Psychology, psychoanalysis and Buddhism are three distinct and yet inextricably interwoven traditions, each of them defined by their unique endeavor to grasp the nature of the mind, to alleviate human suffering and to enhance capacity for wellbeing, happiness, generativity, love and compassion.
Understanding the nature and functioning of the human mind and the self are essential in any credible attempt to transform personal experience and / or to change overt behavior and we believe that one of the best ways to research the intersection of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and Buddhism is to study human consciousness and subjectivity.
We also propose that the best way to understand disorders of self and personality – “an enduring disturbance of the neurocognitive system regulating patterns of internal experience, behavior and interpersonal adaptation“ is to study them as dialectical, neurocognitive and interpersonal, counterparts of idiosyncratic, “maladaptive” movements of one’s consciousness and subjectivity.
Dogen, a Zen teacher and philosopher, once wrote:
“To study the buddha way (Reality) is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly” (Dogen Zenji “Shobogenzo”, 1200-1253).
How does one “study” or “forget” the self?
How does the self study and forget it|self?
How is one “actualized” by “myriad things”?
Who is the “one” asking the question?
Psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and Buddhism address themselves to the reality of: (1) physicality of the body (neurobiology, drives, wishes, desires, impermanence); (2) the phenomenology of the mindand internal experience (affect and self regulation, subjectivity, the S/self); and, (3) to the complexities of overt behavior (interpersonal relating, implicit and explicit guidelines for a wholesome life)
We all are prewired to develop a “self”. Human brain and nervous system have evolved to “have” consciousness and an embodied, pertinacious sense of “I / me” as a phenomenological center of our own subjectivity.
Along with the “language instinct” and its semiotic function(s), the capacity to “have” (an experience of) mind, consciousness and self are uniquely human, reflective of our evolutionary moment in space and time. As humans, we are also hardwired to organize our genetic endowment and all personal experiences into a personality – a neurocognitive (brain-mind) system regulating the enduring patterns of our internal experience and behavior.
As we mature and transition from infancy to adulthood, personality eventually becomes central in making each of us unique among others and consistent in time and across different situations. In the course of our psychological development, all events in our lives, every interaction, sensation, thought, internal experience or overt behavior leave a permanent trace on our brain-mind (memory) and make us who we are in the present moment.
Given “good enough” conditions, life, self, identity and personality develop relatively intact. When the hereditary and / or situational conditions are not wholesome enough, specific problems known as “disorders of personality” may develop.
In general, personality disorder can be understood as a pervasive, neurocognitive (brain-mind) dysregulation of personality and the self resulting in unusual, exaggerated or extreme subjectiveexperience and/or behavior in otherwise typical interpersonal situations.
A disorder of personality (and a personality disorder), as defined above, can become a life long psychological and psychiatric affliction permeating all aspect of life, interpersonal relations with other people in particular.
Buddhism, psychoanalysis and psychology in general, and Buddhist meditation training and psychotherapy in particular, are two distinct yet overlapping ways of healing and mending hurt selves, ruptured identities and maladaptive personalities.
This website is a forum where psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, Buddhism and disorders of personality can be explored and discussed within a multidimensional, multivariable, neurocognitive paradigm.