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Alan Watts is interested in giving a “new turn” to the discussion on Western psychotherapy and Eastern philosophy. He is concerned with “the most fruitful way in which Eastern and Western psychotherapies can fertilize one another.” He considers the book “a provocative essay which may jolt both parties to the discussion.” He places more weight upon the connection of the Eastern disciplines with forms of psychotherapy whose philosophy is social, interpersonal and communicational than with those which stress “the unconscious” and its “archetypal images.”
He sees the main resemblances between the Eastern ways of life and Western psychotherapy as the concern of both with bringing about change of consciousness, changes in our ways of feeling our own existence and our relating to the human society and the natural world. In addition both are interested in releasing the individual from forms of conditioning imposed on him by social institutions.
Those who are familiar with other writings of Watts can correctly assume that he has once again written a richly thought-provoking and informative book. Whether one agrees with his views or not, one must grapple with the ideas he presents. For example, he writes, “disturbed individuals