child and mother had initially shared one, collective psychological matrix. Eventually,
the child moves into a transitional space (held in the dyad yet outside the dyad)—
slowly achieving the capacity for separateness, slowly developing the ‘capacity to be
alone’ (Winnicott 1958:29). Again, this capacity to be alone by oneself, Winnicott
reminds us, is first established through the experience of being alone in the presence
of someone else—the warm, caring other. Winnicott elaborates further on how this
‘capacity to be alone’ is an essential, foundational starting point for further
developmental gains that transpire throughout the lifespan. Ogden (1986) elegantly
expands the developmental unfolding of this process in an apt paraphrase of
Winnicott: ‘The child must [then] have the opportunity to play in the presence of
the absent mother, and in the absence of the present mother’ (p. 182). The
achievement of this capacity is a precursor to the subsequent developmental tasks of
separation and individuation.
It has been argued that these are the kinds of developmental and interpersonal (and
intra/interpsychic) dynamics that begin to take place in good frame psychotherapy
or psychoanalysis. Such a perspective on analytic ‘cure’ has been furthered by many
contemporary theorists, but, in particular, by a group of psychoanalytic thinkers
termed the ‘deficiency-compensation’ theorists (Stark 1996:238). Self-psychologists
such as Basch, Kohut, Lichtenberg, and Wolf would be included in this group. In
short, these theorists contend that, in the course of therapy, the early developmental
deficits are rectified by the healthy, reparative (caringly neutral) relationship that
develops between patient and analyst—in much the same way that a young child
with good-enough nurturing begins to develop those early, necessary structures and
a solid sense of self. Feeling contained in this kind of therapy strategically positions
the patient to get back on track developmentally—to be able to be with self without
anxiety—to examine one’s present thoughts and early developmental influences.
Again, the ‘capacity to be alone’ seems to be an essential point of departure for moving
ahead—both in a developmental context and in psychotherapy.
This capacity for being alone, I would suggest, also seems to be requisite for a
sitting practice. One might argue that a sitter (a Zen student) will have to have
progressed far enough along the developmental continuum—as a result of
‘good-enough’ early (and perhaps current) relationships—to be in a position to begin,
and sustain, a meditative practice. One has to be contained enough and contented
enough by self (with self) to sit and to risk the experience of non-self or loss of self.
The emptying placeIn sum, I submit that both psychotherapy and Zen practice can work together in a
synergistic way to further the psychological and spiritual development of the person.
Both psychotherapy and Zen heal and transform lives because of the transformative
power of a caring sort of neutrality. Both practices assume the existence of at least
one good-enough parent imago in the mix—someone who is sitting in a neutral place
with the patient (the meditator) without any expectations for the patient or meditator
to do anything in particular—perhaps wanting nothing more for the student than
86 MELVIN E.MILLER