Sigmund Freud vs. Fulton Sheen

SECULAR psychiatry and traditional religion haven't always co-existed happily. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, regarded religion as a neurosis which was "childish" in the worst sense. Archbishop Fulton Sheen, one of the leading American Catholics of the 20th century, scornfully declared that the "in the whole gamut of modern psychology, there is nothing written on frustrations, fears and anxieties that even remotely compares" with the insights of saintly Christian thinkers like Augustine. Ierotheos Vlachos, a Greek bishop, has insisted in a series of books that his spiritual tradition offers the only real cure for a troubled soul.  

These days, though, the relationship between secular shrinks and old-time faith isn't usually as hostile or mutually exclusive in practice as these battle-cries would suggest. Both in academic scholarship and the everyday experience of people who need help or provide it, the two worlds seem to be overlapping more and more. That may be especially true on the American West Coast where, as a previous Erasmus posting has noted, religious practice (and much else) is often very conventional and highly experimental at the same time.