Almost 50 years ago, Paul Tillich said that “it is possible
to reject the attempts of some theologians and some psychologists to divide
these two realms [theology and psychoanalysis] carefully and give to each of
them a special sphere … The relationship is not one of existing alongside each
other; it is a relationship of mutual interpenetration” (Theology of Culture,
114). In his seminal work, Theology,
Psychoanalysis & Trauma, Marcus Pound gives a salient introduction to
Postmodern linguistic theory and Psychoanalysis in the work of Jacques Lacan while
exploring this “relationship of mutual interpenetration” with theology. In
fact, Pound argues that “psychoanalysis is already a theology and … theology [is]
already psychology” (5).

Using Soren Kierkegaard as his theological dialogue partner,
Pound examines the core works and themes in Lacan and reads them through
the core works and themes of Kierkegaard, offering an alternative reading of “the
received view of [Lacan’s] work, showing that it was Kierkegaard, not Freud,
who was his predecessor” (171). Pound
also does the reverse and “repeats” Kierkegaard through Lacan showing that “Lacan
is the true heir of theology and Kierkegaard of psychoanalysis” (17). For
Pound, the point of intervention for the two is the agency of trauma which “helps
the communicant assume his or her desire” (153). According to Pound, the
Lacanian “assumption of desire” and the Kierkegaardian “moment” can best be appropriated
in the Eucharist—specifically the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation—“the
point at which, after analysis, the analysand is delivered over to doxology” (174).
Thus, Pound argues, that the liturgy of the Sacred Mass is, in fact, a “theological
therapeutic.”

This book is an excellent introduction to Lacan and
Kierkegaard which offers hope and healing to the endless striving of psychoanalysis
with the abundance and goodness that Christ brings into life. The difference
here, as Pound suggests, is that Lacan approaches desire in a completely
different way than Christianity. Lacan speaks of desire as a lack which “is always
desire for a presence that never was and into which all returns” whereas because
of Christ, Christianity affirms the inverse, that “divine plentitude does not
overcome lack but reintroduces it, only now it is perceived from the
perspective of plenitude rather than privation” (168). Thus the goal of
analysis and the goal of worship are at odds and Pound performs a eucharistic intervention
on psychoanalysis pointing it “to the Church in its doctrinal, social, and
performative functions to continually recreate through the Sacred Mass the
conditions for the assumption of desire” (170).

Pound’s book brings theology back to the forefront of the
disciplines, demonstrating that contemporary theology can make good on the hopes
of psychoanalysis and liberates it from any sort of determinism. Pound said in
a recent interview that this hope comes through the traumatic understanding of the Eucharist where the
participant is “called to identify with both the victim’s death and its
perpetrators; but also because it invites us to enjoy in that very suffering,
precisely through recognising that in the final analysis suffering is of itself
meaningless. This is not to abandon one to the despair of nihilism al la
Lacan. It is simply to recognise and reciprocate love.” This book furthers the
dialogue between psychoanalysis and theology allowing both disciplines to
benefit from each other’s resources and critique. Pound just scratches the
surface with his reflection on the Eucharistic implications of his study. Many
more themes in theology are awaiting this kind of creative ‘analysis’ to cast
the message of the Gospel in a contemporary key.