The Double Orientation of the ego in the Practice of Zen

This paper will explore the psychodynamic changes that occur during Zen practice, focusing in particular on issues of fusion and differentiation (union/separation) of self and object images. Zen practice has been examined from nonanalytic viewpoints, and many findings have been reported. In particular, the physiological changes and physical relaxation that take place during meditation have been emphasized. These physiological changes include: decreased muscle tension, lower blood pressure, metabolic slowing, respiratory slowing, and increased brain alpha waves.1,2,3 Certainly, these physiological effects are important; they involve metabolic slowing and relaxation.

Thus, the physiological matrix of Zen practice involves a state of “psycho physiological regression,” much like that described by Fisher4 for stage 4 sleep. Fisher has described how the psycho physiological slowing (“regression”) of deep sleep favors, in certain individuals, the eruption of repressed anxiety and the profound panic characteristic of night terrors. In a similar fashion, it is here postulated that the psycho physiological regression during Zen practice serves as the basis for the psychodynamic regression to primordial states of self-object union which can occur.

The understanding of this regression will draw upon current findings and trends in psychoanalytic ego psychology. Psychoanalytic research has become more and more focused on the dyadic mother-child relationship, the internal structural derivatives of this relationship, and the pre-Oedipal psychopathology resulting from difficulties in this early relationship with concomitant fixated and/or pathological structures.5,6,7,8

In examining the manifestations of the conflict between union and separateness which appears during the practice of Zen, the following areas will be covered: (1) childhood and adolescent experiences of Zen practitioners, particularly examples of traumatic separations and separation anxiety; (2)