This book examines Lacan and John of the Cross, a mystic whose writings on spiritual direction formulate part of the core of the Catholic spiritual tradition, to outline the possibilities of a Lacanian and Juanist-informed notion of spiritual direction based on Lacan's `four discourses.' It argues that existing methods of spiritual direction have become therapy-focused to the extent that positive affective experientialism has become one of the main ways in which a relationship with God is measured. Its careful analysis draws out the common ground between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Christian mystical theology demonstrating the former’s potential for reinvigorating spiritual direction. In doing so, it presents a Juanist-Lacanian intervention in the modern practice of spiritual direction so as to recover a more radical concept of desire which escapes the problem of `positive affective experientialism.' It will appeal to students and scholars of psychoanalysis, religion, philosophy and critical theory.weiterlesen