Psychoanalytic And Buddhist Reflections On Gentleness

Inspired by Buddhist teachings and psychoanalytic thought, this book explores gentleness as a way of being and a developmental achievement. It offers reflections on the unique position of "gentle people", as well as certain gentle layers of the psyche in general, as they meet the world. Examining the perceptual-sensory-conscious discrepancy that often exists between a gentle person and their surroundings, it follows the intricate relationship between sensitivity and fear, the need for self-holding, and the possibility of letting go. Incorporating theoretical investigation, clinical vignettes, and personal contemplation, the book looks into those states of mind and qualities of attention that may compose a favorable environment, internal and interpersonal, where gentleness can be delicately held. There, it is suggested, gentleness may gradually shed the fragility, confusion, and destructiveness that often get entangled with it, and serve as a valuable recourse. Offering a unique perspective on a topic rarely discussed, the book has broad appeal for both students and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, as well as Buddhist practitioners and scholars.

Inspired by Buddhist teachings and psychoanalytic thought, this book explores gentleness as a way of being and a developmental achievement. It offers reflections on the unique position of "gentle people", as well as certain gentle layers of the psyche in general, as they meet the world. Examining the perceptual-sensory-conscious discrepancy that often exists between a gentle person and their surroundings, it follows the intricate relationship between sensitivity and fear, the need for self-holding, and the possibility of letting go. Incorporating theoretical investigation, clinical vignettes, and personal contemplation, the book looks into those states of mind and qualities of attention that may compose a favorable environment, internal and interpersonal, where gentleness can be delicately held. There, it is suggested, gentleness may gradually shed the fragility, confusion, and destructiveness that often get entangled with it, and serve as a valuable recourse. Offering a unique perspective on a topic rarely discussed, the book has broad appeal for both students and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, as well as Buddhist practitioners and scholars.

Demonstrating a relational, dialogic way of thinking and writing, this book offers an innovative perspective on the human potential for intersubjective engagement and on the nature of true encounter. The authors engage in creative, associative dialogues and trialogues inspired by psychoanalysis and Buddhism, poetry and religion, theory and case studies, academic and free styles of writing – each enriching the other. Reflecting on the essence of relating, they convey a flow between inner, private reveries and shared ones, and between individual expressions of thought and evolvements of newly born thirds. Through this interdisciplinary, experimental setting, the authors explore the possibility to reach truths and meanings that each individual would not have achieved on their own. Offering new concepts and formulations that may nourish psychotherapists’ thought and be usefully implemented in their practice, this book presents a pressingly unique and essential viewpoint for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in training and in practice.

“A warm, profound and cleareyed memoir. . . this wise and sympathetic book’s lingering effect is as a reminder that a deeper and more companionable way of life lurks behind our self-serious stories."—Oliver Burkeman, New York Times Book Review A remarkable exploration of the therapeutic relationship, Dr. Mark Epstein reflects on one year’s worth of therapy sessions with his patients to observe how his training in Western psychotherapy and his equally long investigation into Buddhism, in tandem, led to greater awareness—for his patients, and for himself For years, Dr. Mark Epstein kept his beliefs as a Buddhist separate from his work as a psychiatrist. Content to use his training in mindfulness as a private resource, he trusted that the Buddhist influence could, and should, remain invisible. But as he became more forthcoming with his patients about his personal spiritual leanings, he was surprised to learn how many were eager to learn more. The divisions between the psychological, emotional, and the spiritual, he soon realized, were not as distinct as one might think. In The Zen of Therapy, Dr. Epstein reflects on a year’s worth of selected sessions with his patients and observes how, in the incidental details of a given hour, his Buddhist background influences the way he works. Meditation and psychotherapy each encourage a willingness to face life's difficulties with courage that can be hard to otherwise muster, and in this cross-section of life in his office, he emphasizes how therapy, an element of Western medicine, can in fact be considered a two-person meditation. Mindfulness, too, much like a good therapist, can “hold” our awareness for us—and allow us to come to our senses and find inner peace. Throughout this deeply personal inquiry, one which weaves together the wisdom of two worlds, Dr. Epstein illuminates the therapy relationship as spiritual friendship, and reveals how a therapist can help patients cultivate the sense that there is something magical, something wonderful, and something to trust running through our lives, no matter how fraught they have been or might become. For when we realize how readily we have misinterpreted our selves, when we stop clinging to our falsely conceived constructs, when we touch the ground of being, we come home.

These dialogues with child, adolescent and adult psychotherapists and child psychiatrists focus on their personal as well as professional experiences. All the contributors have a long-standing practice of Buddhism or other forms of meditation. The relevance of this to their clinical work with infants, children, adolescents, families and adults is described. Buddhist principles such as suffering, impermanence, non-attachment, no-self and the Four Noble Truths influence the contributors' practice of psychotherapy with children and with the child in the adult. Similarities and differences between the two traditions of Buddhism and psychotherapy are highlighted in these dialogues, which are embedded in deep, personal and transforming experiences that are shared by the authors.

Lacan and Chan Buddhist Thought provides a close reading of how Lacan mobilizes concepts from Chan Buddhist philosophy, culture, and practice in his later teachings. The book emerged from the three co-authors’ engagement with Lacan’s 1962–1963 Seminar on Anxiety, and the significance of Lacan’s original interpretation of the Buddhist principle that desire is the cause of suffering. The book reads key Lacanian concepts – such as the objet a, jouissance, the real, Nirvana, and the mirror – through ancient Buddhist teachings and koans. With this focused exploration of psychoanalysis and Chan Buddhism, the authors offer a philosophically grounded cross-cultural approach to the theory and practice of psychoanalysis in Asian countries. Lacan and Chan Buddhist Thought will be a rich resource for psychoanalysts, academics, and students interested in Lacan and religion, the intellectual and cultural relationship between Asian and Western thought, and Mahayana Buddhism more generally.

This book investigates what psychoanalysis and Buddhism can learn from each other, and offers chapters by a Buddhist scholar, a psychiatrist-author, and a number of leading psychoanalysts. It begins with a discussion of the basic understanding of both psychoanalysis and Buddhism, viewed not as a religion but as a psychology and a philosophy with ethical principles. The focus of the book rests on the commonality between the psychoanalyst's neutrality as he listens to his freely associating patient, and the Buddhist monk's non-judgmental attention to his mind. The psychoanalytic concepts of free association, the unconscious, transference and countertransference are compared to the implications of the Buddhist principles of impermanence, non-clinging (non-attachment), the hard-to-grasp concept of the "not-self", and the practice of meditation. The differences between the role of the analyst and that of the Buddhist teacher of meditation are explored, and the important difference between the analyst's emphasis on insight and thinking is compared to the Buddhist attention to awareness and experience.

A comprehensive collection of essays exploring the interstices of Eastern and Western modes of thinking about the self, this book documents just some of the challenges, conflicts, pitfalls, and “wow” moments that inhere in today’s historical and cultural intersections of theory, practice, and experience.