Customer Reviews

Thoughts Without A Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective

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The first chapter of this book alone is worth the purchase price. I have it dogeared, and refer back to it frequently. The author uses the Buddhist Wheel of Life as a metaphor for states of pschological suffering. His explanations are both clear and intriguing. This book will interest students of psychology and Buddhism alike.

I think this book is an absolutely wonderful introduction to a particular subset of Buddhist philosophy, and done so in such a way that it may benefit our own lives as well as the academic and practices of psychology today.

Specifically, the examination of the Buddhist Realms of existence (of which there are 6 I believe) and its relation to our states of mind. In doing so, we are treated to stories of the personal struggles of his patients as well as their parallels to Buddhist concepts (most notably the 6 realms).

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good INTRODUCTION (as the depth could be expanded further of course)to Buddhist philosophy within our current scientific concepts, as well as psychologists looking to expand their world view and see ancient Buddhists as their predecessors. A well written and caring book.

It was one of a few required texts for a Buddhism class. I chose it because I have an interest in psychology, particularly the psychodynamic perspective (unconscious motivation) and this book added to my life in such a way! I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about Buddhism and freeing one's "self" from the limitations of convention. I don't agree with everything in it, but this is a book for my collection, definitely.

The author of this book has done an outstanding job explaining the different benefits of both psychotherapy and meditation, there limits and how these approaches can help the other. He explains that "It's not what we are feeling that's important but how we relate to it that matters". The author does a great job clearing up a lot of misconceptions about meditation and the Buddha's teachings. They are very similiar to modern day psychotherapy. Meditation is a form of self therapy, observing your thoughts as they arise and insight mediation allows you to examine how your thoughts flow and why.
Buddha taught that the false ego or metaphorical self causes mental suffering. Deeds exist, but no doer can be found. Thoughts exist with out a thinker. We have thoughts, feelings, a body, senses, and consciousness; all these exist, however there is no "I" or "ego". That is mental formation we hold in our mind and give it a form, but it is a mental mirage and is an illusion and is the root of all our mental suffering. That is the main teaching of this book, and if you can grasp that you overcome the world.

Epstein sees psychotherapy and meditation as going hand in hand. He does not see them used consecutively, or side-by-side, but rather being closely integrated.

There are many exciting developments in the use of mindfulness and meditation in psychotherapy. A Buddhist approach is one of them. What gives such value to Epstein's approach, though, is his success at giving an overall theoretical psychodynamic framework. This book is an excellent statement on the `how it works' of meditation in psychotherapy. What is needed after a close reading of this material, are specifics on the `how to' of actually doing and using meditation within a psychotherapy practice.

---For the therapist with a psychodynamic orientation, I recommend studying the third section of this book, in which Epstein lays out a process for integrating meditation and therapy.

---For the mindful client who wants to understand the therapeutic process, a reading of the whole book will be helpful.

---The Buddhist reader will be able to better understand psychodynamic psychotherapy after reading this.

The book brilliantly explains the process of integration, but stops short of explaining exactly how to set the wheels in process. For now, psychotherapist wanting to learn the `how to' in individual psychotherapy will need supervision, as approaches are developed client by client.

I am interested in dialog on mindfulness and psychotherapy. [...]

A glance at the Buddhism or Applied Psychology sections of any bookstore or website will turn up thousands of titles, many of which are insightful, and many of which are, frankly, New-Age fluff. Those books of the 'fluff' category tend to come from people who no business writing about Buddhism and/or applied psychology because they simply do not know the subject matter (and let me be clear that I am not an expert in either field). Books of these genres that are (1) accessible to non-specialists, and (2) authored by real experts are gems in a sea of mediocrity. Mark Epstein's "Thoughts Without a Thinker" stands out even among these higher-quality works, though, not only because non-specialists can follow his ideas, but because he really knows his stuff in BOTH of the fields that he integrates in this work.

What makes this book remarkable, for me at least, is that Epstein does NOT try to combine Buddhism and psychotherapy into a hybrid so much as he creatively and effectively uses each to reflect and inform the other. Instead of advocating a watered-down "Buddhism-Lite", or a Western psychology with some meditation draped over top, he recognizes that each has its merits, but that each can learn from the other without attempting to become the other. The result is a trenchant presentation/interpretation of Buddhism that Westerners can follow (because it starts from categories and cultural institutions rooted in Western traditions of psychology) AND an applied psychology that learns from Buddhism without trying to become Buddhism.

Since the 1890's, psychotherapy has steadily advanced in its understanding of the human psyche and Dr. Mark Epstein's book from a Buddhist perspective is a wonderful and natural part of that advancement. It fits perfectly into the present times where more people are interested in attaining the benefits of a healthy psychological and spiritual understanding of themselves.

Just in the introduction, Dr. Epstein helped me understand the journey of psychotherapy, informing me clearly and easily how over the past 120 years, numerous psychologists have extensively explored how our humanness affects us individually and collectively. This includes how one of the first psychotherapists, Sigmund Freud, covered the effects of the powerful forces of sexual and aggressive instinct from inside of us and the repressive forces of society from outside of us. It also showed me how Freud's student, Carl Jung, took his work further and deeper into understanding how we are unconsciously affected and influenced by the mythic patterns and archetypal forces stored within the collective human consciousness itself.

In understanding this, I realized for myself how a major shift in the progressive evolution of human consciousness took place in the 1960's when individuals gathered together and publicly challenged society by demanding more personal freedom. I was 10 years old, barely entering the age of reason, yet I knew inside myself that we needed more civil liberties based on race, gender, sexuality, age, and class. I knew it, just as I came to realize later, as I grew older, that the revelation of the existence of extensive drug addiction, alcoholism, and physical/mental/sexual abuse in families was the revealing of the very problems people wanted to relieve and eliminate by attaining what they needed that was being denied to them - the human rights necessary to exist in peace and safety - freedom, equality, and respect for their right to be who they are.

Today I am one of the many people demanding an overall change in human consciousness itself in order to gain relief from suffering. This is why I have been drawn to Dr. Epstein's work. His approach to psychotherapy is significant because he is answering this call for change by addressing our need to know the deepest and highest truths about ourselves as beings, unencumbered by the powerful patterns and forces of our human bodies and past social conditioning.

This book, "Thoughts Without A Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective", and his other book, "Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist Perspective", both address how psychotherapy can be modified and used to support our current need to realize ourselves as unlimited beings of Life, Mind, and Consciousness itself, and how to incorporate this into our current existence and daily lives as human beings. His other two books, "Going on Being: Buddhism and the Way of Change - A Positive Psychology for the West" and "Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness", have helped me understand my own experiences as a part of this evolutionary change. Together, all four books have provided me with a significant understanding of the process of change in human consciousness from both an individual and collective perspective and how Buddhism is totally in tune with assisting us through this process of change.

I deeply appreciate Dr. Epstein's work as his gift and contribution to our evolution of beings, helping me to know myself better as a human being and as a unlimited being of pure Consciousness and Life.

I read Epstein's book on Desire before this one. When I read this book I was struck by how foundational it is for the desire book. That said, it doesn't make this book less useful for the reader. Epstein, as always, mindfully approaches the subjects at hand with experience and theory offered up to help readers grasp the concepts.

I found his approach of cultivating openness to feeling to be really insightful and helpful in dealing with some avoidant behaviors I have. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes his other work or is looking for a different perspective.

This book can be tough to read in spots if you don't have a basic grasp of psychology and know some of the big names in psychology and what their theories were, but that doesn't take away from the insight and inspiration that this book delivers.

I'm an engineer by degree and career path. I know very little about Frued, Winnicott and others, but the way the Buddhist principles were related to all of the scientific theories in the book drove me to do some low level wikipedia research to expand my understanding of what the book talks about. It unlocked a deeper level of understanding to this material.

I am analytical and mathematical by nature, but my spiritual side has always longed to come out. This book provides another bridge in between these two seemingly opposite things and shows how they can work together to achieve a better understanding of my place in the world.

I recommend this book to anyone who has a genuine interest in both psychotherapy and Buddhism and who is seeking to apply both aspects to their life. Fear not, you need not possess a degree in psychology or in Eastern philosophy to understand the concepts Dr. Epstein conveys. He explains psychotherapy in very elementary terms as well as the insightful teachings of the Buddha. It is truly a seamless integration of Eastern and Western ideologies which leaves the reader feeling empowered and able to make sense out of two greatly misunderstood, or not fully understood, topics.