Bøger af Wolfgang Giegerich

This essay has the purpose of sharpening psychology's self-understanding by reflecting it against the foil of the "other" of Buddhism as elucidated by what competent Japanese scholars, well versed in both Eastern and Western thinking, have written about the Buddhist conception of the psyche or mind, often contrasting it with Western psychology. Close examination shows, however, that such a comparison meets with serious difficulties because what is compared is not always really comparable or commensurable. It is precisely through the analysis of these difficulties that psychology is enabled to come to a clearer understanding of where it stands.

Written in the tradition of C.G. Jung and starting out from the insight that it is not we therapists, but the soul itself that heals psychological disorders, this book is not a manual offering advice to therapists about what to do in order to bring healing about. It rather offers a theoretical reflection about how healing is to be understood in a truly psychological (in contrast to medical) sense and it explores a range of factors that-generally part of the therapistʼs work in the consulting room-are in fact conducive to a possible healing. These factors include such aspects as the personality of the therapist, the abstract position of "therapist" in the objective institution of psychotherapy, the chosen setting, the role of the therapistʼs psychological theory, the extent to which one opens oneself to "the other", the work on consciousnessʼs ideas, illusions, images, and dreams. In each case, an attempt is made to understand more deeply how specifically and why they contribute to healing. But since the healing effect is not in our hands, due attention is also paid to the limits of therapeutic work.

"First published 2005 by Spring Journal Books"--Verso.