Before he became a counterculture hero, Alan Watts was known as an incisive scholar of Eastern and Western psychology and philosophy. In this 1961 classic, Watts demonstrates his deep understanding of both Western psychotherapy and the Eastern spiritual philosophies of Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga. He examined the problem of humans in a seemingly hostile universe in ways that questioned the social norms and illusions that bind and constrict modern humans. Marking a groundbreaking synthesis, Watts asserted that the powerful insights of Freud and Jung, which had, indeed, brought psychiatry close to the edge of liberation, could, if melded with the hitherto secret wisdom of the Eastern traditions, free people from their battles with the self. When psychotherapy merely helps us adjust to social norms, Watts argued, it falls short of true liberation, while Eastern philosophy seeks our natural relation to the cosmos.

Compares the diverse teachings of ancient and modern psychotherapies

Existential Psychology East-Westis a collection of chapters exploring existential psychology in a cross-cultural context. The original version was published in preparation for the First International Conference on Existential Psychology held in Nanjing, China in 2010. This revised and expanded edition includes several updated chapters as well as four new chapters. The book consists of three sections. The first section provides an introduction to existential-humanistic psychotherapy along with a case illustration. Section two contains 13 chapters from Eastern and Western scholars exploring the theory of existential psychology. The third section contains 10 chapters building from Rollo May's work on myth. Each chapter explores the existential themes of a myth embedded within a particular cultural context. The book concludes with an Annotated Bibliography of important works in existential psychology. Existential Psychology East-Westis an important contribution to the field with many influential Eastern and Western scholars including Kirk Schneider, Xuefu Wang, Ilene Serlin, Mark Yang, Ed Mendelowitz, Heyong Shen, Erik Craig, Myrtle Heery, Alan G. Vaughan, Louis Hoffman, and Nathaniel Granger, Jr.

Can a meditative practice assist and promote the healing relationship between psychotherapist and patient? The notable contributors to this practical book draw on a wide range of Eastern and Western disciplines—psychoanalysis, Gestalt, Aikido, and various Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist contemplative traditions—to show that it can. What they propose is a meeting between the Western psychotherapeutic approach—grounded in working with the personal problems and the need to carve out a strong awareness of self—and Eastern tradition, which emphasizes a larger kind of awareness and equanimity as a continuously available source of clarity and health for those who know how to find it. They show that joining psychotherapy with meditation can mutually awaken the hearts of both therapist and client, sparking them both to open more fully. Jacob Needleman, Erich Fromm, Robin Skynner, Ram Dass, Karl Sperber, Roger Walsh, Chögyam Trungpa, and Thomas Hora are among the contributors.

Accepting relentless impermanence as the ground of human experience, Words from the Soul derives a spiritual psychology from the mystery and poignancy of time-passage itself. Drawing from Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Foucault, Dostoyevsky, Buddhism, kundalini yoga, and twenty-five years of clinical/mediation experience, the author's epigrammatic insights into our struggles with mortality, gratitude, apology, and forgiveness make this book relevant to psychotherapy and conflict resolution in a wide range of professional settings. In his exploration of the furthest-reaches of human development, Stuart Sovatsky reveals the deepest potentials of the ensouled body, transforming our views of language, sexuality, ecstatic spiritualities, and of the human life cycle.

How can we connect the spiritual realizations of Buddhism with the psychological insights of the West? In Toward a Psychology of Awakening John Welwood addresses this question with comprehensiveness and depth. Along the way he shows how meditative awareness can help us develop more dynamic and vital relationships and how psychotherapy can help us embody spiritual realization more fully in everyday life. Welwood's psychology of awakening brings together the three major dimensions of human experience: personal, interpersonal, and suprapersonal, in one overall framework of understanding and practice.

Before he became a counterculture hero, Alan Watts was known as an incisive scholar of Eastern and Western psychology and philosophy. In this 1961 classic, Watts demonstrates his deep understanding of both Western psychotherapy and the Eastern spiritual philosophies of Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga. He examined the problem of humans in a seemingly hostile universe in ways that questioned the social norms and illusions that bind and constrict modern humans. Marking a groundbreaking synthesis, Watts asserted that the powerful insights of Freud and Jung, which had, indeed, brought psychiatry close to the edge of liberation, could, if melded with the hitherto secret wisdom of the Eastern traditions, free people from their battles with the self. When psychotherapy merely helps us adjust to social norms, Watts argued, it falls short of true liberation, while Eastern philosophy seeks our natural relation to the cosmos.