Winifred Rushforth and the Davidson Clinic for Medical Psychotherapy

A case study in the overlap of psychotherapy, Christianity and New Age spirituality

Bibliographic Data

ID19445685
AuthorsGreg Miller (0000-0002-3144-8233, University of Glasgow, corresponding author), Gavin Miller
Year2015
Volume26
Issue3
Pages303-317
Publication date2015-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0957-154X • E-ISSN: 1740-2360
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0957154x14554374
PMID26254129
OpenAlexW2105806357
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited15

The activities of both Winifred Rushforth (1885–1983), and the Edinburgh-based Davidson Clinic for Medical Psychotherapy (1941–73) which she directed, exemplify and elaborate the overlap in Scotland of religious discourses and practices with psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Even as post-war secularization began to affect Scottish culture and society, Rushforth and the Davidson Clinic attempted to renew the biographical discourses of Christianity using the idioms and practices of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Furthermore, alongside these Christian-inflected activities, Rushforth promoted a psychoanalytically-informed New Age spirituality. This parallel mode of belief and practice drew on Christian life-narrative patterns, preserving them within psychoanalytic forms grafted onto a vitalist worldview informed by the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Art · Christianity · Literature · Narrative · Psychoanalysis · Psychoanalytic theory · Psychotherapist · Religious experience · Spirituality · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Medicine · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Religious studies

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