The Gap Between: Being and Knowing in Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis

The author discusses various relationships derived from the image of gap, precipice, and abyss with specific emphasis on interacting dynamics between being and knowing as explicated in the Zen Buddhist teachings of Hui-neng and in the psychoanalytic writings of Wilfred Bion. While of significant value to psychoanalysis, it is argued that symbolic meanings can occlude the actuality of the analysand's or of the spiritual seeker's affective experiencing, particularly concerning the human tendency to concretize experiential states engendered through meditation and/or the psychoanalytic encounter. The author draws from Matte-Blanco's explication of symmetrical and asymmetrical perceptual modalities to discuss the fluid nature of spiritual experiencing, paradoxical coexistence of ultimate and relative realities and reciprocal dynamics and identities between states of experiencing that might otherwise appear opposed. The primacy of experiencing for both disciplines, particularly concerning the experiencing subject's momentary state of consciousness, forms a central theme for both Zen and psychoanalysis. Brief clinical vignettes support and illuminate the author's points.     

Between Wonder and Doubt: Psychoanalysis in the Goal-Free Zone

This paper examines the experiential dimensions of wonder and doubt as one way to articulate the creative and growth-promoting tensions between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical model. Both forms of experience, it is argued, function as necessary elements in a psychotherapy that integrates psychoanalysis and spiritual praxes. Fundamental differences between the medical/scientific model and the spiritual/mystical models are examined. The notion of the gap serves to illustrate these diametrically opposed, albeit compatible and necessary, points of view. The multifaceted layers of movement between Buddhism and psychoanalysis typify interacting dynamics between the two disciplines and provide a focal point for discussion. The paper then explores parallels between the Zen Buddhist notion of Satori as explicated in the writings of D. T. Suzuki and Wilfred Bion's notion of O. Theoretical aspects of the discussion provide a backdrop for exploring clinical experience regarding the relationship between acceptance and change, the clinical relevance of the Buddhist notions of gaining idea and basic goodness. The author also explores relationships between presence as actuality and ideal; knowing and not knowing; wonder and doubt. Clinical material supports the theoretical aspects of the discussion.     

Bringing Zen Practice Home

Buddhist meditation practice is perceived as non-relational. Yet a serious meditator develops an intimacy with herself that is an asset to being in a healthy relationship. In this essay, using composite profiles of patients, I pursue my interest in relationships and family life as a path to mental health and a home to enlightened experience. The intimacy of a relationship with oneself, with another and within family provides a container that may enable us to let go of our fixed sense of self.     

BUDDHISM AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: A PERSONAL REFLECTION

Around 600 BC Siddhartha Gotama practiced intensive meditation for several years and found a way for people to cultivate a sense of equanimity, wisdom, and compassion in their lives. Around 1900 AD Sigmund Freud undertook several years of intensive self-analysis and developed theories and therapeutic techniques for understanding how the unconscious operates in our lives to perpetuate neurotic suffering, and how we might gain insight and relief from that suffering and be more free to move toward our potential in this life. This article gives an overview of Buddhist theory and practice, gives an account of the author’s personal journey through both disciplines, and then point outs the similarities and differences in them, leading to an integration of elements of these two paths of exploration of the psyche, for the purpose of mutual enrichment.Dr. Nichol is a graduate of the Menninger Clinic and the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute, and he is in private practice.     

Unconscious Process: Zen and Psychoanalytic Versions

Attention to unconscious processes forms the nexus of the psychoanalytic endeavor and adds dimension to the theoretical and clinical integration of Buddhism and psychoanalysis. The author traces convergences between Freud's, Matte-Blanco's, and D.T. Suzuki's explication of the psychoanalytic and Zen readings of the unconscious. The Buddhist understanding of the unconscious propensity to reify experience can be integrated with psychoanalytic thinking. An alternative understanding and processing of aggression with supporting clinical material provides a case in point. The author concludes that continued Buddhist practice holds the potential to alter radically existing psychoanalytic models without destroying the efficacy of well-established formulations and accompanying techniques.     

Clouds Into Rain

Drawing from the work of Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion, this article explores projective and introjective dynamics in terms of Buddhist meditative methods and practice. Forms of meditations, such shamatha or calm-abiding, and vipashayana or analytic meditation, are linked to psychoanalytic dynamics in clinical terms. The interface between Buddhist meditation and psychoanalytic experience is explored with case material.     

An analysis with Bion: an interview with James Gooch. Interview by JoAnn Culbert-Koehn

In 1968 Wilfred Bion moved to Los Angeles, escaping the perils of fame in London. He lived in Los Angeles until a few months before his death in Oxford in 1979. He made a deep impact on psychoanalysis in Los Angeles through those he analysed and what he wrote. James Gooch, psychiatrist and founding president of the Psychoanalytic Center of California describes in detail the transformative experience of his analysis with Bion in an interview with JoAnn Culbert-Koehn, Jungian analyst. Dr. Gooch describes important differences between his analysis with Bion and his classical Freudian analysis during his analytic training.     

Discussion: Application of Psychoanalytic Developmental Understanding to Three Early Intervention Programs

Discussion is made of the application of psychoanalytic developmental understanding to three early intervention programs. One program that was highly ambitious in its aim of preventing aggressive behavior in children attending elementary school was effective but may have attempted to achieve too much. One, involving an assistance program in a public school for boys who had lost their fathers, was extremely successful in helping the boys to express and deal with their feelings verbally rather than through undesirable behavior. The third program provided services for very young children that developmentally were extremely useful to them. Discussion is made of the value of these programs not only to the children involved but also to the teachers and mental health care personnel who worked with them.     

The Experience of the Holy: A Relational Psychoanalytic Analysis

The title of this paper, The Experience of the Holy is a direct reference to Rudolf Otto's book Das Heilige. The paper begins with Otto because he lays out many of the important issues involved in a psychological investigation of the experience of the holy, especially the question of whether the sacred is a unique object of experience, or a characteristic of our experience of ordinary objects. The paper then discusses three contemporary relational psychoanalysts (D.W. Winnicott, Hans Loewald, and Christopher Bollas), and the ways in which their theorizing illuminates the psychology of the sacred.     

Clinical Flexibility in the Psychoanalytic Situation: The Elasticity Principle

Abstract

This paper explores the development of the Elasticity Principle, first introduced by Ferenczi based upon his clinical observations. This important shift away from classical neutrality was inspired by Ferenczi's human approach to psychoanalysis. Learning from his analysands, he not only determined that in order to reduce resistances the analyst should present any interpretations in a tactful, empathetic manner, but also that the analytic work should bend or yield toward the analysand. The paper traces the evolution of the Elasticity Principle to The Grand Experiment, which was Ferenczi's analysis of Elizabeth Severn utilizing provision as an analytic tool. The paper follows the contemporary extensions of the Elasticity Principle in the development of Self Psychology and in the Relational perspective. A clinical example illuminates aspects of the Elasticity Principle in the work with a difficult analysand.     

East of Ego: The Intersection of Narcissistic Personality and Buddhist Practice

This article explores the intersection of clinical narcissism and Buddhist meditation practice. Through the lens of Otto Kernberg and Heinz Kohut’s theories of narcissism, the article investigates the many facets of Eastern spiritual practice when undertaken by a narcissistic practitioner. In particular, questions are raised regarding the potential psychological dangers of pursuing meditation practice when suffering from clinical narcissism. Potential applications for a cross-pollination of psychoanalytic support and Buddhist practice are also considered for the narcissistic patient and/or spiritual practitioner.     

Applying Buddhist Practices to Recovery: What I Learned From Skiing With a Little Buddha Wisdom

The author describes how 5 Buddhist practices—enlightenment, compassion, acceptance, mindfulness/meditation, and the spiritual community—can serve as a foundation for an integrated recovery model that incorporates numerous perspectives from the 12‐step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. An application of the model illustrates how it is applied to real‐life recovery.     

Structure with Engagement: Toward an Integration of Trauma and Relational Psychoanalytic Models in the Treatment of Dissociative Disorders

Trauma model approaches to the treatment of dissociative disorders may provide containment and direction and yet, these same approaches may be constricting and limit exploration. However, relational psychoanalytic approaches may allow for engagement and exploration while potentially failing to provide containment and structure. This article provides an overview of key elements of both models and considers the question of whether it is possible to creatively resolve theoretical and clinical tensions between trauma model and relational psychoanalytic responses to dissociation. A review of the history of the study of dissociation in the field of psychoanalysis and concerns about psychoanalytic practice in the context of dissociation is followed by comparing contrasting conceptualizations of the assumptions of normality, definitions of dissociation, theories of etiology, goals of treatment, and theorized mechanisms of action. The review ends with a discussion of potential possibilities for clinical integration.     

Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy,viewed through the lenses of spiritual direction and psychoanalysis

Rudolf Otto’s work, The Idea of the Holy [Das Heilige], is both new and old: it puts the idea of the holy or numinous into the mainstream of Christian discourse, but does this in a way that is deeply embedded in Otto’s heritage. The psychoanalytic lens puts a spotlight on engaging with the numinous from the complete experience of being human. In terms of spiritual direction, that enables a deeply incarnational approach, which is also indebted to apophatic forms of spirituality that can easily be under-valued.     

The Products of the Imagination: Psychoanalytic Theory and Postmodern Literary Criticism

This article considers some of the affinities between postmodern literary theory and the psychoanalytic theories concerned with intersubjective phenomena. Postmodern literary theory is described briefly, and it is argued that one of its major concerns is the nature of, and the political and cultural influences on, subjectivity and identity. Despite that, postmodernism generally, and literary postmodernism in particular, can be said to lack a theory of the psychological and interpersonal dimensions of the experience of self. This article contends that the more relational schools of psychoanalytic theory can provide an example of the construction of selfhood that is of importance to contemporary and postmodern literary criticism. The academy has, to a considerable extent identified psychoanalysis with the work of Jacques Lacan, but since the 1980s the work of such theorists as Jane Flax and Jessica Benjamin, building on the work of Nancy Chodorow, have increasingly opened up the possibilities of relational and object relations theory for literary studies. The relational psychoanalytic theories operate in the same epistemological universe as postmodern literary criticism, congruent with the postmodern idea of truth as constructed and relational, and selfhood as shifting, contingent, and always-in-process. Particular attention is paid to the work of Wilfred Bion, whose understanding of self provides an account both of the failure of meaning, and of the development of mind. Some examples of a relational approach to literary analysis are provided.     

Abandonment, Religion, and Male Melancholia: A Psychoanalytic Study of Archpriest Avvakum's Religious Autobiography

The present study is a psychoanalytic reading of Archpriest Avvakum's autobiography and takes its cue from some observations made by Russian and Ukrainian historian Edward Keenan, who offered a tentative diagnosis of manic-depression to describe Avvakum's personality. In my view, Donald Capps's analysis of religious male melancholia supports Keenan's observations, and I argue that Avvakum carried his childhood experiences and conflicts over into his later religious life. His religious life manifested a series of transferences and displacements, with Mary the Mother of God, God the Father, and the Church functioning as his loving or positive relationships with his family; and Patriarch Nikon and his followers embodying everything he feared and resented about his own childhood—change and abandonment.