Psychoanalysis and Catholicism

Extract

A point that frequently strikes the outsider about psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts is its inaccessibility to logical argument. This is not said by way of reproach, but as a statement of fact. Whenever a person raises a difficulty about psychoanalysis he is countered with the remark ‘you are putting up a resistance,’ and treated as the analyst treats the patient (making difficulties).

Now, it struck me, that something similar occurs in regard to Catholicism, by which I mean, not only or merely the official teaching of the Church, but also all those currents of thought, feeling, and emotion which go to make up the life of Catholicism, a life which at times becomes so exuberant as to be considered detrimental to the truth and unity of the Church, and so has to be pruned. (As, for instance, in the outbursts of religious enthusiasm, devotions, cults, etc., which, only after careful examination are tolerated or permitted, and finally perhaps incorporated officially .... others get suppressed, but often linger on).