Divine Therapy

After graduating from Cambridge, Janet Sayers qualified as a Clinical Psychologists from the Tavistock Clinic. She is now Professor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the University of Kent, where she gained a PhD in Psychology, and also works as a therapist. Sayers is the author of six books, editor of three, and has contributed numerous essays and articles to the psychotherapeutic literature.

• Introduction ; 1. William James: Divided Self ; 2. Sigmund Freud: Freeing Love ; 3. Carl Jung: Transforming Libido ; 4. Simone Weil: Awaiting God ; 5. Erich Fromm: Humanist Buddhism ; 6. Paul Tillich: Being Accepted ; 7. Viktor Frankl: Logotherapy ; 8. Melanie Klein: Healing Grace ; 9. Marion Milner: Recovering Mysticism ; 10. Donald Winnicott: Transitional Transcendence ; 11. Wilfred Bion: Transforming At-one-ment ; 12. Julia Kristeva: Mothering Holiness ; Conclusion

In writing Divine Therapy Sayers does a great service for psychoanalytic scholarship. Putting her focus on love, mysticism and religion, she requires us to look beyond the political battlefield that we call psychoanalytic theory and technique. She asks us to think about the ways in which passions can be transformative and enlivening in an individual's professional life, regardless of one's psychoanaltic allegiance. In the 1980's, singer Tina Turner soulfully belted out: "What's love got to do with it?" After reading Diving Therapy, I believe the answer to this question is: everything; at least when it comes to the work and well being of a psychoanalyst.