Why read The Couch and the Tree?

Book cover of The Couch and the Tree: Dialogues in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism

Book description

In this new collection of writings, psychoanalyst Anthony Molino offers a bold new conjunction of the two major disciplines. This book spans and documents a unique cross-fertilisation of Eastern and Western thought.'

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Couch and the Tree as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Alvin Raja Hornstein

Author

This collection of essays contains pieces by many of the same authors in my first recommendation. But this begins with the historical roots, including early psychoanalytic arguments that meditation was an attempt to return to the womb. Also, there are Buddhist writers emphasizing that in meditating you're trying to get to a state of "no mind," so what good was psychotherapy? But the book moves to a conversation between a Japanese Zen teacher and C.G. Jung, and then towards the Dalai Lama's thoughts about the unconscious. It even includes a writer who is both a psychoanalyst and a Zen priest.

From Alvin's list on The best books on how psychotherapy and meditation work together.