Zen and Psychoanalysis

Drawing from original source material, contemporary scholarship, and Wilfred Bion’s psychoanalytic writings, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting introduces the Zen notion of "gūjin," or total exertion, and elaborates a realizational perspective that integrates Zen Buddhism and psychoanalysis.

Developed by the thirteenth century Zen teacher and founder of the Japanese Soto Zen school, Eihei Dogen, gūjin finds expression and is referenced in various contemporary scholarly and religious commentaries. This book explains this pivotal Zen concept and addresses themes by drawing from translated source material, academic scholarship, traditional Zen kōans and teaching stories, extensive commentarial literature, interpretive writings by contemporary Soto Zen teachers, psychoanalytic theory, clinical material, and poetry, as well as the author’s thirty years of personal experience as a psychoanalyst, supervisor, psychoanalytic educator, ordained Soto Zen priest, and transmitted Soto Zen teacher.

From a realizational perspective that integrates Zen and psychoanalytic concepts, the book addresses anxiety-driven interferences to deepened Zen practice, extends the scope and increases the effectiveness of clinical work for the psychotherapist, and facilitates deepened experiences for both the Buddhist and the secular meditation practitioner. Two Arrows Meeting will be of great interest to researchers in the fields of Zen Buddhism and psychoanalysis. It will also appeal to meditation practitioners and psychoanalysts in practice and training.

Seiso Paul Cooper is an ordained Soto Zen Buddhist priest and transmitted teacher and Director of the Two Rivers Zen Community in Narrowsburg, NY, and the Realizational Practice Studies Group in New York City, which serves as a unique venue for psychotherapists to engage in Zen practice and to study psychotherapy from a Zen perspective. Cooper continues to be an innovative contributor to the integration of Buddhism and psychoanalysis. He is Former Dean of Training at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis (NPAP), New York, and maintains a private practice in Manhattan and Narrowsburg, NY, USA.