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In recent years there has been a burgeoning interest in the possible integration of Western psychotherapy and eastern meditative traditions.
Skeptics might think this is advocating a forced marriage. Buddhism was developed 2,500 years ago in India and focuses on attaining enlightenment; psychoanalysis is a theory of human development and a method of treatment that arose in Europe in the late nineteenth century to address psychopathology and mental illness. Buddhism, especially Zen, mistrusts concepts and words and offers a practice that guides individuals as they seek to let go of attachments so as to awaken to a freer sense of self, have a more intimate relationship to the world, and behave with greater ethical wisdom; psychoanalysis uses a self-reflective relationship to explore how formative unconscious experiences from the past shape our sense of self and hidden conflicts in the present.
But as we delve deeper, commonalities—even points of synergy—emerge. Both psychoanalysis and Buddhism are concerned with alleviating suffering and illuminating human identity. Each has a “treatment plan” as well as a diagnosis of what truly afflicts us. And both can help us lessen anguish through cultivating clarity and equanimity, while exploring what it means to be fully human. Each can aid us in more completely inhabiting our lives and experiencing greater intimacy and wisdom. Increasingly, practitioners of each are using—even blending—insights and practices from both, leading to mutual enrichment. For example, therapists who meditate consistently report that it cultivates greater self-awareness, compassion, and wisdom.
The relationship between the Western psychotherapeutic and Eastern meditative traditions, several decades old, has been a wonderful gift to the world—illuminating the causes of human suffering, as well as offering paths to healing and transformation. The “marriage” of Western psychotherapeutic and Eastern contemplative disciplines promises a drug-free way of addressing painful and stubborn psychological conditions—from anxiety and depression to personality disorders and drug addictions.
This East/West dialogue also provides access to a more meaningful life.
And yet, while there is an increasing recognition in the last several decades that the Western psychotherapeutic and Eastern meditative traditions have a great deal to offer each other, what’s easy to miss, and what almost everyone seems to ignore, is that they are only dating, not emotionally intimate; we have only begun to realize what they can teach each other. We need to approach them in a new way.
The current dialogue between Eastern and Western traditions is haunted by a pervasive tendency to idealize one and dismiss the other. I call this pseudo-complementary. Authors claim that claim that both psychotherapy and meditation are valuable, and express an interest in “integrating” them. But when the chief focus of these efforts is how meditation can help clients and therapists, the value of Western psychotherapeutic theories and practices for Buddhist teachers and students is often neglected.
Why do psychoanalysis and meditation need each other? Therapy and meditation not only compensate for the other’s blind spots, but also, when practiced together, can provide a richer understanding than either discipline pursued alone.
My own experiences over three decades with meditation and psychoanalysis have led me to create what I call meditative psychotherapy, which blends the best aspects of Western psychoanalysis and Eastern meditative traditions into a more encompassing synthesis. In meditative therapy, we first use meditation and yogic breathing to quiet and focus the mind, and then explore and translate the meaning of what we have discovered using psychoanalytic understandings of symbolic and unconscious communication. Psychoanalytic attention to unconscious communication and meaning—the second facet of meditative psychotherapy—expands the focus and equanimity that meditation fosters. The third and final aspect of meditative therapy is a special relationship (and environment) designed to illuminate and transform one’s history. Psychoanalysis not only elucidates the interpersonal roots of adult afflictions, it offers a relationship and experience that is a vehicle for transformation in the present. In tandem with meditation, the therapeutic relationship—seen in a freer and more empathic light—becomes a crucible in which recurrent patterns of restrictively seeing and organizing one’s life can be witnessed and ultimately transformed, so that new and liberating kinds of human connections can occur.
