Twin Towers Quarterly, Volume 1, Issue Nr. 4 - October 1958

              SOME THOUGHTS REGARDING RELIGION
in words and wholeheartedly
concerned with semantics. (As a
matter of fact, he is so concerned
with the changed and changing
meanings of modern medicine
and especially psychiatry, that he
would prefer a whole new vocabulary and truer terminology
in contrast to the laborious definitions now needed before one
can begin to "talk" diagnosis and
therapy.)
In the same way that word-
meanings, in their roots and derivations, are fundamentally revealing, so too in similar framework are "people-meanings". For
example, as one threads one's way
back through history, primitive
society reveals that both religion
and medicine were administered
by the same person. The ancient
priest-physician was the doctor
of both the spiritual and the medical needs of his people. In our
own national, early culture, the
American Indians' "medicine
man" is the counterpart. It was
inevitable that with increasing
knowledge and the demands of
new techniques and skills, requiring time and study beyond the
capacity of most men just for one
profession, that the two should
become separate pursuits; and
this even more so in the specialized era of our times. But the vestiges remain, and thus the minister is often involved in forms of
psychotheraphy and the psychiatrist is similarly involved in matters of religion, for both deal with
human relations, human problems. As distinct, for example —
and forgive the homely simile —
from the barber-surgeon who in
time separated roles altogether,
and today neither the barber nor
the surgeon deals in the same
area of human need or activity!
The continuing duality of religion and psychiatry is chiefly
due, our writer believes, to the
inquiring mind of the psychiatrist. (Yet the reluctance to wed
the two is chiefly on the part of
the psychiatrist.) The practical
values hoped for are equally
shared, however, both by the
clergy and the psychiatric fraternity. There seems much validity
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