[Buddha-l] Buddhism and Psychology becomes unfalsifiable

[JKirkpatrick]

Gang,

Joanna wrote,

> Successful psychotherapy in my view is a mutually worked out 
> experience, not a bifurcated scenario where the client is
supposed to 
> be a passive receiver of wisdom and analysis and the therapist
is 
> allowed to be an aggressive know-it-all jerk.

I agree entirely. But I must add that bemoaned model of therapy
as a process of the client passively accepting the therapist's
wisdom is profoundly UN-Freudian. The talking cure works (if it
does at all) through the process of the client becoming
increasingly aware and accepting of the wonderful and previously
unacknowledged (=repressed) complexity of her or his own mind. In
this process the client *must* be active and creative. Classic
analytical technique demands near silence on the part of the
analyst; there is no chance for a beneficial outcome unless the
analysand is the prime actor and true creator of that outcome.
Good analysts have know this and helped their patients practice
this for over a hundred years.

So have good meditation teachers, for a couple of thousand. The
processes are remarkably parallel, as many practitioners on both
sides have pointed out. Which leads me to ask if anyone has read
Joseph Bobrow's very recent book, _Zen and Psychotherapy:
Partners in Liberation_? <http://tinyurl.com/27synhw>. Bobrow is
a Zen teacher and a psychotherapist and has written the (to me)
most deeply humane and insightful treatments to date of the
commonalities between psychotherapeutic and meditative work. He's
done this in articles and chapters, so I'm keen to read what he
has to say in a whole monograph.

With good wishes,

Franz
__________________

Ok,  now that more chips without beer are down on the table, I
wish to add that my most successful shrink experience was with a
Gestalt therapist, *who was also a Buddhist*, who introduced me
to meditation via Joseph Goldstein's book. Fantastic
breakthrough. I became a committed Buddhist at that time (but not
a fanatic, y'all). Gestalt therapists don't follow the classic
model of the silent therapist. (Some Perls opponents would say I
got lucky. That's Ok...... chaqun a son gout.)

The totally worst shrink experience I ever had was when I was in
grad school and trying to work with a guy of the totally silent
type. (Tall, silent, and handsome--I called him the Great Stone
Face.) 
Silent types I can't work with. I dumped him after 3 useless,
annoying sessions, and the counseling center at the university
found me a fantastic classic shrink, a Jewish refugee from
Germany I'd wager (due to his age and accent),  who did not model
total silence, nor did he hit me with Freudian omniscience. At
that point I was so impressed that I might have gone for a
complete anlaysis with this guy, except that I was a mere poor
grad student.  That trip helped with the presenting problem, and
it was OK with not continuing. 
The later experience was more crucial. That Gestalt guy helped me
with a much more debilitating problem--the death of my mom and my
not being there when she died, being 3000 miles away, it snowed,
the roads to airport were closed, I couldn't get to the airport
for stand-by. 

Thanks, Frantz, for the Bobrow information and comment.

All best wishes,
Joanna