An Excellent Servant, a Terrible Master

Reviews the book, Into the mountain stream: Psychotherapy and Buddhist experience edited by Paul C. Cooper (see record 2007-05046-000). According to Knowles, there is an exciting and emerging convergence between psychological models of mental balance and Buddhism. At the base of both approaches is an effort to first understand and then move toward reducing human suffering. Psychology conceptualizes human beings as generally in a state of mental health from which they may deviate as the result of psychological, biological, and/or social factors. Buddhism starts with an appreciation of people as prone to what psychologists would view as mental imbalances to greater or lesser degrees and sees these as the basis of suffering. Psychology can be thought of as working to strengthen the independent sense of self, whereas Buddhism focuses on dissolving that distinction. In this book, Paul Cooper has edited a brief book of essays on the interrelationship between psychotherapy and Buddhist experience. The essays are written by a group of psychoanalysts practicing in both traditions. Knowles was disappointed that in this book psychotherapy means psychoanalysis, for certainly the former contains the latter but is much more inclusive. The 12 essays in this volume all contribute rich material to the problem of how to suffer life as we encounter it, and it is noteworthy that much of the volume is composed of reports of the journeys that the authors have made in learning about their own suffering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)