Continuing Education Course

Hans Loewald argued that Freud failed to recognize that religious life, like love, is capable of evolving into more mature forms. Taking this insight as our point of departure, we will explore faith as a developmental process rather than a fixed set of beliefs. Drawing on Loewald’s writings, developmental theory, religious studies, and clinical experience, we will examine themes of separation and reunion, emergence and return, internalization and differentiation, and their relevance to religious life and psychological growth. We will consider how faith develops, transforms, and sometimes becomes rigid or extreme, exploring both the psychological and cultural functions of religious certainty.

Readings will include selected works by Hans Loewald, developmental theorists such as Erikson, Kohlberg, and Fowler, biographical accounts of faith journeys including Yossi Klein Halevi and Malcolm X, and contemporary writings on belief and doubt as universal dimensions of human experience.

Learning Objectives

Explain how Loewald’s concepts of internalization, ego development, and sublimation inform a psychoanalytic understanding of religious experience.

Describe the developmental movement from authoritarian religiosity toward mature, reflective engagement with—or freedom from—a religious tradition.

Discuss trajectories of faith in autobiographical narratives and clinical practice.