Existential crises in two religious patients: vicissitudes of faith and the emergence of the true self
Keywords:
Loss of faith, Ecstasy, True Self, Reverential AweAbstract
The authors present two clinical cases involving an existential crisis which led the patients to lose what had been the foundation in their life, their faith. Although the therapeutic settings differ, in both cases the loss of faith becomes a fracture which seems to generate an intense engagement of the body: paradoxically, it induces an experience of ecstasy of the kind that has traditionally reported. In both cases the authors believe that the notable somatic involvement may be correlated to a potentially contact with the true Self. There are some further considerations about the phenomenology and metapsychology of awe.
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