Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 3: 221–241 (2006) Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd DOI: 10.1002/aps International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies Int. J. Appl. Psychoanal. Studies 3(3): 221–241 (2006) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/aps.107 Being and Potential: Psychoanalytic Clinicians’ Concepts of God JANETTE GRAETZ SIMMONDS ABSTRACT Psychoanalytic clinicians interested in spiritual matters were interviewed concerning their concepts of God. For most of the 25 participants in this research, in which two methods of qualitative analysis were employed, the notion of God was problematic but was not rejected per se. Participants reported personal concepts of a force or energy which is immanent, and for most, also transcendent, having evolutionary and moral scope, to do with awareness of the cosmos and levels of consciousness, and beyond the usual limitations of understanding. These non-anthropomorphic, non-image bound concepts were also shared by those who had a commitment to religious orga- nizations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: force, God, psychoanalysis, qualitative, spirituality INTRODUCTION Winnicott famously posed the question, “If God is a projection, even so is there a God who created me in such a way that I have the material in me for such a projection? . . . The important thing for me must be, have I got it in me to have the idea of God? . . . if not, then the idea of God is of no value to me (except superstitiously)” (Winnicott, 1968/1989: 205). Winnicott emphasized here, as always, the particular nature of what may be perceived, our individual capacity to look at something afresh, and the nature of our being which generates such wondering. He specifically related the concept of God to the nature of the transitional object, observing that the situation with the baby and the transitional object, “although the object was there to be found it was created,” is similar to the situation regarding the existence of God, refer- ring to the limerick by the English scholar and priest, Ronald Knox (1888–1957, in Reed, 1924):