Creatively exploring the points of confluence and conflict between Western psychology and Buddhist teachings, various scholars, researchers, and therapists struggle to integrate their diverse psychological orientations -- psychoanalytic, humanistic, cognitive-behavioral, transpersonal -- with their diverse Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist practices. By investigating the degree to which Buddhist insights are compatible with Western science and culture, they then consider what each philosophical/psychological system has to offer the other. The contributors reveal how Buddhism has changed the way they practice psychotherapy, choose their research topics, and conduct their personal lives. In doing so, they illuminate the relevance of ancient Buddhist texts to contemporary cultural and psychological dilemmas.

Encountering Buddhism: Western Psychology and Buddhist Teachings, Seth Segall, SUNY Press, Paperback, 2003, 214 pages, $19.95

Seth Zuiho Segall is a Zen priest, author, and psychologist who is the science writer for the Mindfulness Research Monthly and a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He is a retired member of the clinical faculty of the Yale University School of Medicine and the former Director of Psychology at Waterbury Hospital. He has been a practicing Buddhist for over a quarter of a century within a variety of traditions, but currently practices with Pamsula Zen of Westchester. His most recent books include The House We Live In (2023) and Buddhism and Human Flourishing (2020). He is not an authorized teacher and makes no special claims to knowledge or authority.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Buddhist Psychology
Andrew Olendzki

2. Close Encounters of a New Kind: Toward an Integration of Psychoanalysis and Buddhism
Jeffrey B. Rubin

3. The Buddha Teaches an Attitude, Not an Affiliation
Belinda Siew Luan Khong

4. On Being a Non-Buddhist Buddhist: A Conversation with Myself
Seth Robert Segall

5. Finding the Buddha/Finding the Self: Seeing with the Third Eye
Jean L. Kristeller

6. Awakening from the Spell of Reality: Lessons from Nagarjuna
Kaisa Puhakka

7. Reflections on Mirroring
Robert Rosenbaum

8. Psychotherapy Practice as Buddhist Practice
Seth Robert Segall

9. Buddhism and Western Psychology: An Intellectual Memoir
Eugene Taylor

Glossary

Contributors

Index