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Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion pp 246–247Cite as

Boisen, Anton

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Boisen’s Life

Anton T. Boisen was born in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1876. His early life was marked by the death of his father at the age of 7. An able scholar and student, he graduated from the University of Indiana at Bloomington and taught romance languages there for a time before entering the Yale School of Forestry. Later he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York where he studied under George Albert Coe, a professor steeped in the approach of William James to the psychology of religion. After the ordination in the Presbyterian Church and a lackluster career of some 10 years in the parish ministry, he experienced in 1920 the first of three psychiatric hospitalizations where his diagnosis was that of schizophrenia of the catatonic type. The second occurred in 1930 after the death of his mother and the third on the occasion of the death of the love of his life, Alice Batchelder, a woman he courted for years even as she consistently rebuffed his advances and proposals of...

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Bibliography

  • Boisen, A. (1936). Exploration of the inner world: A study of mental illness and religious experience. New York: Harper.

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  • Boisen, A. (1960). Out of the depths. New York: Harper.

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  • James, W. (1902). The varieties of religious experience: A study in human nature. New York: The Modern Library.

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  • Spiegel, D. (1995). Clinical description: Introduction. Boisen’s personality changes and upheavals arising out of a sense of personal failure. American Journal of Psychiatry, 151(6), 93. Sesquicentennial Anniversary Supplement 1844–1994.

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  • Stokes, A. (1985). Ministry after Freud. New York: Pilgrim.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY, USA

    Curtis W. Hart

Authors
  1. Curtis W. Hart
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Correspondence to Curtis W. Hart .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    David A. Leeming

  2. Blanton-Peale Institute, New York, NY, USA

    David A. Leeming

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Hart, C.W. (2020). Boisen, Anton. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24348-7_81

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