Religion and Psychoanalysis

Final Exam

The final exam will include definition, short answer and medium-length essay questions. It will draw on the case study materials used thus far, asking you to apply major concepts to that material. The exam will cover all that we have studied since the midterm and will include comparative questions that require you to draw on the course materials comprehensively (including case studies). In your preparations, you might want to pay close attention to the major concepts and the topics for comparison, listed below.

Major concepts and topics that we covered after the midterm:

· Jung on dreams

· The collective unconscious

· Types

· Archetypes

· Anima, animus, Self, wise old man.

· Individuation

· Myths of the hero

· Jung’s interpretation of Christ

· False self disorder

· Transitional space, transitional objects, and transitional phenomena

· Autistic, illusionistic and realistic worlds

Major concepts and topics that we covered before the midterm:

· The dynamic unconscious

· Defense

· Free Association

· Transference and counter transference

· The first topography

· Repression and sublimation

· Manifest and latent content

· Symbolization and the dream work (condensation, displacement)

· Libido

· Neurosis

· Symptoms as compromise formations

· The structural model (id, ego, superego)

· Oedipus conflict and its resolution

· Screen memories

· Life and Death instincts

· The paranoid-schizoid position

· The depressive position

Comparative topics:

· Human nature

· Human development

· The psychological functions of religious life

· The psychological sources of the God image

· Psychoanalysis and the crucifixion

· Psychoanalytic evaluations of religious life as healthy or unhealthy?

· The interpretation of dreams in comparison to the interpretation of myths

· The imagination in religious life