Ways of experiencing atheism: changes in both personality organization and God image in the course of psychodynamically oriented individual psychotherapy for a patient with an initial diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder (2022)
This article discusses the process of changes to a patient’s personality organization and God image in the course of long-term psychodynamically oriented psychotherapy. The patient remained a declared atheist, and so these changes did not involve his general views; rather, they only concerned his manner of experiencing his own and others’ faith. The patient’s personality organization and God image were examined twice: at the beginning of psychotherapy and after two years of contact. Those assessments used the personality organization diagnostic form and Ana-Maria Rizzuto’s God/Family Questionnaire. The process of changes in the God image and changes in approach to religious life is considered from the point of view of modern psychoanalysis, and especially from the perspective of object relations theories. Tis article addresses the maturity of diﬀerent religious declarations and the relation to mental health from both a Freudian and a more modern psychoanalytical perspective.
Keywords: psychologia