1st Edition

Existential-Psychoanalytic Reflections on Belief and Being Faith Amidst Ruins

By Brent Potter Copyright 2026
182 Pages
by Routledge

182 Pages
by Routledge

182 Pages
by Routledge

Existential-Psychoanalytic Reflections on Belief and Being offers an exploration of faith not as dogma but as a psychoanalytic and existential phenomenon. Drawing from existential phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and theology, Brent Potter examines how individuals navigate despair, loss, and meaning-making today. This book engages deeply with thinkers such as Freud, Jung, Heidegger, Winnicott,... Read more

1. The Ashes of Meaning  2. Fragmented Foundations  3. Introduction: The Destructive Horizon of the Psyche  4. Bion’s Concept of Linking and Its Attack  5. The Collapse of the Modern Self  6. The Return of the Sacred in Ruin s 7. Memory, Myth, and Mourning  8. Winnicott, the True Self, and the Sacred Holding  9. Trauma and the Problem of the Psyche  10. Jung, the Shadow, and the Recovery of Depth  11. Bion, Eigen, and the Language of the Unspeakable  12. Tolkien and the Recovery of the Imaginal  13. The Path through Wreckage: Faith as a Form of Knowing  14. The Ethical Horizon of Ruin: Love, Responsibility, and the Other  15. The Silence between Worlds: When God, the Analyst, and the Self Withdraw  16. Despair as Threshold: Suicidality, Refusal, and the Cry for Meaning  17. The Return of the Symbol: Image, Memory, and the Recovery of the Soul  18. A Vocation from the Ashes: Becoming in a Time without Direction  19. Faith in Action: Toward a Ruined Ethics of Presence  20. The Way through the Ruins: Living Faithfully without Arrival  21. On the Nature of Evil in the Modern Soul  22. Trauma and the Eclipse of Meaning  23. The Lost Art of Lament  24. A Phenomenology of Anger  25. Healing through the Other: Levinas, Love, and the Face  26. The Sacred in the Secular: Finding God beyond the Walls  27. Language, Silence, and the Unspoken: The Limits of Speech and the Birth of Meaning  28. Time, Eternity, and the Slow Work of the Soul  29. The Hidden Wholeness: Fragmentation, Integration, and the Desire for Unity  30. Faith and the Fractured World: Bearing Witness in the Age of Collapse  31. The Analyst and the Altar: Toward a Theology of Depth  32. The Last Word Is Not the End: Toward a Hope beyond the Frame  33. Case Study: Hope’s Orphan  34. Clinical-Theological Commentary: Hope in the Abyss  35. Theodicy and the Shattered Psyche  36. The Human Condition: On Suffering, Meaning, and the Refusal of Despair  37. Conclusion: Notes on Tenderness  38. Where We Might Go: Themes and Hopes for Human Growth and Presence

Biography

Brent Potter is a psychoanalyst and author known for his work at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and faith. With over three decades of clinical experience, his writing explores the depths of human suffering, healing, and meaning through accessible yet profound existential and psychoanalytic inquiry. Potter is recognized for pioneering theological psychoanalysis, integrating existential-phenomenological inquiry with Christian and psychoanalytic traditions.