Blind Man Sees

Neville Symington is a member of the British and Australian Psychoanalytical Societies. His books include 'Narcissism: A New Theory', 'The Making of a Psychotherapist', 'A Pattern of Madness' and 'Becoming a Person Through Psychoanalysis' (all published by Karnac Books); 'The Analytic Experience', and 'The Clinical Thinking of Wilfred Bion' (written with Joan Symington). He has a private psychoanalytic practice in New South Wales, Australia.

• Introduction , Freud's awakening , Was Freud influenced by Brentano? , An exegesis of conscience in the works of Freud , Freud's truth , The relation between the determinist and the religious model of the mind , The unconscious as an amoral construction , Religion and science in psychoanalysis , The nature of reality , Religion and consciousness , The true god and the false god , Natural spirituality , An enquiry into the concepts of soul and psyche , Religion and spirituality , Is psychoanalysis a religion? , The murder of Laius , Psychoanalysis and human freedom , Failure of internalization in modern culture , Anti-Semitism: another perspective

Symington examines the various stages of the journey made by a religious leader from "blindness" to "founding an institution" and finds counterparts in the development of psychoanalysis while drawing examples from Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. He invites the reader on a journey with him - to examine the human mind, our society, the process of psychoanalysis, science and philosophy. He successfully uses examples from the consulting room to illuminate his arguments. Symington's honest accounts of the search for answers relevant to all of us encourage the reader to think further and deeper than he or she had intended. 'The psychoanalyst examines scientifically the emotional pattern in himself and the other. He can only do this to the extent to which he is self-aware. As what is he is exercising is the inner pattern of his and the other's relationship, then, according to my definition, what he is engaged in is a religious activity. As he is doing it in an orderly way about a determinate subject-matter, he is acting as a scientist. Hence my claim that psychoanalysis is a scientific religion.' - Neville Symington, from the Introduction