Joseph Bobrow - Zen and Psychotherapy: Partners in Liberation

Often the most interesting places in our lives are found where two contrasting spheres of influence meet those warm tidepools of the littoral zone that bristle with all sorts of fertile surprises. Joseph Bobrows book embodies just such a rich encounter in the interfacing of Zen and psychotherapy. His several decades of experience have enabled him to draw knowledgeably and freely from both disciplines. His narrative coaxes insights as often from academic papers, encounters, and dreams, as it does from koans and dialogues of the ancients, poems, and song lyrics. All of these he has brewed together in the fecund pool of his own wisdom and thoughtful analysis, and what has emerged from that crucible is a fine book, brimming with life, and resonant with integrity and heart. It would be no surprise if people were quoting from it long into the future.

AJAHN AMARO, author of Small Boat, Great Mountain; Silent Rain; and Rugged Interdependency

Zen master and psychoanalyst Joseph Bobrow has a rare depth and subtlety of experience in both disciplines and ways of life. After nearly forty years of practice and teaching in each, he has written a definitive, clear, and compassionate book that argues persuasively that Zen and psychotherapy are complementary traditions. Each challenges and enriches the other. Even enlightened Buddhist practitioners can expand themselves as individuals and in their relationships. Therapists and their patients can become more meaningfully aware of the depth of experience that lies beyond individuality and individuation. Mindful of differences, but also indivisible links, Bobrow challenges us to realize the integration of the personal and the universal in our daily lives. Anyone interested in psychological or spiritual ideas or practice will find much of value in this deeply gratifying and informative work.

GERALD I. FOGEL, MD, training and supervising analyst and former director, Oregon Psychoanalytic Center

This is a quiet book that works you, not simply informs you. Bobrow embodies unconscious affective communication between psychoanalysis and Buddhism. Hes lived it. The book carries it. The reader experiences it.

CHARLES SPEZZANO, PHD, author of Affect in Psychoanalysis and co-editor of Soul on the Couch

A masterful exploration... nuanced, sensitive, perhaps poetic, and certainly non-reductive. I am not aware of another book that plunges so deeply into theory, with equal respect and appreciation for both disciplines. Bobrows voice from the Zen teaching seat is clear, compassionate, encouraging, deep, yet modest. Those adjectives apply to the book in its entirety.

from the foreword by Norman Fischer

Please read this book. Joseph Bobrow is a true meditation teacher who walks his talk and enjoys his practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Joseph Bobrow shows how fertile it can be to study both Zen and psychotherapy simultaneously. This book is smart, lively, and provocative.

Mark Epstein, MD, author of Thoughts without a Thinker

A fine book, brimming with life, and resonant with integrity and heart.

Ajahn Amaro, abbot of Amaravati Monastery

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This book is an intimate dialogue that examines the interplay of emotional and spiritual development through the lens of Zen Buddhism and psychotherapy. Zen and Psychotherapy artfully illuminates the intrinsic connections between the two practices, and demonstrates how the traditions can be complementary in helping to live a truly fulfilled and contented life.

Zen teacher and psychologist Joseph Bobrow deftly shows how the major themes of trauma, attachment, emotional communication, and emotional regulation play out in the context of Zen and of psychotherapeutic practice, and how, in concert, both provide a comprehensive, interactive model of fully functioning human life.

To my father, Robert Bobrow,

and my mother, Helen Krieger,
for the gift of life
To Aitken Gyoun Roshi, Yamada Koun Roshi,
and Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh for helping reveal
its essential nature
To Joseph Caston, for helping me learn to live it fully