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There's a burgeoning interest in the integration of the Eastern meditative and Western psychotherapeutic traditions among mental professionals, their patients, researchers, and spiritual practitioners. Increasing numbers of people meditate, and meditators—including Buddhist teachers—participate in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
Studying psychoanalysis and Buddhism in tandem might seem like a shotgun wedding. What, after all, could an ethical psychology developed in the fifth century b.c. in India for attaining spiritual enlightenment and liberation have in common with a theory and treatment that arose in Europe in the late nineteenth century to address psychopathology and emotional distress? Psychoanalysis uses a self-reflective relationship to explore how formative unconscious experiences and conflicts from the past affect and restrict our sense of self and relationships in the present, while Buddhism, especially Zen, is skeptical about the validity of concepts and words and offers a practice that fosters the capacity to let go of attachments so as to awaken to a fuller experience of self, have a more intimate relationship to the world, and act with greater moral wisdom.
But as we look more carefully, commonalities—even synergies—emerge. Both disciplines are concerned with lessening anguish and shedding light on what it means to be human. Each has a diagnosis of what afflicts us, as well as a “treatment plan.” And both emphasize cultivating nonjudgmental awareness, which can aid us in living more wholeheartedly and experiencing greater intimacy and meaning. Practitioners of each discipline are using—even blending—insights and practices from both, leading to mutual enrichment (see, e.g., Rubin 1996, 1999, 2009, 2013; Magid 2002; Safran 2003; Young-Eisendrath 2003; Engler 2003; Akhtar 2005; Cooper 2007; Bobrow 2010; Finn and Rubin 2014). For example, therapists who meditate report with consistency that it cultivates greater self-awareness, compassion, and wisdom.
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