Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

My patients talk more about spirituality … many more mention Buddhism … I
recognize as a trend that lots of people who may have similar backgrounds to mine
have turned away from a … rigid sort of religious upbringing but have embraced …
Buddhism as a way of finding … a sense of community and belonging (AL 460-
467).
This impact is much less than in the USA where a wide range of Buddhist thinkers and
practitioners engage with psychoanalysis, and Buddhism is seen in an increasingly
favourable light, though still regarded negatively by some. 484 Benjamin recalls,
In the American Psychological Association …we have large meetings once a year,
people give papers and someone was giving a paper about this patient who had taken
up Buddhist meditation in between sessions and was presenting this as though it
were a piece of pathology that the patient was in a sense not wanting to deal with the
loss between sessions … so I actually did stand up and say that, that was a really a
rather jaundiced way to look at it, and that it was very creative for the patient to find
a way to both calm herself and also organize herself in-between sessions and that it
didn’t detract from her analysis, on the contrary (JB 563-573).
However, Buddhism’s very popularity is a problem. 485 Bobrow’s concern is that aspects of
Zen are taken out of context and applied in therapy and Zen teachers adopt a simplistic
understanding and use of transference and counter-transference, neither fully engaging with
the unconscious. 486 There is still much for psychoanalysis and Buddhism to learn through
dialogue, avoiding the danger of equating Freud with Buddha.
485 ‘In America you can go down the street and sign up at the Zen centre down the street here and you can
practise Zen Buddhism, and then you say alright now that I’ve practiced Zen Buddhism for 5 years I can talk
about Buddhism … as someone who has studied Buddhism academically, and lived in Japan … I think that’s a
very narrow view of Buddhism’ (JJ 803-809).
486 ‘What the Buddhists don’t understand is the contribution of the unconscious emotional communication and
how … you can be thinking pure thoughts, cultivating goodness and really hurting yourself and other people
… that’s where psychoanalysis comes in. On the other hand, I don’t think psychoanalysts understand the fact
that our thoughts and our feelings do condition our well-being. I mean, there is this idea that you have private
experience, and if you have a rageful experience, it’s just your private experience and you’ll work it out in
your analysis. But the fact is that if you’re stuck on rage and you can’t find a way to work it through that will
toxify your life. And so, I think the Buddhist teachings about cause and effect, and the importance of intention
and the quality of mind have something to teach the analysts and analysts’ appreciation of the deeper layers of
emotional thinking and motivation. Because Buddhists say it’s not just what you’re thinking, but your
intention that conditions something. But analysts have written about intention and motivation from time
immemorial. I want to bring those together’ (JBR 416-432).
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