This book attempts a prodigious feat: the comparison of contemporary psychoanalysis, primarily in its self-psychological form, with Eastern thought, principally in its Zen Buddhist form. Suler compares psychoanalysis with Zen, and, at times, Taoism in their attitudes toward paradox, enactment, aggression, and technique, and in their fundamental visions. Above all, he tries to reconcile the apparent contrast between the psychoanalytic search for self and the Zen pursuit of no-self. He thinks the elusive observing self, which cannot be “aware of the source of awareness during the act of being aware” (p. 46), corresponds roughly to the no-self Zen seeks. Suler calls his book a collage: a collection of articles that draw on both his interests.

Comparative studies are exacting. Not only must an author possess extensive and intensive knowledge of both subject matters, but the writer of such a study needs also to be able to articulate the basis of the comparison. Normally we compare within disciplines—comparative