Title: The enigma of the oceanic feeling
First published: 1999
Description: "This book examines the history of the psychoanalytic theory of mysticism, starting with the seminal correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Romain Rolland concerning the concept of the "oceanic feeling." Providing a corrective to current views that frame psychoanalysis as pathologizing mysticism, Parsons reveals the existence of three models entertained by Freud and Rolland: the classical-reductive, ego-adaptive, and transformational (which allows for a transcendent dimension to mysticism).

Then, reconstructing Rolland's personal mysticism (the "oceanic feeling") through texts and letters unavailable to Freud, Parsons argues that Freud misinterpreted the oceanic feeling."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Psychoanalysis and religion, Freud, sigmund, 1856-1939
People: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
LC classification: BF175.4.R44 P37 1999