[Buddha-l] Buddhism and Psychology research

[Dan Lusthaus]

Bruce writes:

> I like your Freud better.

You give me too much credit. It's not my Freud. That's the Freud one finds 
in his writings, as Richard -- who has read at least ten Freud books -- and 
Franz, and probably Joanna, can attest. I only offered a few comments on 
what Eros and Thanatos touch on in Freud's work. That's still the tip of the 
iceburg. As Joanna mentioned, his oedipal theories, theory of projection, 
etc. are insightful. His wealth of insights have so been absorbed into 
general culture it is hard sometimes to recognize how significant and 
radical his contributions were and continue to be.

The current state of Freudian analysis has something to do with how the 
"disciples" have mismanaged the founding ideas -- but also a lot of rival 
(oedipal) castigation from most competing "therapies," so making up 
strawmen, comic Freuds to ridiculte and feel superior to has been a cottage 
industry in the profession for many years (Jung was one its earliest 
practitioners).

As for a reading list on current psych and brain research, it's less about 
following particular authors, and more just monitoring research publications 
(which usually have a string of "authors" -- viz. everyone from the guy who 
wrote the grant proposal, the the person who constructed the experiment 
model, to the person who eats lunch in the lab doing the actual work --  
names often appearing in that order). I have long been intrigued esp. by 
psychology of perception research, and some new studies finally focusing on 
touch (vision has been overdone, hearing could still use more) are exciting, 
though the researchers are still trying to figure out ways to test touch 
that are not based on models designed to examine vision. Brain studies on 
plasticity, and, again, perceptual and cognitive functions catch my 
attention. I have always thought of them as the modern counterparts to 
abhidharma and certain aspects of Yogacara (e.g., bijas vs vasanas mirror 
precisely current nature vs nurture arguments re: DNA vs epigenetics).

One way to either monitor this sort of research, or find it quickly, is on 
pubmed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
or
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

E.g., go the the first link above, and type "touch" in the search box on 
top. You get a list of possible topics from therapeutic touch (an 
interesting therapy that was tested and promoted by the NYU nursing school 
over 20 years ago, and still around), to "touch sensation" and "touch 
perception". Select any of those and all sorts of research publications 
appear, listing research papers, most recent first. "Touch sensation" yields 
over 20,000 hits (this is not google wild stuff, but actual research 
studies; for contrast, a search on pubmed for "freud's theory" yields only 
1216 hits; but "freud" produces 4669 hits, most of which are scientific 
studies of various sorts that are not explicitly directed at Freudian 
theory, again showing that his work is starting to gain some attention among 
the hardcore scientists; "jung" produces mostly false hits -- articles 
written by people named Jung other than Carl, and "jungian" only 616 hits, 
none of them -- at quick glance -- having anything remotely to do with a 
hard science.**). Some are very technical, some very narrowly focused, but 
with some patience one can find (if one recognizes by title) intriguing and 
important studies. In the case of "touch sensation", the 8th entry is:

Cross-modal Processing in the Occipito-temporal Cortex: A TMS Study of the 
Müller-Lyer Illusion.
Mancini F, Bolognini N, Bricolo E, Vallar G.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2010 Aug 31. [Epub ahead of print]PMID: 20807050 [PubMed - 
as supplied by publisher]

Click that and you go to an abstract of the study (with links to followup 
studies). Sometimes, depending on what sort of institutional access you have 
to certain types of journals, you can get the full article. The abstracts 
are often written in techno-babble, which sometimes needs to be decoded to 
recognize what the piece is actually about. Trust me that the study above is 
actually interesting and important, which if you read the actual study you 
will quickly see.

The one that follows it in the list of hits may have more appeal for 
frontline professionals:

[Health in prison: shared vulnerability between detainees and health 
professionals]
Rieder JP, Gravier B, Bertrand D, Pasche C, Bodenmann P, Wolff H.
Rev Med Suisse. 2010 Jul 28;6(257):1462-5. French. PMID: 20806565 [PubMed - 
in process]

Initially this all might seem time consuming and chaotic, but eventually you 
can focus, and there are ways to monitor ongoing research related to your 
specific interests.

Enjoy.

Dan

**  No. 18 on the "jungian" list might interest Richard and others:

Inner Night and Inner Light: A Quaker Model of Pastoral Care for the 
Mentally Ill.
Stanley J.
J Relig Health. 2009 Dec 11. [Epub ahead of print]PMID: 20012487 [PubMed - 
as supplied by publisher]

Hard-core!!!