Obituary of William W. Meissner

Dr. Ana-Maria Rizzuto has kindly permitted me to post this obituary of W. W. Meissner, a prolific writer who worked to understand religious experience through the tools of psychoanalysis.

In Memoriam: Tribute to William W. Meissner, S.J., M.D.
1931 - 2010
by Ana-Maria Rizzuto, M.D.
The Psychoanalytic Institute of New England, East

It is a great honor to be asked to celebrate the life and the scholarly contributions of William W. Meissner. He was a very prominent psychoanalytic theoretician and clinician and a member of the Society of Jesus, a priest and scholar in several fields. His commitment to these two vocations as a Jesuit and as a psychoanalyst converged in his love of knowledge, his dedication to investigate every aspect of the mind and all varieties of human experience. He left few of those experiences untouched. Dr. Meissner contributed a significant literature to the interface between religion, religious experience, and psychoanalysis expanding and clarifying Freud’s understanding of the field. His book Psychoanalysis an Religious Experience (1984) is a classic in the filed. As a psychoanalyst, he also explored the historical perspectives of the origin of Christianity, cultic elements, Messianism and Sabbatianism, the Messiah and the Millennium and many other related issues. He wrote about the psychology of grace and contributed many papers to theological and philosophical journals. His Ignatius of Loyola:The Psychology of a Saint" (1992), focusing on the psychological understanding of the dynamic factors involved in the religious experiences of a remarkable man and saint, is a masterpiece.

His contributions to psychoanalytic theory are as numerous as they are significant. He investigated and clarified many issues of theory and technique. No one knows exactly how many papers he published, but I managed to count over three hundred. The same is true about his books. I believe he wrote 25 books.

Dr. Meissner’s clarity of thought in addressing anew so many theoretical and technical issues in psychoanalysis and the psychology of religion brought him to the rank of one of the greatest theoreticians of contemporary psychoanalysis, a "true luminary," as Drs. Massicote and Bursztajn said in their obituary for the Public Information Committee of the International Psychoanalytic Association.

He received the Oskar Pfister Award from the American Psychiatric Association in 1989 and the William C. Bier Award from the American Psychological Association in 2001 as a recognition of his outstanding contributions to the psychology of religion.

His many contributions to psychoanalysis will remain a source of significant learning for new generations of psychoanalysts, for the scholars of psychoanalytic theory, and for those interested in understanding of the psychodynamics of religious processes in the future.

Ana-Maria Rizzuto, M.D.
10 Rogers Street # 321
Cambridge, MA 02142 1248

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I would like to thank Dr. Rizzuto for providing this obituary of Dr. Meissner, who was a prolific writer and important psychoanalytic theorist. His most recent book was Time, Self, and Psychoanalysis but an important theme in his work focused on the psychology of religion. The following is a list of some of the books addressing religion.

To the Greater Glory: A Psychological Study of Ignatian Spirituality (Marquette Studies in Theology)


The Cultic Origins of Christianity: The Dynamics of Religious Development (Theology)


Thy Kingdom Come


Vincent's Religion: The Search for Meaning (Reshaping of Psychoanalysis)


Life and Faith: Psychological Perspectives on Religious Experience


Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint


Psychoanalysis and Religious Experience

W. W. Meissner

Psychoanalyst W. W. Meissner died recently. He worked extensively with the psychology of religion. An obituary is located at The Boston Globe. I hope to locate someone who is in a position to write an obituary for this site. If you would like to do this, please contact me. (Thanks, Michael Donahue, for letting me know about this news.)

Shrink Rap Radio with Paul Moore

Shrink Rap Radio is one of the podcasts I listen to regularly. David Van Nuys interviews a variety of guests with interests in clinical and counseling issues. In fact, you can now obtain CE credits by listening to his show.

His most recent interview features Paul Moore, a psychoanalyst in Ireland, and touches on issues relevant to psychology of religion. You can listen to it online at that link, or through iTunes. Moore discusses, among other things, his perception of the problems that the Catholic Church is experiencing, and some ways that religion and psychotherapy are similar. For people experienced with these topics it will present nothing new, but if you have not read much on these themes it may be worth listening to.

More from Mario Aletti

Earlier this year Professor Mario Aletti kindly sent me three books he and his colleagues edited. I posted a summary of the first of those books in March, but it has taken some time to finish work on the other two. They now are available on my website, where you can read abstracts of the chapters.

Religious Identity, Pluralism and Fundamentalism is a compilation of 36 articles on this common theme. Religion: Culture, Mind and Brain includes a wide range of pespectives on religion, from neuroscience to psychoanalysis. Particularly noteworthy articles by Belzen, Antonietti, Reich, Aletti, and De Paiva appear in both English and Italian translations. It is well worth reading, as these abstracts show.

Psychology of Religion in Italy

A series edited by Mario Aletti, Germano Rossi, Daniella Fagnani, and Fabio De Nardi

You may not be aware that there is a very active group of scholars studying the psychology of religion in Italy. Some of their work has been documented in a series edited by Mario Aletti and his colleagues, and published by the Centro Scientifico Editore. The books grew from conferences of the Italian Society for the Psychology of Religion. Nearly all of the chapters (papers) begin with an abstract written in English. Many of them have several chapters written entirely in English, as well, so that they can reach a broader audience. During the coming few days I will offer some highlights from each of the books.

L'illusione religiosa: rive e derive

a cura di Mario Aletti & Germano Rossi, 2001

One of the highlights of this book is "Vicissitudes of Self, Object, and God Representations During Psychoanalysis," by Ana-Maria Rizzuto. I found her descriptions of Mr. T, "the man who wanted to be God", and Ms. O, "the atheist in the hands of 'the powers'" to be fascinating. I am not a psychoanalyst, but I understand the psychoanalytic framework better through this chapter.

Another chapter I found interesting was that by Marta Ferrero, "The Idea of God among Psychology Faculty Students." Ferrero reports on a survey about belief in God among psychology students. Whereas most of the students (70%) did not deny the existence of a Superior Being, Ferrero found that only 5% shared a Christian concept of God. The vast majority of students also reported that psychology and faith are not in conflict with each other, but only if the two are separated. The abstract paints a picture of psychology students who are less inclined toward religion than are other students in Italy, a finding that mirrors data I have seen concerning psychology in the US.

Antoine Vergote's chapter "A Key Conflict Questioning Religion and its Psychology" is another worth your attention. He addresses issues related to religious identity and pluralism. What happens to identity when a religion encounters pluralistic trends? Vergote suggests that conflicts are inevitable, perhaps even desirable, and that "... we wish the dead person, not ourselves, to rest in peace." With sources ranging from Plato to Rokeach, he concludes that psychological factors are present when we encounter dogmatism in religion. Vergote favors an "inner sectarian retirement", in which conflict is dealt with by affiliating with other dogmatic religious people who can act as a form of support network, but who do not promote interlant, exclusivistic commitments. Dogmatism goes askew when it features an "intolerant commitment to promote one's belief or to even repress the expressiosn of other beliefs and ideas" (p. 288).

Although many of the papers in this book are psychoanalytic in their orientation toward religion, Germano Rossi's paper, "Religious Knowledge on 15-18 Year Old Italian Catholic Students: A comparison after 10 years," presents a statistical comparison of teenagers' knowledge of religion. The comparisons are too extensive to fully cover here, but among the findings is a reduction in the difference between male and female students in terms of their knowledge of religion. This occurs in the context of an overall decline in religious knowledge among the teens he sampled. The decline appears to be mitigated by religious involvement; those who prayed or attended Sunday mass knew more about religion than those who did not. Males whose parents were more educated also had greater knowledge of religion.

Finally, Mario Aletti's paper on "Teaching Psychology of Religion in Italy" offered great insight to psychologists interested in religion. Aletti began by trying to survey Spain, Greece and Italy, but encountered difficulty extending the investigation to Spain and Greece. (As a result, he concludes that the psychology of religion does not have much of a presence in those countries.) In Italy there are more courses taught, and the problems he cites may resonate with faculty in other countries. In state universities, the psychology of religion is considered a very new course -- if it is offered at all. When it appears, it is more likely to be in seminar form, often in the context of other courses such as social or developmental psychology. In Pontifical Universities and Faculties, there is a somewhat better situation, with the psychology of religion or pastoral psychology more likely to be offered. Still, it is a discipline on the margins of academia. He characterizes the courses as leaning toward psychodynamic, developmental, or social-cognitive, depending on the faculty teaching them. He also notes the importance of the Italian Society of Psychology of Religion in facilitating scholarship, including student research. Aletti concludes with words that many psychologists in other countries could voice: "The real difficulty, however, lies in convincing the institutions -- both academic and ecclesiastical -- that the Psychology of religion is essentially a psychological discipline, and that its object is psychological in nature, not primarily religious" (p. 317).

These books are worth adding to your library if you are a serious researcher in the area. You can find them directly on the Centro Scientifico Editore website (search "religiosa"), or you might be able to find them through Fetchbook, which aggregates new and used books in North America. (Supplies at Fetchbook vary, of course, as inventories at book sellers change.)

In the coming days I will summarize more books from this series. Thanks to Prof. Aletti for offering them to me so that I can relay the highlights to you.

Discomfort and Love

Professor and Brazilian Psychoanalyst Dr. Jorge Amaro has written Discomfort and Love, an essay examining spirituality and psychoanalysis. I think that you will find it thought-provoking, even if you do not come at the psychology of religion from a psychoanalytic perspective.

Thank you, Dr. Amaro!

God Representations in Therapy: Is Three A Crowd?

Mariam Cohen asked me to pass word of her project with Moshe Halevi Spero. They are editing a special issue of
The Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry, to address the question of God Representations in Psychoanalytic Therapy. Manuscript submission deadline is April 1, 2008. For more information, go to http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/psychology/mn/spero_cohen.rtf.