376 Journal of Religion and Health

the bounty sought. Burkert argues that this is what searching for food felt
like in the primeval days of human evolution when our neural networks were
being laid down, when natural selection favored the kind of creature who
could succeed in this task. The emotion stirred by the hero's quest, then,
follows the neural tracks of the emotions felt during our ancestors' search for
food. Our genes are theirs. Their basic neurological structure is ours.
Burkert supports his claims with abundant data both from the history of
religions, anthropology, and even from research into chimpanzees and related
primate behavior. In the many biological precursors Burkert looks at the
reader will discover that defenses against anxiety can be understood as a
major foundation for religious behavior, especially in connection with ritual
practices. The function of language is explored, too, deepening Burkert's idea
that religions include a kind of closed system of self-referential signs that
create and validate a world-view. Unlike animals that filter out most of their
environment—except perhaps the presence of a predator or a source of food—
humans create their sense of reality. Religion, says the author, is not only a
sort of prearticulate way we understand life; it also creates a sacred space in
a world of chaos. In truly regressive states of great anxiety, Burkert thinks
this kind of evolved "sense creation" becomes a superstitious attempt to find
meaning in "every rustling leaf."
Here is where Burkert's thesis and argument become reductive. Is religion
simply a human way to keep our genes propagating? Is religion all projection
in the Feuerbachian sense? Is religion just a more complex way of manipulat-
ing our fellow humans so that we can survive to reproduce? What is it we do
when we pray? Are we only protecting ourselves from disintegration and anx-
iety? Clearly, Burkert's thesis explains some religious phenomena better than
others. But what of John of the Cross's dark night of the soul? Or Ann and
Barry Ulanov's psychology of prayer as primary speech? Are these simply
more complex elaborations on a basic, biological need to project order in a
universe whose only sounds are the irregularities emanating from the Big
Bang? The reader may wander beyond the neural nets laid down in Burkert's
lectures, while rethinking the dogmatics of what we believe within the biolog-
ical and cultural anthropologies we encounter.
Rick Carter, M.Div.
Harlem Family Institute, New York City
Pastoral Associate
St. Ann and St. George Catholic Church, New York City

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION AND COPING: THEORY, RESEARCH, PRAC-

TICE. By Kenneth L. Pargament. 548 pp. New York: Guilford Press, 1997, $60.
The religious beliefs and experiences of those seeking counseling play a wide
variety of roles in a person's life. Psychological theories about religious beliefs
and experiences tend to emphasize one role over others, as either positive or
Reviews: Books 377

negative, thus yielding a partial picture at best. By looking at these issues

from the perspective of coping processes, Pargament is able to examine the
function of religious beliefs and experiences in the round, subtly demonstrat-
ing how such beliefs and experiences can be central to ego-integration in
times of high stress, personal and social crisis, and tragedy. It is through such
beliefs and experiences that otherwise random tragedies and events are re-
woven and reinterpreted to include a deeply human need for personal, social,
and cosmic significance.
This thoroughly researched and well-written work should be on the reading
list of every psychotherapist and counselor. It may well become a founda-
tional book for dealing with religion and religious issues in the therapeutic
context. Drawing on his own research and an impressive array of other
studies, Pargament extends his discussion of religion and coping into such
questions as why and when people turn to religion for help, and why they so
often turn away. Religious beliefs and experience are multi-faceted and clear
patterns are difficult to discern. Yet, enough patterns do emerge so that Par-
gament is able in his concluding chapters to present very grounded and use-
ful advice for how religious beliefs and experience could be better utilized in
counseling situations, not only as immediate coping devices for current prob-
lems, but also as spurs to further psychological and emotional growth.

Daniel Liechty, Ph.D., D. Min, ACSW

Psychosocial Coordinator
Montgomery Hospital Hospice Program
Havertown, PA

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CATHOLICISM. Ed. by Benjamin B. Wolman. 219 pp.

Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995, $25.

In 1914 Freud wrote: "Vienna has done everything possible ... to deny her
share in the origin of psycho-analysis. In no other place is the hostile indif-
ference of the learned and educated section of the population so evident to the
analyst as in Vienna." Freud was addressing the hostile reception that psy-
choanalysis was experiencing from the Catholic population, especially the
clergy and theologians of Catholic Austria. This attitude developed into the
Vatican's defensiveness and caution expressed in a 1961 Monitum issued by
the Holy Office regarding psychoanalysis.
Benjamin Wolman has made a career as an editor of collections of essays on
psychoanalysis and psychology. In this brief volume he makes a significant
effort to heal the historic animosity between Freud and psychoanalysis on
one side and Catholicism on the other. He presents a collection of nine essays
by theologians, psychoanalysts, and students of this controversy. The essays
cover a broad spectrum, including summaries of the debate and discussions of
Freud's attitude regarding religion, as well as essays on Catholic spirituality
and morality seen from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis. There is,