Full text
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| Author(s): |
Paulo Henrique Curi Dias
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Psicologia (IP/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2015-08-10 |
| Examining board members: |
Gilberto Safra;
Kleber Duarte Barretto;
Walter Gustavo Moure
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| Advisor: | Gilberto Safra |
| Abstract | |
This study aims at questioning some of the epistemological basis of clinical psychology concerning mystical experience and spirituality. Focusing on the discussion between Freud and French author Romain Rolland regarding the oceanic feeling (based on their letters exchange from 1927 to 1931), we will question the comprehension of the ontological nature of the feeling of union with the universe (as described by Rolland) through a twofold bias: either as a by-product of psychological dynamics (inherently pathological or not) or as an ontological experience of alterity, better comprehended through a non-psychological approach that investigates its inner meaning regarding the human condition as such. In the latter perspective, we will be accompanied by the work of Brazilian author Gilberto Safra, whose clinical writings are concerned with an anthropological conception that approaches the human being in its own complexity, avoiding possible psychological reductionism of themes and issues that relate to other areas of experience, such as religiosity and spirituality. As the main axis of this discussion, we will utilize the life of Indian mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836-1886) to illustrate these two different ways of approaching spiritual experience. Ramakrishna has been himself one of the main sources of Rollands constructions on religiosity, leading the French author to write one of his main biographies (The life of Ramakrishna, 1929), which had an important impact on Western reception of Eastern spiritual conceptions. Contemplating examples from Ramakrishnas life through a phenomenological-hermeneutical reading of Rollands work (that range from his childhood to his period as a famous spiritual master in India), we will present, in each situation, different perspectives from authors that either consider Ramakrishna exclusively on a psychological-psychopathological note or through a perception of a spiritual dimension non-reducible to psychical dynamics inherent to his life and teachings. Within this framework, we have come to realize that there are inherent limitations on a solely psychological reading of mystical experience, as well as a limitation on an exclusively spiritual approach. Therefore, by presenting such discussion we intend to rethink the position mysticism and spirituality occupy in clinical practice, both to reformulate their understanding in psychotherapy and as a way of enlarging the anthropological conceptions inherent to clinical understanding of the human condition (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 13/14869-9 - Ramakrishna: a clinical investigation of mystical experience |
| Grantee: | Paulo Henrique Curi Dias |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |