The mystical vocation of psychoanalysis

Abstract

This study intends to reflect on psychoanalysis as a clinical practice essentially compatible with certain characteristics of mystical phenomena, which enables it to clinically approach them. We start the text introducing our understanding of mysticism as a phenomenon of alterity, rather than a subjective production of the human being. Through such idea, we approach three characteristics of psychoanalysis that make it relevant for a clinic of the mystical phenomena: its apophatic method, its practice of deconstructing the identity of the “I” and its anthropological inscription between the universal and the particular. Thus, we finalize the study,  thinking about the possible clinical function of psychoanalysis when approaching the mystic, based on the idea of spiritual illness.