Searching for a Sign: Listening, Looking, Touching, Way-Finding

In this multidisciplinary essay, the psychotherapeutic process is reframed as "way-finding," a multivalent concept that resonates through material, psychological, and sacred dimensions of human life as reflected by our relationship with signs. The work of social theorist Georges Bataille, as well as the perspectives of anthropology, semiotics, philosophy, art history, and theology, are invoked along the way as guides toward an alternate understanding of the sacred and its relevance for the clinical encounter. This collage of theoretical perspectives is integrated through an in-depth embellished case presentation featuring the treatment of a professional sign-maker.