Miracles of Healing: Psychotherapy and Religion in Twentieth-Century Scotland

Abstract

Gavin Miller's Miracles of Healing: Psychotherapy and Religion in Twentieth-century Scotland serves as a noteworthy example of the recent scholarly interest in the regional histories of psychotherapeutic traditions. The discussions offered by Miller in this monograph speak to important conversations in the medical humanities about the interactions of health care with spirituality; here Miller explores in considerable detail the deployment of Christian theology and New Age spirituality by psychotherapeutic thinkers in the modern Scottish context. The book tracks the efforts of internationally recognized Scottish psychotherapists like R.D. Laing and W.R.D. Fairbairn, as well as lesser known figures like Winifred Rushforth, to incorporate and at times altogether reconceive the methods and goals of psychotherapy in line with Christian (and post-Christian) notions of communion, rebirth, holiness and mystical experience.