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DESPITE FREUD’S FAMOUS STATEMENT of his lack of affinity for the “oceanic feeling,” meditation and altered states of consciousness have long been of interest to psychotherapists of many different persuasions, including psychoanalysts and nonclinical psychologists. Jung had more than a passing interest in Buddhist and Taoist thought and meditative states of consciousness. Two prominent interpersonalists, Fromm and Horney, became interested in Zen in the later stages of their careers. There was an efflorescence of interest in various schools of meditation in the early to mid seventies among researchers of consciousness, such as Tart (1972, 1975) and Naranjo and Ornstein (1971). Psychodynamic psychiatrist and researcher Arthur Deikman published a work linking therapy and meditation (1982). Since the mid eighties, there has been a small but steady stream of work that attempts to integrate various kinds of meditation, ranging from transcendental meditation to zazen, with various Western psychological perspectives. Two collections typifying this effort are a British anthology edited by West (1987) and an American one edited by Katz (1983). The two works reviewed here are part of that continuing stream, as well as products of a current resurgence of interest in Buddhist meditation among psychologists, therapists, and a small but growing lay public. The works draw on the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the vipassana or mindfulness meditation tradition (a Southeast Asian school akin to Zen), and, of course, Western psychology.
Thoughts Without a Thinker has been acclaimed by respected writers from both of the traditions from which it arose, psychoanalytic therapy and Tibetan Buddhist meditation. A practicing clinician and meditator, Epstein has written a book that attempts to integrate the worldviews,