Foreword

Abstract

This book will argue how existing methods of spiritual direction have become therapy-focused to the extent that positive affective experientialism has become one of the main ways in which a relationship with God is measured. It demonstrates that certain forms of spiritual direction have become overly therapeutic in their aims. Furthermore, it shows how Lacanian psychoanalysis, due to a common ground in Christian mystical theology, has many resources which can reinvigorate the kernel of spiritual direction, which concerns exploring the subject’s direct relationship to ‘truth’ and ‘desire’ rather than ‘meaning,’ ‘demand’ and ‘knowledge.’ This book, therefore, utilises the theoretical framework of both Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) and John of the Cross (1542–1591) to give a Juanist-Lacanian intervention in the modern practice of spiritual direction to recover a more radical concept of desire which escapes the problem of ‘positive affective experientialism.’ This interpretation questions many of the foundations on which modern spiritual direction and psychotherapy rest. Throughout, I will demonstrate some of the theoretical similarities and differences between Lacan and John of the Cross, a mystic whose writings on spiritual direction formulate part of the core of the Catholic spiritual tradition, before tentatively outlining the possibilities of a Lacanian and Juanist-informed notion of spiritual direction based on Lacan’s ‘four discourses.’