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Affect, Religion, and Unconscious Processes
Author(s) -
Hill Peter C.,
Hood, Jr. Ralph W.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6494.00081
Subject(s) - psychology , unconscious mind , experiential learning , object relations theory , pleasure , psychoanalytic theory , perspective (graphical) , affect (linguistics) , object (grammar) , cognition , focus (optics) , illusion , social psychology , personality , epistemology , psychoanalysis , cognitive psychology , psychotherapist , philosophy , linguistics , physics , mathematics education , communication , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , computer science , optics
After a brief review of the central and organizing role of affect in both personality and religion, the bridge between psychoanalytic and contemporary cognitive perspectives of the unconscious is investigated, with a special focus on an affectively based experiential component as outlined in Epstein’s (1973, 1993, 1994) Cognitive‐Experiential Self‐Theory (CEST) model. Four basic needs postulated by CEST are applied to religious experience: the need to manage pleasure and pain, the need for a coherent conceptual system, the need for self‐esteem, and the need for relatedness. The last of these four needs is explored in detail from an object relations perspective that expands Freud’s religion‐as‐illusion concept. It is maintained that an object relations approach contributes much to an understanding of a process‐oriented spirituality, though it cannot appropriately speak to religious truth claims.