초창기 한국 정신 의학계의 종교 체험 이해: 수운(水雲) 최제우의 종교 체험 분석 사례를 중심으로

Abstract

Attempts to link religious experience to mental illness have a long history. It varies from the concept of "divine madness" of Plato, to the view that the experience of medieval Catholic female mystics as mental illness.This paper deals with the Korean psychiatric system, which was introduced by the Japanese colonial government and established as an independent branch since the 1960s, how to understand the phenomenon of religion. More specifically, the subject of the paper is religious experience and the social influence of the study of Choi Jae-woo(1824-1864).Psychiatric efforts to understand our culture from the psychological point of view, rather than the physical perspective of mental illness, have been conducted by Rhi Bou-young and Kim Gwang-il as the with the humanistic academics trying to find our identity.In contrast to Freud, who regarded religious experience as a regression to infancy, Rhi Bou-young regarded the experience of Choi as a manifestation of the collective unconscious beyond personal dimensions. Although personal and social pain including psychological conflict was an important motive of experience, the experience was the meaningful implementation of collective unconsciousness and the impetus to complete psychological development. In that respect, the religious experience of Choi was the event that evoked the ultimate meaning of life for himself and the contemporaries.Although Kim Gwang-il took a Freudian viewpoint, Kims paper has much in common with Rhis research in his approach and analysis. Kim also searched for the cause of the experience of Choi in an unfortunate life and concludes that Choi relieves personal pain in a meaningful way through pre-oedipal temporary regression. The conflict and suffering were "sublimated" by religious experience. Despite some differences, both of them put emphasis on the adaptability enhancement function of the Chois religious experience. This reflects the fact that the two are psychiatrists who healed mental illnesses like Freud and Jung.The researches of Rhi and Kim on Choi were attempts to understand the universality and specificity of human psychology, including human religiosity, in the Korean context. In addition, it was an endeavor to discover identity of Korean by analyzing the religious experience of Choi and his religious thoughts Donghak by the help of Western psychiatric theory.Moreover, the study of the two has become a watershed that triggered the dynamic trends in our society to understand the interrelationship between religious experience, mental illness, and mental health from a medical point of view. Their research has clearly shown how the healing of individuals with religious experience has been amplified to collective and social healing.In conclusion, the study of Choi in Korean psychiatry is very crucial for both medical history and religious history of Korea. It is more so in order to fully understand the multi-layered reality of human mind and religion.