The Mind of Christ and a Psychoanalytic Mind (V)

I am about half-way through this fascinating and learned book by the British scholar Peter Tyler, The Pursuit of the Soul: Psychoanalysis, Soul-making and the Christian Tradition. We've seen, as I have been noting on here in this series, an uptick in books re-engaging both theology and psychoanalytic thought recently, not all of them very good. But this book is very good, and those in the Christian East must not be put off by the author's modesty about not engaging the Christian East as much as he would like, for there is plenty in this book that engages the thought of both Origen and Evagrius, including the latter's well-known discussion about the logismoi.

I have already sent questions to the author for a blog interview, to which he has kindly agreed. So we can look forward to hearing from Tyler directly in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, for anyone with interests in how the language, concept, and interpretation of "the soul" has fared not just in patristic but also modern psychology--especially Freud and Adler--and not just theology but also philosophy, there is much good food in this book to chew on.