Between Christianity and secularity

Counselling and psychotherapy provision in Scotland

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4773604
AutoresLiz Bondi (University of Edinburgh, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen14
Número6
Páginas668-688
Fecha de publicación2013-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2013.802369
OpenAlexW2033845573
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas63

Counselling and psychotherapy services have become increasingly prominent within modern urban welfare. Although often perceived to be intrinsically secular, since psychoanalytic thinking and practice arrived in Scotland it has been shaped by the Christian culture it encountered. Early Scottish-born contributors to psychoanalytic theory, including Ian Suttie and W.R.D. Fairbairn, reframed Freud's ideas in ways that incorporated Scottish Presbyterian understandings of what it is to be human. A form of Christian psychotherapy supported by the Presbyterian, Catholic and Episcopal churches was being offered to members of the general public by the 1940s. Counselling provision expanded rapidly from the mid-1960s, with active church involvement. Tracing these developments via documentary sources and oral history testimony, I argue that counselling and psychotherapy in Scotland have never been secular. I illustrate evidence for 'postsecular rapprochment' operating since the 1960s, characterised by faith-by-praxis and collaboration between those with and without religious faith. I explore the interplay between religious and secular spaces in the development of this element of modern urban welfare

Praxis · Secularity · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology