Rudolf Allers’ conception of neurosis as a metaphysical conflict

Introduction

In 1879, Pope Leo XIII wrote his Encyclical letter Aeterni Patris, in which he defended the return to the study of St Thomas Aquinas’s works. This pontifical exhortation meant that many Catholic intellectuals and scientists have strived to carry out an integration between St Thomas’s philosophia perennis and the findings of their respective sciences. As described by Kugelmann (2011: 38), Neoscholasticism was a return to classical Greek philosophy, such as Aristotelian thought, which was perfected by medieval Catholic philosophers such as St Thomas Aquinas; it had two main goals: to integrate the new sciences with the philosophia perennis and to protect the teachings of the Catholic Church, especially as they were formulated by Saint Thomas Aquinas, from the negative effects of science. In relation to this, from the last decade of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century, both Neoscholatic philosophy and psychology became quite important in the USA ¹ (Gillespie, 2001; Kugelmann, 2005; Ross, 1992; Valbuena, 1955), South America (Oviedo, 2012; Piñeda, 2005) and Western Europe (Carpintero, 1984; Castro, Lafuente and Jiménez, 2009).

Several Neoscholastics, including Mercier and Brennan (for a review, see Kugelmann, 2011), reported that the scientific psychology of the late nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century was a modernist one. For these authors, only a psychology founded on an adequate metaphysics could be correct. Neoscholastic psychology seemed to be the way to reconcile a secular science and the Church’s teachings, especially regarding the soul and morals (Gieryn, 1983; Schabert, 1936). The Neoscholastic solution to the problem of science and religion in psychology ‘was a careful distinction between two levels of analysis: that between the empirical and the philosophical, and that between the natural and the supernatural’ (Kugelmann, 2011: 71). Whereas the empirical level offers data about natural human mental and behavioural functioning, the philosophical level − especially Thomistic philosophy − provides its metaphysical foundations (Steel, 1992). The statements above refer to psychology, but they are also applicable to psychiatry.

The Viennese psychiatrist and philosopher Rudolf Allers (b. Vienna, Austria, 1883; d. Hyattsville, USA, 1963) made important contributions to psychiatry and psychotherapy, fundamentally in relation to their anthropological foundations, the theory of character and neurosis, and criticisms of Freudian psychoanalysis. Despite the importance of his contributions to Neoscholastic psychiatry, Allers’ ideas have received relatively little attention in the past (Bertrán, 1963; Collins, 1964; Misiak and Staudt, 1954; Wile, 1941). However, there seems to be a renewed interest in the study of his work, especially in Spanish-speaking countries (Echavarría, 1999, 2004, 2013; García-Alandete, 2015, 2016; Olaechea, 2013a, 2013b; Tuppia and Jaramillo, 2010).

The present study focuses on Allers’ conception of neurosis as a metaphysical conflict from a Catholic point of view. First, a brief biographical sketch of Allers is presented. Second, the relationship between neurosis and character, according to Allers, is briefly developed. Then, we pay attention to his conception of neurosis as a metaphysical conflict. Finally, we present Allers’ ideas about inner transformation − metanoia − as the main therapeutic goal in the case of neurosis, and its relationship with sanctity as health and as a path to recovery.

Brief biographical profile of Rudolf Allers

Rudolf Allers was a doctor of medicine from the universities of Vienna (1906) − where he attended the last course taught by Sigmund Freud − and Munich (1913). During World War I, he served as a surgeon in the Austrian Army. After the war, he taught at the University of Vienna, where he worked until 1927 in the Department of Physiology of the Senses and, from then until 1938 was head of the Department of Medical Psychology. In 1934 he received a doctorate in scholastic philosophy from the Università del Sacro Cuore in Milan. In 1938 he accepted a position as Professor of Psychology offered by the Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, in the Faculty of Philosophy, a position that he occupied until 1948. He then moved to Georgetown University, where he was a professor and taught philosophy until 1957. In 1960, the American Catholic Philosophical Association awarded him the Cardinal Spellman-Aquinas Medal for his scientific contributions (Marling, 1960).

Allers (1922, 1933, 1940, 1941) was a harsh critic of Freudian psychoanalysis, to the point that it earned him the nickname of ‘Anti-Freud’ (Jugnet, 1952). He was a disciple of Alfred Adler’s school of individual psychology until 1927, when he left it; however, he continued to recognize the value of some of Adler’s contributions and was even considered a Catholic-Adlerian psychiatrist (Strauss, 1943). Allers was also a friend of Edith Stein, whose works he translated into English (she taught Viktor Emil Frankl who founded logotherapy), and he had a large influence on the ideas of the philosopher Hans Ur von Balthasar, among others.

For Allers, all psychiatric theories and praxis are based on a certain anthropological conception, which can be implicit or explicit. This anthropological conception is not provided by medical science because it is philosophical in nature:

For the manner in which the psychiatrist conceives of his problems and his task depends, whether he be aware of this or not, on the manner in which he conceives of human nature. But to develop such a view of what a man is, pertains ultimately to philosophy. (Allers, 1961: x)

The philosophy that Allers used as a reference was essentially Thomist − he translated Aquinas’s De ente et essentia into German (Allers, 1936) − and he integrated elements of Patristic philosophy and theology, as well as two of the most important philosophies of the twentieth century, namely phenomenology and existentialism.

For Allers, psychiatry and psychotherapy must be founded on an anthropology that considers the person to be constitutively linked to transcendence, to God, which means that anthropology must ultimately take root in the Revelation as well as in the anthropological and moral doctrine of the Catholic Church:

Starting from the principle that every psychology and psychotherapy is based on a particular vision of the human being, that every anthropology is inserted in its turn into a very precise vision of the world, and that no philosophy can be separated from theology, Allers considers that it is necessary to frame psychology in a vision of the man who is also philosophical. . . . In the preface to The becoming of the moral person, Allers explicitly states that his ‘thoughts are ultimately based on three foundations: on the vision of the Catholic world, on the philosophical system of the “philosophia perennis”, and on the empirical data from the research of modern psychology, in particular on the doctrine of individual psychology founded by the Viennese doctor Alfred Adler’. (Pavesi, 2009: 15, original italics) ²

For Allers, Thomistic philosophy is not merely a historical issue, but rather a system of thought that is important to contemporary psychological science, which lies between physiology and philosophy. In the Preface to the first edition to Brennan’s General Psychology, Allers stated:

Psychology is a peculiar kind of science. . . . Psychology is the science of inner experience, and will always remain such . . . . But the inner experience is always the experience of something, which something [sic] is very frequently not a mental phenomenon at all but an object, a res ad extra . . . . . . . which philosophic system promises the greatest measure of help, which one, out of all the current forms, is by nature designed to offer the easiest and best psychological explanations? . . . It is the philosophy that was developed by the genius of St. Thomas Aquinas out of a long line of Greek and Christian traditions. . . . Now, the science of psychology can find the help that it needs only from a philosophy which acknowledges an essential distinction among several levels of being, and more particularly, the distinction of mental phenomena from other types of reality. So far as I know, there is no philosophy outside that of the schoolmen, which really takes cognizance of the facts just mentioned; and the system of St. Thomas Aquinas is the most consistent of all the scholastics.

Another psychological problem that demands philosophic treatment is the relation between mind and matter. . . . The only plausible theory that I know of is the one originated by Aristotle and adopted by Aquinas.

But the real core of Aquinas’s philosophic system is his dualistic principle of potency and act. How many scientific psychologists realize that the concept of disposition, of capacity, of hidden possibilities becoming manifest under certain conditions, is a more or less immediate derivative from the old idea of potentia? All the intricate problems connected with the relative influence of constitution and environment in character-formation would become much clearer if the basic teaching of potency and act were applied to them.

. . . if there is any system that tries to take things at their own value and to follow the lead given by the immediate experience of reality, it is the philosophy of Aquinas. And I am firmly convinced that a close acquaintance with his teachings will contribute to a restoration of saner views, not only in science, but in the world of practical affairs as well. (Allers, 1952: xii–xx, original italics)

Character and neurosis for Allers

The construct of ‘neurosis’ is classical in psychiatry. At the same time, it is fruitful and problematic because of the quantity and diversity of definitions it has received, from its initial formulation by William Cullen at the end of the eighteenth century in Synopsis Nosologiae Methodicae (Cullen, 1769) to its replacement by the term ‘disorder’ by both the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 1980) and the World Health Organization (WHO, 2015).

For Allers, neurosis is closely related to character. In fact, he argued that neurosis is a problem of character, understood as the set of individual characteristics as a unit and as a whole − not as a mere aggregate − that distinguish an individual as this individual: not only as he is or as long as he is (his ontological substantiality) but as who he is (his personal identity). Thus, one is a person and has a character: ‘we cannot say that man has person; he is person, and, as such, has personality . . . The word ‘person’ plainly connotes the whole being of a man’ (Allers, 1943: 6, original italics). ³ The character one has is not innate; it is not a product of biological constitution, but rather of environmental factors. Therefore, the concept of person refers to what the person is, whereas character refers to what the person has acquired.

The acquired character can be ‘normal’ or neurotic. That is, a person can acquire a character with pathological traits due to a certain environmental influence. It must be added that character has a close relationship with action, which can be considered a personal way of acting as a unitary whole:

. . . a man’s conduct at any given moment, his every action, is an expression of the whole man. . . . An individual character, peculiar to one person and to him alone, can hardly be physiognostically deduced. Furthermore, any number of individual traits do not make up character; it is not . . . a mosaic of separate traits or elements of any kind. Character is a unity and a whole, not a mere aggregate. (pp. 8–10)

Therefore, character would become the background from which personal actions emerge as a person’s expression, a ‘something’ that is common to all of them. The nature of character is acquired, simple and unmodifiable: ‘. . . character represents a fundamentally variable “something” common to the actions and behaviour-pattern of a man, something that must be regarded as an added property of a person rather than as something congenital, simple and unchangeable’ (p. 20, original italics).

The understanding of character is only possible through the analysis of the actions of the person. Every action implies a tension between the current situation and a possible situation towards which a person tends − and this implies consciousness, intentionality and effort − in addition to a comparative judgement that what is to come is preferable. Therefore, all actions are preceded by an axiological comparison; the understanding of the action is not possible without considering the axiological motivation that animates it and tends towards its completion. Hence, character is the principle of axiologically mediated action.

In the report of the Third German Medical Congress for Psychotherapy in Baden-Baden in 1928, Gerö (1928: 96) noted that Allers:

. . . asserted that understanding of character must be based on the analysis of its actions. Every action tends towards a definite goal which always consists in establishing an entity. Besides, the action is in any case the settling of a tension out of which it has arisen, and which is cancelled through it. According to Dr. Allers character cannot be understood from the structure of impulses, nor does he acknowledge its being determined by innate moments of constitution. He defines character as the formal principle of the total of all reactions of a human being. Since action, being the architype of reaction, is directed towards values, character may be defined as the substance of individual laws of value-preference. (p. 96)

It follows from the above that the neurotic person would act according to an incorrect or inadequate axiological orientation, which makes him/her live insanely − out of mind, outside of what is naturally and supernaturally his/her own. However, this does not mean that the person affected by neurosis must be, for that very reason, the object of moral valuation; the person keeps his/her personality intact, his/her being-person, with all the intrinsic dignity that is his/her own. The neurotic character, therefore, asks to be educated, not judged.

Neurosis is not a physiological phenomenon, but a metaphysical conflict

According to Allers, neurosis is not a somatogenic disease. In The New Psychologies, for example, he stated:

Though the words and behavior of a neurotic may sometimes appear to the inexperienced as identical with those of a person suffering from organic disease, there is really a considerable difference in their respective modes of behavior. But the neurotic experiences neurosis as a disease; his physical efficiency suffers − for instance, he may be driven to an absolute incapacity for work. Nevertheless, there is no real illness within the neurotic; though he may suffer from digestive troubles, the stomach itself is healthy enough; though he feels his heart palpitating or beating in an altogether abnormal rhythm, the muscles and nerves of the heart are intact; though he is tormented by pain and disturbed by very curious feelings, his organs are functioning normally; and so on. (1933: 72)

Likewise, in The Psychology of Character, Allers stated:

. . . we reject any theory that attributes the neuroses to organic changes in the human body. The idea of a ‘weak nervous system’ as the primary cause of neurotic symptoms is entirely fallacious, and arose out of an essentially materialistic conception, which could and would not recognize any disturbances in man’s being and conduct other than those conditioned by physical changes. (1943: 338)

Furthermore, he pointed out in What’s Wrong With Freud that neurosis is not, stricto sensu, a mental disorder:

Neurosis is a trouble of a peculiar kind. What can be asserted of bodily diseases does not always apply to neurosis. Neurotic troubles ought to be classed neither with bodily nor with mental diseases. ⁴ They are not true diseases, in the sense which this term has in general medicine. They are better described as disturbances of behavior due to mental factors, mostly acquired and therefore susceptible of being changed by equally mental influences. The only thing which neurosis has in common with bodily disease is that it usually − but not always − causes suffering. There are, however, definitely neurotic states which do not trouble the subjective well-being; this is true for instance, of certain sexual abnormalities. Neurosis is like true mental disease insofar as its symptoms are mostly of a mental nature or, at least, insofar as mental symptoms are never missing even when bodily manifestations of the neurosis, as in heart-neurosis, stand apparently in the foreground. But the nature of neurosis is quite different from that of true psychosis and from that of bodily disease. Symptoms and clinical pictures must therefore be evaluated otherwise in the pathology of neurosis than in general medicine or in psychiatry. (Allers, 1941: 155)

To this is added Allers’ observation that psychotherapy, which is not a material remedy (that is, one that affects the physical organisms, as pharmacological therapy does), can be successful in treating neurosis. If psychotherapy is successful, it is proof that neurosis is not a somatic disease: ‘If neurosis were of somatic origin, how could we understand the success of psychotherapy? A defective nervous system or an endocrine gland cannot be persuaded to function more normally’ (Jugnet, 1952: 57). ⁵

Therefore, the problem of the neurotic is not a biological one, but a metaphysical-existential one, so neurosis should not be approached from a traditional clinical-medical point of view, which is typical of somatic medicine. The neurotic has not damaged any organs and does not suffer from any neuroendocrine dysfunction. Instead, he/she tries to escape from his/her reality, and the symptoms express this trend. This does not mean that the neurotic is aware and knows the real, objective reasons underlying this intention. The neurosis would be the effect of an ‘excuse’ with which the neurotic denies or is not able to see and accept his/her reality and commit to it. Instead, he/she acts like the child who pretends to be ill to avoid school duties − although they benefit from it in a certain sense, they are harmed in another one: they do not attend school, but they cannot play either because of having to stay in bed.

I have referred to the nature of neurosis . . . as founded ultimately on a ‘metaphysical problem’ . . . . This problem arises from the awareness – one may call it, if one so wishes, an unconscious one − of man’s essential finiteness and the unwillingness on the part of the individual person to accept the human condition. It is conceivable that the fact of finiteness becomes tolerable, at least to the average person, only when he lives in a real ‘togetherness’ with others, when he exists authentically and, hence, in the mode of ‘being with’. (Allers, 1961: 77)

The symptoms, suffering and existential isolation would be the price the neurotic has to pay for fleeing from his/her reality, that is, for not responsibly accepting his/her existence and for unauthentically experiencing his/her relationships with others. The psychotherapeutic goal par excellence will consist, precisely, in making the neurotic become aware of his/her reality, in order to accept it and face it as a personal task − as a challenge and as a commitment − and be able to open up to others, recognize them as people, and establish proper human relationships with them − that is, considering other people as people and not as a means for one’s own purposes. In other words, neurosis would come to be considered as a kind of cancellation of the ‘principle of reality’, understood here as the objectivity to which the subject must responsibly adhere (‘this is what you get’) and the ‘principle of otherness’ − that is, the recognition of, openness to, and acceptance of the other as a ‘personal other’ with intrinsic dignity and worth.

Essential characteristics of the neurotic character

According to Allers, common fundamental notes underlie the different clinical expressions − the symptomatology − that neurosis can take. These characteristics of the neurotic character are rebellion, anguish, inauthenticity and egocentricity. The former two constitute the genesis or aetiology of neurosis, and the latter two are essential features through which the neurotic character expresses itself.

The egocentric experience of the world in the neurotic character

According to Allers (1961), every individual experiences both the ‘external world’ and an ‘inner world’. In the case of the neurotic, the difference and distance between the two worlds is more or less diluted or diminished, and it is possible to confuse them: ‘The more this private world invades the common world and transforms it, the less understandable the person becomes and the more abnormal he appears’ (p. 51).

Allers thinks that these ‘abnormal worlds’ are abnormal modes of existence and can be of various types. These words and forms of existence can be shared by patients with different diagnoses, and they can also be different in patients with the same diagnosis. It is necessary to ‘penetrate’ these worlds and get into the tangle of meanings that their elements have for the individuals who inhabit them; for example, for the ‘normal’ person, a black cat is merely an animal of a certain colour, whereas for a neurotic, it is a bad omen. This simply means carrying out an ‘existential analysis of the abnormal worlds’, a reconstructive process of such worlds: ‘We must reconstruct the structure of the worlds of our patients out of their utterances, their conduct and the rare explanations they are able to furnish’ (Allers, 1961: 55–6).

Allers phenomenologically distinguishes three great types of abnormal worlds, each of which in turn includes several subtypes (pp. 56–79): (1) The defective worlds: the closed world of the person with mental deficiency, the perforated world of the person with agnosy, and the shrunken world of the person with dementia; (2) the transformed worlds: the disrupted world of the person with mental confusion, the unstable world of the person with mania, the estranged world of the person with depersonalization, the transmuted world of the person with schizophrenia, and the fragmented world of the anancastic syndromes; and (3) the perverted worlds: the emptied world of the melancholic, the egocentric world of the neurotic, and the pothocentric world of the addict.

Of all these worlds, the one that interests us in this work is that of the neurotic. It is a world that Allers describes as egocentric, in harmony with the essential egocentricity of the neurotic character. It is a world in which love − which implies self-transcendence − is absent for the neurotic, who places demands on others even though he is unable to commit to them. The neurotic would be a ‘being-for-himself’ without any consideration for others, who are not considered in their intrinsic dignity due to a moral deficiency in the neurotic, but instead they are reified and, consequently, used and manipulated. The neurotic does not relate to people in a world of people and values, but rather uses them as means for his/her own purposes. This is accompanied by the neurotic’s inability to give of him/herself, to bond, and surrender him/herself to others.

Human beings and things stand almost on the same level; they are more or less usable tools. Sentiments like admiration, dedication, and devotion, be it to a person or to a cause, are practically absent from the neurotic world. . . .

The neurotic is unable to ‘give himself’, to abandon his own being for even a moment. He is, therefore, deprived of the experience of ‘fulfillment’ which arises from the communion with another in first line, but also from the restless dedication to something pertaining to the region of the non-ego. (p. 77).

The vain inflation of the neurotic ego would impede the neurotic’s real self-realization as a person and therefore his/her existential fullness. Pretending to be master of him/herself, the neurotic ends up being a slave to him/herself, his/her own worst enemy, and a manipulator who is unable to recognize others’ intrinsic dignity and value. The neurotic’s world is, metaphorically speaking, an island without an isthmus of values that bind him/her to others. The neurotic lives in an ‘un-linked world’.

Metanoia, or the inner transformation as the main therapeutic goal in the case of neurosis: sanctity as health and as a path of recovery

It has been pointed out above that neurosis is an inadequate use of freedom, a use of freedom to the deranged service of oneself. The neurotic’s freedom is, in reality, a self-referential idolatry, a cult of oneself. The neurotic’s false freedom is, in reality, egolatry. In this regard, neurosis is rooted in pride, which goes hand-in-hand with egocentricity. The excessive self-centring of the neurotic is a decentring (not self-transcendence), delirium, and existential loss. The neurotic denies and rejects his/her creaturely nature, but this does not mean acquiring another ‘superior’ nature. The neurotic rebels against his/her reality because he/she wants to be something more than merely a fallible, vulnerable, fragile and mortal creature. As noted above, the neurotic experiences a conflict between the ‘will to power’ and the ‘possibility of power’, between his/her desire and reality:

The feeling of guilt, like that of anxiety, springs from the attitude of revolt against man’s limited nature. Non serviamǃ is the attitude at the root of neurotic suffering. But striving after something not only beyond one’s personal powers but beyond the powers of any human being implies a self-contradiction, for any ambition is conditioned by the limitations of human nature. Only an individual to whom ‘almightiness’ − ‘esse sicut dii’ − is essentially denied can aim at such a thing. Disgust with one’s own human and finite nature is a denial of that nature on which any ambition must be based; and neurosis is the form this paradoxical attitude assumes. Since this attitude of non serviam is very deeply rooted within human nature, neurosis itself is but an exaggeration of features of human personality common to us all. (Allers, 1933: 76, original italics)

Allers (1943) thought that, ultimately, the ‘neurotic modes of existence’ would have their cause in human nature wounded by original sin. Faced with this wounding of the creature, which is the origin of whole neurotic existence, of all the ‘neurotic way of being’, the radical therapeutic attitude implies the personal struggle for sanctity because for Allers the saint is free of neurosis when accepting his/her condition and place in the order of creation, as well as in responding to − that is, by taking responsibility for − the commitments of life:

From the fact that artificiality is an essential component of neurotic behaviour, it follows that the only person who can be entirely free from neurosis is the man whose life is spent in genuine devotion to the natural and supernatural obligations of life, and who has steadfastly accepted and affirmed his position as a creature and his place in the order of creation; in other words, beyond the neurotic there stands only the saint. (Allers, 1943: 346, original italics)

In this regard, Allers could establish an essential equivalence between health and sanctity, at least; health implies a genuine aspiration to sanctity, and fundamentally health is understood as moral integrity:

If we maintain that the ultimate conquest of the artificiality which characterizes and is of the essence of neurosis can be achieved only by saintly living, it follows further that moral health, in the strict sense, can develop only in the soil of a saintly life, or at least a life that aims at saintliness’ (p. 347).

Whereas sanctity is synonymous with health, it is obvious that health − or, perhaps more explicitly, the absence of neurotic symptoms − is not synonymous with sanctity. In this regard, Allers explains the following to Louis Jugnet in a letter in 1949:

I have said, as you know, that only the saint is really beyond neurosis. Undoubtedly, there are people who do not show any trace of neurosis and that we can consider to be perfectly normal. But what distinguishes them from the saint is that he is immunized against neurosis: he will not be a neurotic in any case. For him, the metaphysical conflict − nowadays I would prefer to say ontic − no longer exists; he is beyond the neurosis because he is beyond rebellion: But from there it cannot be concluded, of course, that non-neurotic men are for that very reason saints . . . I would like to insist on the fact that here I speak of heroic sanctity, the sanctity in the strict sense of the term. ‘Ontological sanctity’, the state of grace that justifies the hope of eternal salvation can, without a doubt, coexist with a neurotic state. It is possible, but I think it is weird. Why? The neurotic is generally too self-conscious, he is fundamentally egocentric. (Jugnet, 1952: 87, original italics)

The saint is non-neurotic, but the non-neurotic is not necessarily a saint. It should be added that neurosis, although an expression of a metaphysical conflict rooted in the fallen nature of man-creature, is not a sin. In the same way, the saint, no matter how heroically holy, does not cease to be a sinful creature. Now, it is one thing to be a sinner, as something connatural to human nature, and another thing to live in an essentially egocentric way.

On the other hand, for Allers (1943), far from being a simple speculation that can be explained by his religious convictions, the relationship between health and sanctity is based on the experience that the neurotic often suffers, ultimately, as already indicated, an unresolved metaphysical conflict. Perhaps this explains the restlessness − in both the sense of interest and anxiety − that the neurotic shows on genuinely metaphysical questions. If the neurotic’s fundamental problem has a metaphysical nature, even a fortiori a religious nature, perhaps the therapeutic intervention will have to be − at least for the religious patient − both psychological and spiritual: that is, both a ‘medical cure’ (psychotherapy, understood as the education of character) and ‘pastoral care’ (that is, spiritual counselling).

Authentic freedom, and − linked to it − authentic existence, will be recovered by the neurotic through a process of inner transformation (metanoia), which implies practising the virtue of humility:

The task of psychotherapy, and the only way out of the jungle of neurotic symptoms, is to enable the neurotic to acquire the attitude of humility, to forget the overmastering and grasping self, and to live for others: quoniam Dominus ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos. (Allers, 1933: 77, original italics)

Therapy, therefore, would involve freeing the neurotic from the false image of him/herself − remember the eritis sicut Deus − and, with it, of his/her inauthentic existence, that is, his/her deranged self-referentiality, egolatry. Therapy would involve recognizing and abhorring the idolatrous cult of oneself and adopting the ‘true cult’: to assume and accept the vulnerable, limited, and deadly creatural nature. This realistic acceptance, without drama, would lead to an eccentric life, that is, outside its ‘centre-of-gravity’, because it is the neurotic one − what and who one is – that it is healing. This attitude of acceptance would imply a commitment to one’s existence. True freedom does not belong to the one who rebels against existence, but rather to the one who accepts it as it is. Ultimately, for Allers, it is the freedom of the saint, pointed out above: ‘Only the saint is free from neurosis and beyond it, because only he has accepted, by an act of “real assent”, his position as a finite being, as a mere nothing in face of the Infinite’ (p. 76).

The cure for neurosis, as it is a metaphysical conflict, goes through an inner conversion, which, as has been pointed out, is nothing other than the acceptance that one is a creature and making the commitment to existence in order to achieve a holy life. Allers refers to this, showing his conception of what could be called a ‘high psychotherapy’, in contrast to the ‘deep psychotherapy’ of Freudian psychoanalysis:

It is said that neurotics are complicated natures; perhaps it would be more accurate to say that complicated natures are threatened by neurosis. To remain firm in the face of conflicts, difficulties, and temptations, one must be simple. To cure neurosis, there is no need for an analysis that descends into the depths of the unconscious to extract from it I do not know what reminiscences; nor is there any need for an interpretation that sees modifications or masks of instinct in our thoughts, our dreams, and our acts. To heal a neurosis, it is necessary to experience a true ‘metanoia’ (= conversion, in the most general sense of the term), an inner revolution that replaces pride with humility, egocentricity with abandonment. When we become simple, we can finally overcome instinct through the love that constitutes − if it is allowed to develop− a wonderful and invincible strength. However, to reach this simplicity, this naive attitude towards the world and oneself, it is necessary to bring into play the second of the great forces placed at our disposal by divine goodness: truth. These two forces, truth and love, are the only invincible [ones] . . . To rid ourselves of the chains that hold us to the lower values, to be able to resist the temptations that from outside and inside arise so frequently, to stand firm through the inevitable conflicts of existence, we will not have to trust the stoicism that, in the end, is nothing but a refined form of pride, nor will we have to surrender to the search for subconscious causes, lost in the nebulous distance of a problematic past. As in both philosophy and psychology, there is no more dangerous point of view, in terms of psychotherapy or asceticism, than the one we have called ‘look from below’. It is necessary to look up to the heights of our life and of being in general. (Jugnet, 1952: 95–96, original italics)

Conclusions

The Christian foundation of Allers’ conception of psychiatry and psychotherapy, specifically in Catholic anthropology and morals, is clear. Only a convinced Catholic, such as Allers, would have in mente et in pectore sanctity as an existential ideal, as a model of being, living, and health. It is an ideal that, coherently consistent with Catholic doctrine, can be realized not with the single forces of the person-creature, but by humbly accepting and collaborating with the divine grace. Such a foundation is foreign to the mental health sciences which, at present, have a consideration of the person that is far from spiritual. Allers’ conception of neurosis, on the other hand, strongly contrasts with those of other contemporary psychiatrists and psychologists, such as Freud, Adler, Jung and Watson, among others. Although the Neoscholastic point of view on mental disorders and mental health has lost importance over time, especially from the Second Vatican Council, it was a historically important chapter in the history of psychiatry that deserves to be taken into account. Allers’ contributions are a substantial part of that historical chapter and, if rediscovered, could enrich the history of psychiatry. Moreover, Allers’ contributions are not only a relic of the past that may have a greater or lesser historical interest, but they can also provide significant elements for contemporary Christian psychiatry and psychotherapy (Disalver, 2007; McMinn and Campbell, 2007; Severson, 2013). Its historical significance and potential role in contemporary Christian psychiatry make Allers’ work a worthy object of study.