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The average age of the United States population is steadily increasing, and aging is often accompanied by a reconsideration of transcendental issues. Moreover, owing to differential birth rates of subgroups, the younger strata of the population are much more diverse in culture and religious background than are their elders. Both of these demographic phenomena challenge psychoanalytic practitioners to broaden their personal grasp of religious and existential
issues within and across subcultures and religious groups.
Rubin's slim but meaty volume on psychotherapy and Buddhism could well serve two purposes for the therapist/reader: 1) as an entry point into the wider literature on psychology and religion, and 2) as a source of insights specific to the school of Buddhism espoused by Rubin, Theravada Buddhism. One of the two major schools of Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism does not posit a personal God or divine savior, unlike Mahayana Buddhism. Thus, the Theravadan perspective is congenial to a wider readership among therapists, since we know from numerous studies that therapists are much less likely than the general population to believe in a personal God or a salvation process.
Rubin consistently provides helpful bridges between his two subject matters. For example, he points out that Buddhism and psychoanalysis share a deep reverence for human life. Both seek to offer paths to liberation for the human spirit by teaching a specialized method of internal attending. Both disciplines seek to cultivate such qualities and traits as heightened awareness and insight, expanded empathy, deepened compassion, and enhanced moral integrity. Most important, true knowledge of either Buddhism or psychoanalysis absolutely requires personal experience of the process rather than only academic study.
In explicating his material, the author tends to dichotomize, trichotomize, and compare and contrast in a Western discursive style. This observation is intended not as a criticism but as an indi