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Jeffrey Rubin invites us to imagine three different couples as a way of picturing the phases psychotherapy and Buddhism have gone through in their attempts to relate to one another up until now. “The first have nothing in common. They view the world and people differently; they seem to disagree about everything.” The second couple at least is on speaking terms, but the relationship is “one-sided,” with one person clearly feeling and acting superior to the other. The members of the third couple claim to have great respect for one another, and to honor the other's unique special qualities, but there is no genuine interchange, no real intimacy.
Rubin has set himself the task of being the empathic mediator in the currently dysfunctional marriage of psychotherapy and Buddhism, attempting to explain each to the other in its own terms, showing what each genuinely has to offer the other, and that it is in everyone's interest that they learn to live together as mutually respectful equals, rather than to settle into one of the three lopsided positions just described. It is a daunting task, for the members of this couple have been living apart quite successfully for a long time and currently feel no urgency to get back together. But perhaps they can be persuaded to talk, if only for the sake of their children—those who, like Rubin, have grown up personally and professionally learning and benefitting from the insights of both meditation and psychotherapy.
What do they have to offer one another? Each feels itself to be self-sufficient, with powerful explanatory models of psychology, both normal and abnormal, coupled with intensive practices that promote character change and the relief of suffering. Rubin suggests that they already have much in common that could form the basis for a dialogue. The meditator's focus on the moment-to-moment flux of consciousness is analogous to Freud's (1912, pp. 111-112) “even hovering attention,” and the practice of meditation would help therapists