As psychoanalysis became increasingly well established as a cultural institution, it tended to lose some of its more revolutionary and progressive potential, becoming somewhat arrogant, conservative, and insular. (Location 167)
INTRODUCTION: Psychoanalysis and Buddhism as Cultural Institutions JEREMY D. SAFRAN
Freud and the Dalai Lama
Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, people no longer have the faith in science they once had, and the existential vacuum created by the death of God has become more pronounced than ever. It has become clear that psychoanalysis is not a science in the same sense that physics or chemistry are, but rather a secular form of spirituality. In some ways it functions to fill the void that was once filled by religion. (Location 193)
As the sociologist Philip Reiff (1966) has pointed out, the religious man of premodern times has been replaced by psychological man, and psychoanalysis has played an important role in this transformation. One of the appeals of Buddhism to a secular, psychoanalytic culture is that it is not a religion in the Judeo-Christian model, with belief in God and a theological doctrine demanding a leap of faith. As Stephen Batchelor (1997) puts it, Buddhism is a “religion without beliefs,” or in Alan Watts’s (1996) words, “a religion of no-religion.” This makes Buddhism an appealing religion for the post-religious, postmodern person with a hunger for religion but no stomach for religious belief. (Location 199)
Buddhism, like psychoanalysis, is a heterogeneous tradition with different schools and conflicting and seemingly contradictory beliefs. Both Buddhism and psychoanalysis are cultural institutions that originally developed as expressions of the values and the complex tensions and contradictions within their cultures of origins. Both are systems of healing that have evolved over time as culture has evolved, as the configuration of the self has evolved, and as new cultures have assimilated them. And both have transformed the cultures in which they have evolved. (Location 205)
The Cultural Origins of Psychoanalysis
As Reiff (1966) has argued, psychoanalysis developed during a period in which the traditional religious values and symbols that held the community together were breaking down. Religious systems play the dual roles of integrating the individual with the community and of providing a system of communally held symbols and rituals that heal individuals who experience emotional distress. These traditional systems of healing function by giving some sense of meaning to the individual’s suffering and by reintegrating the alienated individual into the community. This process of healing involves an act of faith and commitment to the values of the community, and through that commitment, one experiences salvation. (Location 219)
Reiff sees psychoanalysis as qualitatively different from traditional systems of healing. From his perspective, psychoanalysis is not a therapy of commitment but rather an approach that liberates people from the type of commitment required by traditional religion and other social institutions. (Location 227)
Freud had no interest in providing people with any form of salvation. In important respects his value system was consistent with the values of science and the modern era. From this perspective, knowledge is power, and self-knowledge allows choice. To Freud’s way of thinking, the mature individual is a realist, and the realist does not need the comforts of religion, which he regarded as illusion. (Location 239)
Increasingly, analysts are realizing that the analytic process is not free of suggestion and persuasion, and that a certain degree of indoctrination into the analyst’s value system is both inevitable and desirable. (Location 249)
just as the child’s initial construction of reality is forged in the crucible of affectively intense human relationships characterized by dependency upon the parent, the change that takes place through psychoanalysis is inevitably dependent upon a new socialization process in which the analyst functions as an intimate and loving authority. (Location 256)
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Another way in which psychoanalysis has elements of a therapy of commitment is in its tendency to develop doctrinal positions that the faithful must adhere to in order to be considered “true analysts.” As Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) pointed out, for many years Freud’s drive theory was the litmus test of whether one was a real analyst, and rejection of drive theory could lead to excommunication from the profession. And even within postmodern and pluralistic circles, the belief in the importance of “throwing away the book” is becoming a new doctrine of sorts (Hoffman 1994; Greenberg 2001). (Location 261)
El gato amarrado del cuento de De Mello.
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Psychoanalysis and the Culture of Individualism
“What the patient needs is not a rational reworking of unconscious infantile fantasies; what the patient needs is a revitalization and expansion of his own capacity to generate experience that feels real, meaningful, and valuable… If the goal of psychoanalysis in Freud’s day was rational understanding and control (secondary process) over fantasy-driven, conflictual impulses (primary process), the goal of psychoanalysis in our day is most often thought about in terms of the establishment of a richer, more authentic sense of identity” (Location 270)
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According to Philip Cushman (1995) the disintegration of the unifying web of belief and values that traditionally brought people together and gave life meaning has resulted in the development of what he refers to as the empty self. This empty self experiences the lack of tradition, community, and shared meaning as an internal hollowness, a lack of personal conviction and worth, and a chronic, undifferentiated emotional hunger. (Location 280)
The individual in contemporary culture tends to be narcissistic in the sense that he has a grandiose or inflated sense of his own uniqueness and abilities. This grandiose and hyper-individuated sense of self is a defensive attempt to cope with the underlying sense of fragility and isolation resulting from the breakdown of traditional social structures and unifying webs of meaning. (Location 285)
Whereas people once saw personal contentment as a byproduct of living a good or moral life, in contemporary culture the pursuit of happiness risks becoming a goal in and of itself. (Location 293)
Relación entre felicidad y una vida basada en valores.
Relational Developments and the Postmodern Turn
One of the more important developments in contemporary psychoanalysis consists of the relational perspective (Aron 1996; Benjamin 1988; Ghent 1989; Mitchell 1988). This perspective involves a host of related theoretical developments, which share in common an emphasis on the relational field as the basic unit of study, rather than on the individual as a separate entity. Human beings are regarded as being fundamentally interpersonal in nature; mind is regarded as composed of relational configurations; and self is regarded as constructed in a relational context. (Location 302)
Constructivist epistemology asserts that reality is intrinsically ambiguous and is given form only through our interpretation of it. This perspective has profound implications for the nature of analytic authority and goes hand in hand with the increasing democratization of the therapeutic relationship. As we shall see, the shift toward a constructivist epistemology and the recognition that all knowledge is positional is also consistent with developments in traditional Buddhist philosophy. (Location 316)
In an argument somewhat reminiscent of Jacques Lacan’s, he claims that the American ego-analytic emphasis on ego integration tends to value rational analysis and synthesis and to pathologize emotional intensity. In contrast, openness to a range of different states of being is conducive to greater unpredictability and passion in life. (Location 341)
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Origins of Buddhism
the Buddha denied the existence of an atman, or of any transcendental self or soul. At the same time, he never taught that the self does not exist (as he is often interpreted to have done), but rather argued that the self is nonsubstantial, in the sense that it is constructed on a moment-by-moment basis out of a variety of components: memories, physical sensations, emotions, concepts, dispositions (including both unconscious and inherited conditioning), and so on. Furthermore, he argued that the construction of self is always influenced by ever changing causes and conditions. (Location 374)
From a Buddhist perspective, the self, like everything in this world, is transient or impermanent. Death, illness, and loss are unavoidable aspects of life. Suffering arises as a result of attempting to cling to what we desire and to avoid what causes us pain. Liberation emerges as a result of recognizing the impermanent nature of reality and letting go of our self-centered craving. (Location 381)
The goal in Buddhism thus becomes not one of transcending worldly experience but rather one of finding a wiser way of living within it. (Location 388)
Concentration meditation plays an important role in helping the individual develop the attentional skill necessary to observe his or her experience in a mindful fashion, but the experience of meditative absorption is not the goal. The objective of this second form of meditation, which is referred to as insight or mindfulness meditation, is to help the meditator develop a greater awareness of the manifold contents of awareness as they unfold, and an ability over time to develop an attitude of nonjudgmental acceptance of the full range of experience. This objective is in keeping with the Buddhist emphasis on learning to live fully in this world rather than on pursuing otherworldly experiences. Mindfulness meditation leads to a greater appreciation of the impermanent or ever changing nature of all phenomena, including the self. It also leads to an appreciation of the role the mind plays in constructing reality. (Location 395)
Another important characteristic of early Buddhist thinking is the rejection of all metaphysical speculation. In this respect Buddhist thinking, at least in its early form and in some contemporary variants, is essentially pragmatic and agnostic in nature. It is pragmatic in the philosophical sense (e.g., Rorty 1982) insofar as truth is defined as that which is effective in relieving human suffering. And it is agnostic in the sense that it refuses to engage in metaphysical speculation. There is a story in which the Buddha used the analogy of a man who is shot by an arrow. In a situation of such urgency, questions such as who made the arrow and what type of bow was used are irrelevant. What is critical is the practical affair of removing the arrow. Similarly, argued the Buddha, metaphysical and cosmological speculation are irrelevant to the task of relieving human suffering. Moreover, committing oneself to a metaphysical view or a theological doctrine is a form of enslavement. It interferes with the openness essential to enlightenment or true existential awakening. (Location 402)
In some respects the thrust of the early Buddhist tradition was analogous to the thrust of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Early Buddhists were interested in purifying the Upanishadic tradition of features that they saw as problematic, just as Luther and Calvin wanted to purify Christianity. They wanted to eradicate the magical or superstitious elements, eliminate empty ritual, and establish a more direct relationship between the individual and the experience of salvation (or what the Buddhists refer to as enlightenment). (Location 414)
Tension and Evolution within Buddhist Thinking
Since its inception, Buddhism has struggled with the tension between the pragmatic/ agnostic perspective at its core and the need for faith and epistemological certainty and metaphysical absolutism. In many ways this parallels the tension in psychoanalysis between Freud’s vision of psychoanalysis as a purely rational, scientific, analytic approach and the tendency to develop a new therapy of faith and commitment. (Location 423)
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Partially in reaction to this trend, the Madhyamika school of philosophy developed. This perspective employed sophisticated linguistic and logical analysis to deconstruct the Abhidharmic analysis of the self into constituent elements and to demonstrate that none of these elements have intrinsic reality. The argument is not that such phenomena are nonexistent, but rather that they are empty of inherent existence. In other words, all phenomena exist in dependence on our construction of them. This perspective anticipated contemporary hermeneutic and constructivist thinking by hundreds of years. The Madhyamika perspective is not a radical constructivism, but rather closer to what Hoffman (1998) refers to as dialectical constructivism. (Location 433)