- Email: [email protected]
Going on Being: Buddhism and the Way of Change
BOOK REVIEWS
Profound currents of connection and disconnection, love and hate, and competition and mutual support, shape the father–son relationship. Fathers and sons share the same gender bond, which can lead to a blurring of boundaries and mutual distortions as well as to profound empathy. They are competitors for the mother’s attention even while they look to each other for love and understanding. A son contains the father’s hopes for immortality even as he defines his father’s mortality. The father may remain a powerful judge in a son’s mind, although the son strives for independence and autonomy. Psychology, and our culture in general, has rediscovered fathers over the past several decades, acknowledging more openly the importance of this figure often shrouded in silence and mystery. This edited volume by Pellegrini and Sarbin approaches this relationship from a narrative perspective. “We live in a story-shaped world,” Sarbin notes (p. 11), and the book brings together 17 stories—essays, really—of varying lengths by fathers and sons. Pellegrini states that “the working assumption here is that the meaning of interpersonal relationships, between fathers and sons or otherwise, is encoded in personal constructs of the individual, which are organized in the form of stories” (p. 3). Their intent is to capture specific “critical incidents” in the lives of fathers and sons. The essays are grouped into three sections focusing on (1) identity, (2) emotional life, and (3) self-understanding. All the contributors (save one, who was in eighth grade at the time of his contribution to an intergenerational story) are human development professionals—social scientists, educators, and/or clinicians. Although this provides an articulate sample, it also presents problems and limitations. The stories range over a variety of topic areas, from the way that fathers communicate values and life lessons in their very “doing” in the world (rather than verbally), to how sons come to understand their fathers better as they age, to sorting out family secrets and miscommunications, to the impact of cultural change and pressures to assimilate. In these stories, we come to see that the relationship with a father is never over, that there is always the opportunity for change and reconciliation, that a son struggles with his father even when he is physically absent, even in fact past his father’s death. We read about the profound importance of silence in the father–son relationship and the meanings of silence in men’s lives. We learn more about the often hidden role of shame in men’s experience and how profound the pain is when men feel that they are not living up to the cultural roles asked of them. Often fathers express much love in their actions, sometimes unseen by their sons (and daughters), even if that love is not spoken of directly. The essays in the book are often very moving and show the power of the narrative approach to human development.
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:8, AUGUST 2004
It also exemplifies some of its limitations. The very expectation that the contributions be storied—with “a coherence, not only a beginning, a middle, and an ending, but also a point” (p. 11)—carries with it a misleading picture. Most of these stories do not have the disorganized, uncertain, groping quality that is perhaps the most experienced aspect of the father–son relationship. Similarly, the choice of contributors who are themselves so articulate and informed offers a narrow perspective on the father–son relationship. Most of these men have reconciled with their fathers; many men do not. There is a danger in this enterprise for the “story” perspective to become imperialistic, coming to overwhelm the more inchoate, “unstoried” nature of most men’s experience of their fathers. The story usually comes much later, if at all. All approaches have their limitations. There is much to learn in this touching, honest book written by fathers and sons who make profound efforts to understand each other better in often risky, courageous ways. The authors see this book as potentially a supplementary text for college and graduate courses dealing with human development from a wide array of academic perspectives. I think that they are correct in this: The book would be very useful in psychology, anthropology, and sociology courses. So, too, male and female therapists would likely profit from delving into these life stories. The editors hoped to produce a book of essays that talked to “both men and women about core relationships in their lives.” In this, too, they have succeeded. Men and women have much to gain from reading the moving essays in this volume. Sam Osherson, Ph.D. The Fielding Graduate Institute Cambridge, MA DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000129214.57017.03
Going on Being: Buddhism and the Way of Change. By Mark Epstein, M.D. New York: Broadway Books, 2001, 219 pp., $13.95 (paperback). I picked up Mark Epstein’s first book, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, more than 5 years ago and discovered much that was relevant to my therapeutic work with children and adolescents as well as with adults. I have found the same to be true of his most recent book, Going on Being: Buddhism and the Way of Change. Mark Epstein, psychiatrist, writer, and Buddhist, is a key voice in describing parallel relationships between Buddhist thought and meditation and psychodynamic thought and psychotherapy.
1063
BOOK REVIEWS
His newest work addresses the process of change and draws from his years of practice both as a student of medicine and meditation. In this book, Epstein focuses on the role of the psychotherapist with his patients, a subject that he introduced in his earlier work. He applies the concept of “bare attention,” a phrase used in meditation to indicate a state of acceptance and awareness of ones’ thoughts, to the therapeutic process, pointing out that “bare attention” may also be used to reflect an ideal therapeutic state where therapist and patient are actively working together on specific problems but are open and receptive to unexpected, often hidden aspects that enter the therapeutic frame. He emphasizes how critical it is for therapists to be open and accepting and not promoting their own agenda. As Epstein chronicles, others have addressed this process before him: Bion stated that therapists must work to free themselves from their own memories and desires so that they can be attuned to those of their patients and Winnicott described a state of “evenly suspended attention” as a necessary tool for psychotherapists. In drawing comparisons between meditation and psychotherapy, Epstein enriches the contributions of each. He articulates how both involve a state of awareness that allows factors normally outside consciousness to be noticed. In addition, they each benefit from a balance of discipline and compassion, and each strives to bring about change whether in oneself or in others. Epstein uses several of Winnicott’s concepts to underscore his comparisons between psychotherapy and meditation. He points out that the well-known and frequently overused concept of the “good-enough mother” can be applied to therapists, i.e., “good-enough therapist,” and illustrates how important this undercurrent of acceptance is in therapy and meditation. He also addresses Winnicott’s concept of the “false self,” a protective stance that can be both understood and slowly dismantled by either psychotherapy or meditation. Although Epstein highlights similarities between the psychotherapeutic process and meditation, he also addresses differences. One of his most interesting discussions focuses on the roots of meditation in Eastern culture and those of psychotherapy in the West. He describes how in Eastern cultures many individuals experience a highly interwoven family structure that they seek to escape. By contrast, the opposite is more often true in the West, and many individuals’ experience is one of estrangement and a search for connection or
1064
belonging. These cultural differences affect how one experiences psychotherapy and meditation. For example, Westerners may be confused by the emphasis on “letting go” in Buddhist meditation because they are trying so hard to attach to something. Epstein explains why there is often initial resistance to adopting meditation in the West and why it needs to be presented somewhat differently. This came up directly while I was working with a 17-year-old girl, Eve, who was meditating. She articulated fears of losing herself as she began to let go in meditation and the need to be finding herself. She and I then talked about how one can learn more about oneself through “letting go” even though it feels scary. Epstein’s discussion of the distinctive values of “attachment” and “letting go” is intriguing. Increasing our patients’ abilities in each of these areas is key. In Going on Being, Epstein concludes that both psychotherapy and meditation help individuals let go of constricting boundaries and opinions and allow them to open to change, although meditation focuses on the individual’s relationship with the self and psychotherapy uses a relationship with another, the therapist, as the primary vehicle for change. Eve, who participated in therapy and meditation for 2 years, described feeling more benefit from therapy at the beginning of both. She needed a guide to help her look inside. Over time, she felt that meditation was useful. Mediation allowed her mind to run freely. Epstein describes several cases similar to this one in which psychotherapy and meditation are used together to promote change. Along with Michael Eigen, author of Ecstasy, Mark Epstein is one of few writers who focus on the intersection of therapy and meditation, two venues that can effectively work together to help our patients. I recommend this book to all who engage in therapy or seek to understand how it works— be it alone or in its interface with meditation. Lynn Ponton, M.D. Department of Psychiatry University of California San Francisco DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000129215.95134.50
Note to publisher: Books for review should be sent to Andre´s Martin, M.D., M.P.H., Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road, P.O. Box 207900, New Haven, CT 06520-7900.
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:8, AUGUST 2004
Profound currents of connection and disconnection, love and hate, and competition and mutual support, shape the father–son relationship. Fathers and sons share the same gender bond, which can lead to a blurring of boundaries and mutual distortions as well as to profound empathy. They are competitors for the mother’s attention even while they look to each other for love and understanding. A son contains the father’s hopes for immortality even as he defines his father’s mortality. The father may remain a powerful judge in a son’s mind, although the son strives for independence and autonomy. Psychology, and our culture in general, has rediscovered fathers over the past several decades, acknowledging more openly the importance of this figure often shrouded in silence and mystery. This edited volume by Pellegrini and Sarbin approaches this relationship from a narrative perspective. “We live in a story-shaped world,” Sarbin notes (p. 11), and the book brings together 17 stories—essays, really—of varying lengths by fathers and sons. Pellegrini states that “the working assumption here is that the meaning of interpersonal relationships, between fathers and sons or otherwise, is encoded in personal constructs of the individual, which are organized in the form of stories” (p. 3). Their intent is to capture specific “critical incidents” in the lives of fathers and sons. The essays are grouped into three sections focusing on (1) identity, (2) emotional life, and (3) self-understanding. All the contributors (save one, who was in eighth grade at the time of his contribution to an intergenerational story) are human development professionals—social scientists, educators, and/or clinicians. Although this provides an articulate sample, it also presents problems and limitations. The stories range over a variety of topic areas, from the way that fathers communicate values and life lessons in their very “doing” in the world (rather than verbally), to how sons come to understand their fathers better as they age, to sorting out family secrets and miscommunications, to the impact of cultural change and pressures to assimilate. In these stories, we come to see that the relationship with a father is never over, that there is always the opportunity for change and reconciliation, that a son struggles with his father even when he is physically absent, even in fact past his father’s death. We read about the profound importance of silence in the father–son relationship and the meanings of silence in men’s lives. We learn more about the often hidden role of shame in men’s experience and how profound the pain is when men feel that they are not living up to the cultural roles asked of them. Often fathers express much love in their actions, sometimes unseen by their sons (and daughters), even if that love is not spoken of directly. The essays in the book are often very moving and show the power of the narrative approach to human development.
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:8, AUGUST 2004
It also exemplifies some of its limitations. The very expectation that the contributions be storied—with “a coherence, not only a beginning, a middle, and an ending, but also a point” (p. 11)—carries with it a misleading picture. Most of these stories do not have the disorganized, uncertain, groping quality that is perhaps the most experienced aspect of the father–son relationship. Similarly, the choice of contributors who are themselves so articulate and informed offers a narrow perspective on the father–son relationship. Most of these men have reconciled with their fathers; many men do not. There is a danger in this enterprise for the “story” perspective to become imperialistic, coming to overwhelm the more inchoate, “unstoried” nature of most men’s experience of their fathers. The story usually comes much later, if at all. All approaches have their limitations. There is much to learn in this touching, honest book written by fathers and sons who make profound efforts to understand each other better in often risky, courageous ways. The authors see this book as potentially a supplementary text for college and graduate courses dealing with human development from a wide array of academic perspectives. I think that they are correct in this: The book would be very useful in psychology, anthropology, and sociology courses. So, too, male and female therapists would likely profit from delving into these life stories. The editors hoped to produce a book of essays that talked to “both men and women about core relationships in their lives.” In this, too, they have succeeded. Men and women have much to gain from reading the moving essays in this volume. Sam Osherson, Ph.D. The Fielding Graduate Institute Cambridge, MA DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000129214.57017.03
Going on Being: Buddhism and the Way of Change. By Mark Epstein, M.D. New York: Broadway Books, 2001, 219 pp., $13.95 (paperback). I picked up Mark Epstein’s first book, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, more than 5 years ago and discovered much that was relevant to my therapeutic work with children and adolescents as well as with adults. I have found the same to be true of his most recent book, Going on Being: Buddhism and the Way of Change. Mark Epstein, psychiatrist, writer, and Buddhist, is a key voice in describing parallel relationships between Buddhist thought and meditation and psychodynamic thought and psychotherapy.
1063
BOOK REVIEWS
His newest work addresses the process of change and draws from his years of practice both as a student of medicine and meditation. In this book, Epstein focuses on the role of the psychotherapist with his patients, a subject that he introduced in his earlier work. He applies the concept of “bare attention,” a phrase used in meditation to indicate a state of acceptance and awareness of ones’ thoughts, to the therapeutic process, pointing out that “bare attention” may also be used to reflect an ideal therapeutic state where therapist and patient are actively working together on specific problems but are open and receptive to unexpected, often hidden aspects that enter the therapeutic frame. He emphasizes how critical it is for therapists to be open and accepting and not promoting their own agenda. As Epstein chronicles, others have addressed this process before him: Bion stated that therapists must work to free themselves from their own memories and desires so that they can be attuned to those of their patients and Winnicott described a state of “evenly suspended attention” as a necessary tool for psychotherapists. In drawing comparisons between meditation and psychotherapy, Epstein enriches the contributions of each. He articulates how both involve a state of awareness that allows factors normally outside consciousness to be noticed. In addition, they each benefit from a balance of discipline and compassion, and each strives to bring about change whether in oneself or in others. Epstein uses several of Winnicott’s concepts to underscore his comparisons between psychotherapy and meditation. He points out that the well-known and frequently overused concept of the “good-enough mother” can be applied to therapists, i.e., “good-enough therapist,” and illustrates how important this undercurrent of acceptance is in therapy and meditation. He also addresses Winnicott’s concept of the “false self,” a protective stance that can be both understood and slowly dismantled by either psychotherapy or meditation. Although Epstein highlights similarities between the psychotherapeutic process and meditation, he also addresses differences. One of his most interesting discussions focuses on the roots of meditation in Eastern culture and those of psychotherapy in the West. He describes how in Eastern cultures many individuals experience a highly interwoven family structure that they seek to escape. By contrast, the opposite is more often true in the West, and many individuals’ experience is one of estrangement and a search for connection or
1064
belonging. These cultural differences affect how one experiences psychotherapy and meditation. For example, Westerners may be confused by the emphasis on “letting go” in Buddhist meditation because they are trying so hard to attach to something. Epstein explains why there is often initial resistance to adopting meditation in the West and why it needs to be presented somewhat differently. This came up directly while I was working with a 17-year-old girl, Eve, who was meditating. She articulated fears of losing herself as she began to let go in meditation and the need to be finding herself. She and I then talked about how one can learn more about oneself through “letting go” even though it feels scary. Epstein’s discussion of the distinctive values of “attachment” and “letting go” is intriguing. Increasing our patients’ abilities in each of these areas is key. In Going on Being, Epstein concludes that both psychotherapy and meditation help individuals let go of constricting boundaries and opinions and allow them to open to change, although meditation focuses on the individual’s relationship with the self and psychotherapy uses a relationship with another, the therapist, as the primary vehicle for change. Eve, who participated in therapy and meditation for 2 years, described feeling more benefit from therapy at the beginning of both. She needed a guide to help her look inside. Over time, she felt that meditation was useful. Mediation allowed her mind to run freely. Epstein describes several cases similar to this one in which psychotherapy and meditation are used together to promote change. Along with Michael Eigen, author of Ecstasy, Mark Epstein is one of few writers who focus on the intersection of therapy and meditation, two venues that can effectively work together to help our patients. I recommend this book to all who engage in therapy or seek to understand how it works— be it alone or in its interface with meditation. Lynn Ponton, M.D. Department of Psychiatry University of California San Francisco DOI: 10.1097/01.chi.0000129215.95134.50
Note to publisher: Books for review should be sent to Andre´s Martin, M.D., M.P.H., Yale Child Study Center, 230 South Frontage Road, P.O. Box 207900, New Haven, CT 06520-7900.
J. AM. ACAD. CHILD ADOLESC. PSYCHIATRY, 43:8, AUGUST 2004