4
THE TRANSFORMATION OF HUMAN
SUFFERING
A perspective from psychotherapy and
Buddhism
Polly Young-Eisendrath
In my view, there are two main objectives that are shared by Buddhism and long-term
analytic psychotherapy: the gain of a perspective and skill that alleviate personal
suffering in everyday life, and an increase of compassion for self and others. Although
my training as a psychoanalyst is Jungian, I have for many years been associated with
institutions and settings that were mainly Freudian, object-relational and/or
intersubjective. In the following paper, I mean to speak to the goals of psychotherapy
and Buddhism in ways that are common to all analytic approaches to psychotherapy.
Clarifying the ways in which Buddhism and psychotherapy are both similar and
different in their goals and methods should assist the practitioners of both in
addressing the concerns of people who seek help for their suffering. Tracing the
boundaries and domain of subjective distress—specifically dukkha as it is described
in Buddhism—may also assist us in making scientific investigations of certain
well-established methods and processes of the transformation of human suffering.
Throughout my development as a psychologist and psychoanalyst, I have been
sustained and renewed through my own practice and study of Buddhism—as a
student first of Zen and now of Vipassana. I became a Zen Buddhist in a formal
ceremony in 1971, nine years before I received my Ph.D. in psychology in 1980,
fifteen years before I received my diploma as a Jungian analyst. Recently, I have
attempted to refine some of the concepts of analytic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis
(e.g. Young-Eisendrath 1996; 1997a; 1997b; 2000; 2001), drawing on my
experiences in, and understanding of, a Buddhist approach to the transformation of
suffering. Buddhism and feminism, the latter especially in regard to the effects of
gender stereotypes and inequality, have assisted me in my work as an analytical
psychotherapist over the past twenty years. Feminism has made me alert to the ways
in which both Buddhism and psychoanalysis, like other institutionalized traditions,
can oppress and oppose women and others, through intentional or unintentional
hierarchies and biases. Buddhism has helped me appreciate the importance of
concentration, equanimity, and compassion in psychoanalytic work. Without
Buddhism and feminism, I could not practice psychotherapy and psychoanalysis as
I do. These two other practices have allowed me to see how human suffering, rooted
in ignorance, can teach us compassion when we understand the meaning of our own
suffering.