nervous system and future brain functioning is the first three months of pregnancy and particularly between day 15 and 28 after conception when the neural tube is developing’ (Baring, 2005, p. 3). Furthermore, the triune brain system would appear to have possible correlations with conceptions of the trinity in Christianity, according to Baring. We have three brain systems which continuously interact with each other: The reptilian region provides our instinctive survival reflexes; the mammalian provide our capacity for empathy and group bonding; and neo-cortical and frontal lobes provide our capacity for abstract thought, self-awareness and consciousness (Baring, 2005, p. 3). Sue Gerhardt argues that research on the development of the brain in infants shows that neuroscience, psychology and biochemistry are developing a better understanding of emotionality and relationality, and no doubt there will be huge implications too for the holding environment of the womb. Gerhardt claims that a new understanding is emerging of ‘human infancy and the development of our “social brain” and the biological systems involved in emotional regulation’ (Gerhardt, 2004, pp. 1–2). Gerhardt believes that the individual’s foundations are built during pregnancy and in the first two years of life, ‘when the “social brain” is shaped and when an individual’s emotional style and . . . resources are established’ (Gerhardt, 2004, p. 3). The state of the social brain of the infant would affect the formation of God representations in complex ways. David Black describes Edelman’s idea that the brain develops aspects of its physical structure in response to the person’s experience of the world (Edelman, 1992). At birth, the infant’s brain holds a multitude of potential synaptic links, connected to the infant’s experience of parental holding. Black contends that the persistence of the effects of early patterning may be written in our neurons (Black, 2000, p. 20). Early prenatal attachment patterns may make it impossible, constitutionally, for certain relationships with God to develop (Black, 2000, p. 20). Nine months of life in the womb is arguably a strong environmental influence in terms of the biochemicals that are absorbed by the foetus, as passed on from the mother’s blood supply, in the earliest gene expression.

Prenatal religious affect  191 Along with the sharing of parental genes upon entering the world, there is already an inherent disposition ‘soft wired’ into the brain. This soft wiring is expressed as difference in the ratios of neurotransmitters to each other, and this in turn is the result of a difference in the number of proteins in the cell membranes of neurons, affecting personality formation and God representations. As Baring states, we are aware now that the developing foetus in the womb registers ‘everything the mother is experiencing’. The foetus is sensitive to music, especially Mozart apparently, and to the quality of the environment. All external influences affect its heart and nervous system, and the transcendent experience of intense bliss comes from the limbic system; the infant can know these feelings in the womb and in the first few moments of being reconnected with the mother after birth and in close contact with her touch, her voice, her body and her smell throughout infancy’. (Baring, 2005, p. 4) Such sensory experiences, as just described, are inevitably the foundation of later feelings of love and trust, joy and ecstasy, which colour the formation of our God representations. It would seem that multidisciplinary parallels between prenatal life and postnatal life are offering an enhanced understanding of the influences of early uterine development on the formation of personality structure and therefore of our God representations.

Conclusions

ConclusionsConclusions

In Western medical thinking, there is an increased practice of prenatal screening, testing and the selective termination of foetuses, especially those likely to be born with a disability. As Bromage has suggested, one of the reasons for the increasing uptake of prenatal diagnosis is a ‘method of “aesthetic normalisation”, aimed at satisfying the postmodern predilection for faultlessness’ but ‘on many levels, difference and the “other” are generally becoming more accepted’ (Bromage, 2006, p. 42). In relation to the Kleinian perspective on the formation of God representations, we have discussed the possibility of acceptance of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aspects of ourselves, others and our God representations. Kleinian formulations and reflections of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions offer a helpful model of thinking about the foetal spectrum of terrorful and persecutory experiences through to those more benign and balanced as experienced in contentment and a more benign image of God. Current debate surrounding the sanctity of ‘life issues’ continues, recently demonstrated in the responses of Cardinal Martini SJ – including the beginning of life, artificial insemination, stem cell research, the use of condoms, abortion and euthanasia (Martini, 2006, pp. 6–7). From observations of the bonding behaviour shown by the newborn during the first hours of life, the high degree synchronization and transaction that he shows during interaction with his mother, and the capability that many mothers have of immediately establishing a relationship with him, we can arrive at the conclusion that bonding after birth, described by many authors as a separate entry, is really the continuation of the intrauterine contact that began long before. (Righetti, 1997, p. 55) Especially noticeable in the mother–foetus relationship is the bond of emotional dialogue that takes place between them prenatally, and the potential risks and benefits to the foetus are enormous.

Conclusions  193 The uterine experience continues into the postnatal mother–infant relationship and has a profound influence on how we later represent God, learned through the evidence posited by a range of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic practitioners and thinkers. Vivette Glover, Frank Lake and others have demonstrated the impact of the mother’s health on the foetus, communicated through the umbilical cord, with implications on attachment strengths and weaknesses in the developing child-foetus and formation of God representations. Erikson and Fowler, among others, recognises how early uterine experience lays the foundations for trust, leading to faith in the formation of God representations. Although scientific and medical evidence is fast accumulating, the conclusions are still tentative and speculative. This study therefore constitutes a very humble yet determined attempt to address prenatal material within the discipline of religious development across the lifespan. Freud conceded that there is more continuity between uterine and postnatal life, applicable to the formation of our God representations, than may have been generally accepted in the history of the psychology of religion: There is much more continuity between intra-uterine life and earliest infancy than the impressive caesura of the act of birth would have us believe. What happens is that the child’s biological situation as a foetus is replaced for it by a psychical object relation to its mother. But we must not forget that during its intra-uterine life the mother was not an object for the foetus, and at that time there were no objects at all. (Freud, 1925, p. 138) The conclusions emerging from medical science encourage revisiting Freud’s tentative and unrefined views on the significance of prenatal and birth experience and how these experiences may affect the formation of our images of God. Assumptions outlining mental life can be linked in some meaningful way to religious affective states, and they might be significant for the formation of our God representations. In this account, a basic conceptualisation of prenatal and perinatal religious development attempts to frame this topic in a psychological object-relations perspective, mainly posited by Rizzuto. Contemporary religious developmental research conceives of the mother– infant dyad as mutually self-regulating, proposed by humanistic psychology through Erik Erikson, otherwise suggesting that the child’s religious object world is significantly populated by an internal representation of these regulatory processes in our configuration of God. In contrast to Freud, the important difference between our private and religious behaviour was recognised by Erikson, who was interested in women’s ‘inner space’ and the dissimilarity between the private meanings of obsessive-compulsive behaviour and religious rituals as commonly

194  Conclusions shared meanings. In gaining further understanding of religious development through our God representations, ‘we must accept knowledge from any source that can, with sufficient reliability although not foolproof, give us some inklings about the religiosity of human beings and its psychological foundations’ (Rizzuto, 2006, p. 27). With reference to the possible prenatal and perinatal aspects of this study in describing the child’s capacity to represent or remember, Rizzuto states that nobody really knows when this begins and that psychoanalysis has struggled with this concept. Furthermore, it can only be assumed ‘that if the child is to become a normal human being, his experience must be classified, organised under some biological or psychic process, which sooner or later permits him to represent’ (Rizzuto, 1979, pp. 183–184). Rizzuto thinks that ‘in the first few months of life the child manifests a certain ability to represent’. Whether present at birth or organised postnatally, she considers that the representing capacity follows two regulatory processes: a constant process of dynamic synthesis for self-integration (Numberg, 1931, pp. 123– 140) and the principle of multiple function (Waelder, 1936, pp. 45–62). There is reason to conclude that this ability to represent includes configurations of God. Where the breast replaces the umbilical cord as the primal ‘oral’ cavity, questions of the derivations of postnatal perceptions from their prenatal equivalents as pre-dispositional factors in the formation of God representations arise. The work of Grof and Lake offers some rare and pioneering insights into possible prenatal and perinatal experiences, contributing to the formation of our images of God. Lake, a medical doctor and psychiatrist, was talking about mainly how the foetus feels, on the basis of the evidence of intuition and extensive therapeutic observations of their era. Grof and Lake have contributed to progressing our understanding of this murky area of uterine life. At a conference titled Beginning a Whole Life: The Theology and Science of Nurture and Bonding (July, 2006), Reverend Simon House, in our dialogue, emphasised the following: when seeking truth, urgently needing to choose a way forward, and commit ourselves, we are likely to find ourselves recalling periconceptional, prenatal and perinatal memory. Since these memories are stored in the limbic system, we can only experience them in present time, there being no historic sense at this level. These re-experiences of memory, being so unexpected, are hard for most people to recognise, so they feature rather as dreams. . . . Some ‘hear’ the voice of God, ‘When you were in your mother’s womb I knew you’. Others experience a burning bush, earthquake, wind and fire, a ‘still small voice’ or ‘low murmuring sound’. The central question concerns whether God is recognised in powerful experiences of bliss and paradise, claustrophobia and agoraphobia, agony and ecstasy, as mystical or as primal, just as Klein had indicated in her insightful

Conclusions  195 observations of the emotions of young children. It may seem that images of God are prevalent in all of these representations, bringing forth through our cellular memory truths about ourselves and others, as signs for salvation and healing in the world. It is my opinion, as inspired by Rizzuto, most importantly, we create safe environments in which to offer acceptance of those most private God representations, whatever they may be for the individual. House suggested in private communication that Lake’s great strength was that he insisted that the underlying distress was of primal origin and only its reliving could resolve the chronic distress, and lead to integration and of his time, he was surely one of a very few with such an advanced understanding of memory in relation to cells, especially concerning conception and the first trimester. In relation to God representations, House suggests, I see these as experiences of life, and God is discernible in them, I see such experiences as God representations inasmuch as I know that God’s creative presence is in every cell which manifests in our God representations. This can happen to anyone, not just prophets and saints! (House, private communication, 2006) Kleinian thinking had already pointed to the primitive anxieties of infants not long exited from the womb, with reparation taking place from the birth experience through the parent–infant bond. It appears that Klein’s dual model of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions is enormously helpful in clarifying the emotional content of possible foetal images of deities. Bion dares to explore further and considers in great depth the caesura of birth, progressing ideas that support Freud’s initial portrayal of the continuity of prenatal and postnatal life. It is of course Freud who had spent a lifetime opening up questions about religious experience and consciousness and examined in detail the origins of our representations and images of God through the history of civilisation, which is a profound contribution to our ongoing knowledge of prenatal human existence. A central aspect of the prenatal and perinatal phases of development requiring urgent attention is the degree of trauma that can accompany the perinatal experience, perhaps perpetuated via pejorative cultural approaches towards women who give birth. There appears to be collusion of silence, where the pain and impact of the experience of birth is not acknowledged. Several surveys (e.g. Melzack in 1984) found that the majority of women experience intense pain in childbirth. However, women’s pain through the perinatal phase is rarely acknowledged, which leads to overlooking the pain and possible accompanying trauma of all involved. It seems pertinent to look much more closely at the social and psychological processes in relation to comprehending how these contribute to people’s experiences of birth trauma. It is probable that the impact on the unseen foetus is doubly not acknowledged, raising the question of why this is happening. Raising awareness seems to be a key aspect for change.

196  Conclusions This limited exploration of the vicissitudes of the earliest aspects of the mother–infant relationship, from when the cells are first forming acknowledges the impact of the maternal-paternal-social environment on the foetus at this early stage of development, at the time of personality formation, structuring their God representations. There is, in my opinion, a wealth of evidence to suggest that from conception onwards, God is present at this early developmental stage, which is nurtured throughout the uterine experience and expressed in our later representations of God. Our personality structures begin at conception, paralleling the formation of our God representations. This study leaves ample room for considering the significance of prenatal and perinatal life braided into future religious development, recalling Allport’s words: ‘it is up to modern man, the weaver, to take the strands of science and bind them with values and purpose’ (Allport, 1950, p. 79). It seems that all the evidence so far points to the innateness of the prenatal foetus to imagine God, given what has been passed on genetically and transgenerationally in terms of emotions and psycho-history, manifesting in images of God – similar to internalised racism and other aspects of humanity. With a Freudian and Kleinian interest, the words of Hannah Segal encourage further exploration of prenatal life as a tentative attempt to brave the unknown in prenatal and perinatal life, for others to follow: The psychopathology of the earliest phase of development is, not surprisingly, the most obscure and difficult problem in psychoanalytical research. It is the phase of development the most remote in time from the actual age at which we see our patients, when their earliest experiences are certain to be modified, distorted and confused with later ones. Furthermore, when observing the behaviour of infants, the younger they are the more difficult it is to interpret. Difficulties encountered in the study of the earliest phases in normal development are very much increased in the presence of pathological phenomena; the more disturbed the infant is, the more remote is his experience from the observing adult’s introspective experiences.   Nevertheless the study of this phase is of paramount importance. We know that the fixation points of psychoses lie in the earliest months of infancy. Furthermore, we know that in psychological illness regression occurs, not to a phase of development that was in itself normal, but to one in which pathological disturbances were present, creating blocks to development and constituting fixation points. We are entitled, therefore, to assume, and our clinical experiences have amply confirmed this assumption, that, in so far as the psychotic regresses to the earliest months of infancy, he regresses to a phase in development which already possessed pathological features in his infancy. (Segal, 1964, p. 54)

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Index

Abel, Karl 31 Abraham, Karl 59, 79, 81 Abrahamic folk tales 74 adolescence 8, 68, 103 Adler, Alfred 58, 59 Adorno, Theodor 28, 149 aggression 28 Aitken, Kenneth 119, 121 alcohol 6 Alcoff, Linda 148 Aleshire, Daniel 28 Allen, Nicholas 7, 8 Allport, Gordon 5, 14, 28, 29, 72, 189 alpha function 86, 110, 129, 132 Altemeyer, Bob 28, 29 altruism 29 ambivalence 177 annorexia nervosa 187 annunciation 7 anthropology 6 Antoine de Saint Exupery 23 anxiety 3, 8, 38, 79, 116, 124 – 125, 134, 142, 167, 177 Anygal, Abdras 101 Anzieu, Didier 107, 108, 111, 112, 113 – 114, 117, 123 – 124 archetypes 58 – 59, 154, 162, 180 – 181 Aristotle 49 Atlas 122 – 123 attachment 1, 5, 41, 55, 72, 118, 174, 177, 178, 186 attribution 1, 5, 72, 167 Augustine 15, 16 Auschwitz 162 Bannister, Don 167 Baring, Anne 190 Bartlett, Frederic 101 Basch, Michael 187 Bazan, Ariane 122

Bell, David 51 Benson, Peter 178 Berger, Peter 102 Bergstein, Avner 5, 127 – 130, 134, 186, 187 Bianchini, Barbara 188 Bick, Esther 107, 108, 114, 141 Bion, Wilfred 5, 20, 22, 24, 75, 78, 143, 153, 187, 188 biopsychosocial 1 birth 3, 167, 170 – 171 birth experiences 1, 164 – 174 Black, David 20, 21, 64, 72, 186, 189, 190 Blanco, Matte 15, 133 body-ego 107 Bomford, Rodney 15 Bottpms, Bette 29 Bowlby, John 1, 8, 11, 41, 121, 177 Boyd, Ann 185 Bradiotti, Rosi 147 brain stem 6 Brannigan, Ross 1, 26 breast feeding 8 Britton, Ronald 75 Bromage, Dan 192 Bruschweiler-Stern, Nadia 119 Buber, Martin 72 – 73, 89 – 90, 156 – 157, 162, 174 Buddhism 21, 72, 74, 161 Burchell, Brendan 12, 27, 52 Burger, Peter 14 Burkitt, Ian 27 caesura 5, 84, 90 – 91, 122 – 141, 186, 187, 193, 195 Callaghan, Brendan 1, 4, 10, 71, 77 Campbell, Joseph 160 Caper, Robert 148 Carey, Jeremiah 47 Casement, Patrick 23 Catholic church 154, 178

216 Index Cattell, Raymond 25 Cavalli, Allesandra 90 – 95 cerebellum 33 Chamberlain, William 3 childhood 3, 14, 20, 26, 33, 36, 41, 57, 79, 97, 103, 107, 117, 141 Chodorow, Nancy 96 Christianity 12, 15, 23, 35, 69, 74, 95, 97, 107, 151, 156, 157, 163, 190 Civitarese, Giuseppe 136, 140 Clarke, Isabelle 181 cognitive theory 5, 6 compulsion 48 conception 1, 7 Confucius 15 conscience 69 consciousness 14, 46, 58, 86, 92, 93, 171, 184, 185 construct theory 167 container 123, 135, 173 container-contained 80, 85, 86, 88, 89, 110, 116, 188 Correale, J. 136 countertransference 83, 137 Cox, Murray 60, 155 Cramer, Raymond 118 Crapanzano, Vincent 162 Crapps, Robert 19, 106 – 107 Croq, Marc-Antone 25, 26 culture 30 Cybele 181

disability 27 displacement 177 divine logos 7 Dolto, Francoise 112 – 113 domestic violence 4, 6 Don Juan 62 dreams 26, 30 – 32, 83 – 84, 86, 87, 90, 97, 127, 130, 133, 134, 153, 158, 159, 163, 171, 179, 186, 187 drive 38, 188 DSM-V TR 25

Dallanegra, Laura 188 Davids, Fakhry 186, 189 Day, James 20 death instinct 82, 168 Debray, Regis 111 decathexis 41 defense mechanism 7, 82, 168, 172 – 173, 177 DeGangi, Georgia 119 deglutition 187 deity 41, 44 delusion 5, 10 De Masi, Franco 35, 38, 87 dependency 56, 74 depression 8 depressive position 7, 39, 59, 79, 80, 124, 192, 195 developmental line 156 developmental theory 1, 82, 190, 193, 196 devil 41, 46, 52, 54, 58 The Dialogue Society 181 Dienes, Zoltan 101 Dinnerstein, Dorothy 96

Fairbairn 63, 79, 150, 178 faith 15, 23, 106 feminism 3, 42, 95, 97 Ferenczi, Sandor 107 fertilisation 91 Feuberbach, Ludwig 41 Fiumara, Gemma Corradi 71, 144, 149 – 150 Fodor, Jerry 3, 169, 171 foetus 1, 4, 6, 13, 19, 24, 29, 32 – 35, 38, 47, 78, 110, 115, 124, 135, 178, 183, 187, 189 folk religion 17 Fordham, Michael 153 Fowler, James 5, 8, 14, 15, 104, 175 – 176, 193 Fraiberg, Selma 47, 143 Fransella, Fay 167 Fraser, Colin 12, 27, 52 Freud, Anna 59, 79, 142, 193 Freud, Sigmund 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26, 30 – 32, 34 – 37, 38, 39, 42 – 43, 45 – 62, 95, 107 – 108, 110,

early development 6, 8, 10, 15, 30, 41, 69, 81, 101, 104, 146, 163, 170, 183, 196 Eckhart, Meister 73 Edelman, Gerald 22, 72, 190 ego 9, 21, 28, 51, 54, 55, 63, 69, 79, 108, 115, 146, 167, 168, 175 Ekins, Richard 18, 19 Elkind, David 13 Ellwood, Robert 106 embryo 8, 33 enlightenment 95 epigenesis 174 – 178 epistemology 145, 148, 149, 175 epistemophily 149 Erikson, Erik 5, 8, 11, 14, 60, 64, 104, 174 – 175, 193 Esquirol, Jean-Etienne 25 Exodus 49

Index  217 112 – 113, 124, 150, 160, 164, 165, 167, 178, 179 Fromm, Eric 72 Frosh, Stephen 95 Fuller, Andrew 167 Garcia, Carla 124, 126 gender 28, 30, 106 Genesis 41 Gergen, Kenneth 62 Gerhardt, Sue 6, 190 – 191 Gilligan, Carol 5 Glock, Charles 13, 28 glossolalia 107 Glover, Vivette 193 Gmunder, Paul 5, 9, 14, 15 God 1, 9, 10, 21, 39, 54, 106 Godhead 9 God image 7, 9, 143 God representation 1, 10, 77, 104, 164, 165, 186, 195 Golse, Bernard 5 Gorsuch, Richard 28 Greenspan, Stanley 119 Grof, Stanislav 165, 179 – 181, 194 Grohm, Bernard 71 guilt 39, 61, 69, 172 Guntrip, Harry 52, 60, 79 Haag, Genevieve 115, 116 – 117 Haizmann, Christoph 42 hallucination 38, 84, 92, 133, 134, 187 Hamlet 62 Hardy, Alister 106 Haring, Marilyn 175 Hartmann, Heinz 70 Hay, David 106 Heider, Fritz 167 Hermans, Hubert 16 Hermes 62 Heymans, Geradus 25 Hinduism 151 Hinshelwood, Robert 139 Hogg, Michael 27 Holmes, Helen 3 Holy Spirit 22 Hopper, Earl 97 Horwitz, Elaine 73 House, Simon 195 House of Lords, The 181 Houzel, Suzana 107, 114, 116 – 117 Hubback, Judith 152, 154, 155 – 156 Hug-Hellmuth, Hermine 78 human development 11 humanistic theory 5, 14

human nature 15 Hunsberger, Bruce 28 Hunt, Richard 13 id 63 idealisation 114, 145, 146, 172 identification 54, 57, 139, 148, 180, 185 illusion 10, 64, 147 images of God 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 23, 24, 25, 26, 35, 38, 41 – 42, 60, 107, 119, 162, 163, 166, 187 infant development 8, 20, 34, 70, 150, 167 infantile 39, 79, 111, 167 innate 150 instinctual impulses 38, 187 intergenerational 6, 15 intrauterine 41, 70, 78, 81, 89, 90, 92, 112, 128, 143, 179, 187 introjection 9, 69, 72, 89, 114, 168 in utero 3, 4, 6, 7, 14, 38, 47, 135, 141, 154 Irigaray, Luce 70 Isaacs, Susan 38 Isis 181 Islam 35, 186 Issroff, Judith 157 – 158, 160, 162 I-Thou 174 James, William 106, 181 – 182 Jeeves 101 Jesus 22, 75, 74, 75, 183 – 184, 185 job 154 Jones, Ernest 59 Jones, James 77 Jonte-Pace, Diane 3 Judaism 74, 95, 157 – 158, 161 Julian of Norwich 164 Jung, Carl 5, 14, 58, 97, 152, 153 – 154, 157, 165, 190 Kali 181 Kant, Immanuel 22, 75, 139, 144 Keats, John 140 Kegan, Paul 153 Kelly, George 167 Kierkegaard, Soren 151, 157 King, Morton 13 Kirkpatrick, Lee 72, 177 – 178 Klein, Melanie 6, 7, 11, 35, 38, 39, 59, 63, 78 – 143, 154, 156, 168, 190, 192 Kohlberg, Lawrence 5, 175 Kohut, Heinz 23, 77 Kramer, B.M. 28

218 Index Kraepelin, Emil 25 Kreisler, Harry 110 – 111, 117 Kristeva, Julia 70, 159 Lacan, Jacques 21, 70, 95 Laing, Ronald 163 Lake, Frank 168, 174, 176, 182 – 183, 193, 194 Lazursky, Fedorovic 25 learning theory 5 Lebovici, S 118 LeCron 172 Le Doeuff, Michele 145 – 146 Levinas, Emmanuel 157 LGBTQI+ 45 libido 55, 57, 79, 82, 125 Mahler, Margaret 67 Maiello, Suzanne 85, 88, 98 Mancia, Mauro 133 Maritain, Jacques 50 Marius Victorinus 16 Marsupial space 93 Mary 71, 76, 181 Maslow, Abraham 165 maternal 7 matriarchal 49 Marty, Martin 110 masochism 187 McAfee, Noelle 70 McDargh, John 10 McFague, Sallie 167 McGrath, Patrick 151 McKenna, Christopher 71 McLean, Duncan 6, 10 McNamara, Carolyn 6 Meissner, William 22 – 23, 76 Mellier, Denis 120 Meltzer, Donald 115, 132 Melzack, Ronald 195 memory 5, 119, 182, 187 metaphysics 148 Milakovic, Ivan 187 Mills, Rosemary 129 Minger, Stephen 185 Min-Ha, Trin 149 Mitchell, Juliet 95, 168 – 169 mnemic-image 44 Modell, Arnold 148 models of God 15 monotheistic 12 moral development 14 Moscovici, Serge 30, 53 Moses 45, 50, 62, 69 mother-infant relationship 1, 3, 11, 115

Mott, F. J. 182 Mozart 191 M’Urzan, Michel 133 mysticism 106 – 107, 139, 157, 180 – 182 myth 59, 62 – 63, 147, 151, 152, 162, 163, 180 – 181 Nagera, Maria 63 narcissism 55, 63 narrative envelope 108 Nelson, Glueck, 59 neurological 3, 164 neuroscience 1, 6, 147, 190 – 191 Nhat Hanh, Thich 21, 74 Nieto, Jose 106 Nozick, Robert 146 Nye, Rebecca 14 object-internalisation 52 object-relations theory 14, 19, 21, 38, 43, 59, 70, 183, 185, 187, 189 object representation 10 observation 1 – 3, 4, 38, 89 oceanic feelings 164 O’Daly, Gerard 15, 16 Oedipus 62 Oedipus complex 9, 18, 37, 39, 42, 56, 58, 60, 70, 77, 113, 124, 126, 154, 169 Ogden, Thomas 90 Oser, Fritz 5, 9, 14, 15 Ozorak, Elizabeth 106 Pahnke, Walter 106 Palacio-Espasa, Francisco 118 Paloutzian, Raymond 8 Pannikar, Raimon 21 paranoid-schizoid position 7, 59, 80, 87, 121, 168, 195 parental representations 15, 41, 53 Pargament, Kenneth 72 Parsons, Michael 132 part-object relationships 7, 89 Pascal, Blaise 74, 75 Paton, Herbert 139 Peerbolte, Lietaert 182 Pentecostal 107 Pepper, Stephen 17, 100 perinatal 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 30, 33, 38, 77, 78, 89, 145, 148, 164 – 174, 178, 179 – 185, 189, 195, 196 personality structure 1, 3, 7, 11, 61 – 62, 114, 131, 164, 166, 183 personality types 25 phantasy 5, 6, 78, 80, 84, 154, 169

Index  219 philosophy 15 phylogenesis 47 Piaget, Jean 5, 61, 175 – 176 Pinel, Philippe 25 Piontelli, Alessandra 125, 141 – 142, 144 placenta 130, 131, 175 Plato 10, 185 play 79 Plotinus 15 Pontalis, Jean-Bertrand 157 – 158 Pope Pius IX 7 Popper, Karl 24, 152 postnatal 81 Potter, Elizabeth 148 preconception 83 preconscious 34 pregnancy 4, 8, 190 prejudice 29 prenatal 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 25, 33, 38, 77, 81, 89, 106, 148, 171, 178, 179 – 185, 186 – 191, 195, 196; stress 26; unconscious 85 pre-oedipal complex 4, 39, 55, 56 pre-Socratic 25 preverbal 92 Prichard, James 25 primaeval 47 projection 38, 72, 82, 117, 143, 147, 183, 188 projective identification 38, 109, 140 Prometheus 62 Proudfoot, Wayne 72 psychic-skin 108 psychoanalytic 1, 3, 5, 13, 21, 25, 38, 42, 76 – 78, 97 – 98, 111, 144, 160, 170 psychodynamic 3, 6, 42, 175 psychology 1, 3, 5, 17, 24, 34, 37, 47, 58, 62, 78, 86, 94, 124, 146, 161, 177, 185 psychology of religion 1, 3, 7, 8, 12, 15, 25, 31, 42, 59, 70, 75, 83, 95, 111, 127, 13, 7, 144, 159, 172, 176, 183 psychopathology 7, 8, 110, 155, 169, 170, 180, 196 psychosis 75, 80, 83, 109, 180, 181, 182, 190 psychosocial stages 11, 174 – 175 psychotherapy 20, 103, 109, 150 psychotic and non-psychotic personality 75, 131, 152 race 27, 28, 189 Ramakrishna 76

Rank, Otto 3, 59, 126, 169 Raven, Charles 157 Reich, Wilhelm 14, 103, 106 Reik, Theodor 59 religious belief 1, 41, 58, 104, 150, 155, 162, 188; development 1, 8, 12, 14, 15, 19; experiences 6, 11, 13, 104, 165, 195; fundamentalism 28; identity 27; knowledge 13; movements 21; symbolism 16; unconscious 6 religiousness 13 representation 1, 11, 12 repression 38, 44, 55, 56, 146, 168, 177, 180 Rescher, Nicholas 146 resistance 4, 169 resurrection 157 reverie 97, 129 reversal 30 – 32 Rey, Henri 97 Ribot, Theodule-Armand 25 Ricoeur, Paul 9, 119, 147 Righetti, Pier 192 right-wing authoritarianism 28 Rizzutto, Ana-Maria 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 38, 39, 48, 50, 56, 64, 77, 177, 186, 193 – 194 Robertson, James 177 Robertson, Joyce 177 Robinson, Thomas 163 Rochat, Philippe 119 Roman Catholic 7 Roman philosophy 16 Roussillon, R 122 Rowan, Paul 9 Rubenstein, Roberta 159, 162 Russell, Bertrand 151 sadism 124, 125 sadomasochistic position 87 Saint Ignatius 76 Saint John of the Cross, 89 Saint Theresa of Avila 176 Salome, Lou Andreas 132 Sandler, Joseph 50, 137, 141 Satan 46 Savage, Sara 14 Sayers, Janet 97 Schafer, Stephen 50 Scheman, N. 149 Schneider, Kurt 25 Schreber 42, 183 screen association 41 Segal, Hannah 196

220 Index self-image 71 self-knowledge 15 self-object 187 separation 65, 66 – 67, 81, 137, 142 sexuality 107, 142 Shaver, Phillip 72 shehinah 160 – 162 siblings 41 Siegelman, Ellen 135 skin-ego 107, 108, 111 soul 15 Spilka, Bernard 178 Spillius, Elizabeth 38 spiritual 15, 154 Spiro, Melford 25, 64 Spitz, René 113 splitting 7, 38, 39, 46, 81, 82, 84, 114, 154, 160, 168, 175, 177, 183 Stark, Rodney 13, 28 Stein, Samuel 61, 98, 189 Steiner, John 189 Stern, Daniel 107 – 108, 118 – 121, 147 Streib, Heinx 62, 103 sublimation 54, 56, 57 substance misuse 8 superego 39, 54, 69, 77, 83, 96 symbolism 70, 79, 86, 87, 89, 96, 152, 154, 163, 184, 185 Symmington, Neville 97 Tajfel, Henri 30 Tamayo, Alvaro 11, 61, 71, 72 Tamminen, Kalevi 12, 13, 14 Taylor, David 143 Tertullian 157 theology 15, 60 – 61 Tillich, Paul 13, 156 tobacco 6 totem 43 – 44 transference 39, 60 – 61, 78, 79, 84, 137, 154, 169, 177 transitional object 63, 64, 96, 104, 135, 158; phenomena 60, 159; space 104 trauma 5, 24, 47, 108, 113, 169, 171, 177, 184, 195 Trevarthen, Colwyn 119, 121 Trinity 16, 164 Tronick, Edward 119

trust 12, 13, 60, 174, 176 Turner, Jon 4 Tustin, Frances 115, 116 Ulanov, Ann Belford 71 umbilical cord 38, 92, 93, 120, 158, 194 unconscious 3, 4, 9, 15, 34, 57, 70, 131, 132, 135, 141, 153, 157; collective 166; phantasy 38, 78; representation 38 Underhill, Evelyn 106 uterine 8, 196 Vardy, Peter 61 – 62 Vatican II 7 Vaughan, Graham 27 Vergote, Antoine 12, 17, 61, 71, 72, 104 – 105 Vivona, Jeanne 121 Waelder, Robert 194 Ward, Keith 167 – 168 Wasdell, David 172 – 173, 175, 180 – 181 Watts, Fraser 14 Weil, Simone 183 Weinberg, Katherine 119 Wenegrat, Brant 177 western religions 1 Williams, Rowan 155 Winnicott, Donald 3, 8, 9, 24, 60, 62, 63, 98, 103 – 104, 108 – 109, 137 – 138, 158 – 159, 161 – 162, 169 – 170, 173, 182 Wisdom, John 95 wish-fulfilment 10, 41 Wittgenstein 148 Wolf Man 42, 46, 57, 60 womb 17, 24, 72, 106, 142, 144, 165 Wulff, David 64, 77, 164 Xenophanes 41 Yehovah 158 – 160, 161 – 162 Zen Buddhism 161 Zock, Hetty 8, 15