Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy

6

A MINDFUL SELF AND BEYOND

Sharing in the ongoing dialogue of Buddhism

and psychoanalysis

Adeline van Waning

Psychoanalytical-mystical openness to the unknown overlap. Analytic

workers, not religious in the literal sense, may be touched by intimations

of something sacred in the work.

(Michael Eigen, in The Psychoanalytic Mystic, p. 11)

Introduction

Buddhism is a spiritual approach, developed 2500 years ago and aimed at
enlightenment; psychoanalysis is a general psychology and a form of therapy, having
its roots in the nineteenth century, and aimed at understanding and remedying
psychological problems. While many distinguishing aspects can be named, we can
also be aware of similarities in Buddhist psychology and psychoanalysis. Both
psychoanalysis and Buddhism concern themselves with dissatisfaction, human
suffering, and its alleviation; both offer a kind of ‘diagnosis’ and a ‘treatment plan’.
They both take place within an important personal emotional relationship: the
relationship of therapist-client, and the relationship of teacher-student. They
emphasize the importance of comparable experiential processes: in analysis evenly
hovering attention and free association, in Buddhism the method of meditation. The
obstacles in these processes are recognized and have an important function in the
transformation-process: defence and resistance in psychoanalysis and what are called
‘hindrances’ in Buddhism.
Both can be named ‘uncovering’ approaches, aimed at insight into our nature and
way of thinking and feeling. There are some ‘technical’ aspects that are characteristic
for psychoanalysis (and less for other psychotherapy approaches) that can be linked
with Buddhism. We may say that both approaches seem to share a relatively ‘neutral’,
though compassionate stance of the therapist and teacher, who are attentive and may
be noticing and naming, but are not giving direct advice (this may be more true for
psychoanalysis than for Buddhism). The client and meditator is expected to observe
what is there, without censorship. There is a certain ‘abstinence’ in the way that the
therapist or teacher is not intentionally gratifying, but functions as a guide or midwife
in the person’s own process. We can also say that, in the beginning of the process, a
certain benign ‘split in the ego’ is favored: one can experience in what way and what