Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation [Hardcover]

John Welwood (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2000

     Can the meditative traditions of Buddhism be integrated with the practice of Western psychology? John Welwood's latest book addresses this question with new comprehensiveness and depth, building on the innovative psychospiritual approach of his six previous books. The questions he addresses include:
What can the spiritual methodologies of the East teach us about psychological health? What issues arise when the recognition of our larger nature challenges our very conception of individual self? What new directions become possible when psychological work is undertaken in a spiritual context? How does Western psychological understanding affect our approach to spirituality?      
     Welwood's psychology of awakening brings together three major dimensions of human existence: personal, interpersonal, and suprapersonal, in one overall framework of understanding and practice. The book's first section addresses basic questions about the relationship between psychology and contemplative spirituality. The second explores the practical implications of this convergence for psychological health and healing. The third considers the implications for relationship and community.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Have you ever noticed that self-described spiritual people are not necessarily all that easy to be with? John Welwood has a term for what often happens--spiritual bypassing. This is when a person reaches for the stars while forgetting about the goop on his shoes. Welwood, author of the popular Love and Awakening and Journey of the Heart has made a profession out of bringing East and West together, integrating the path to enlightenment with the techniques of psychotherapy. In Toward a Psychology of Awakening, Welwood integrates a series of his articles written over a period of 30 years in an attempt to explain the dynamics of psychologies East and West. The hope is that, combined, they can create a wholeness that encompasses the various levels of human experience. Since many of these articles were written for specialist readers, they won't have the verve and inspiration of Welwood's other books, but Welwood fans and enthusiasts of transpersonal psychology will be delighted to have all these ground-breaking articles together in one place. So go ahead and reach for the stars--just don't forget that you still have to slog through the mire with the rest of us. --Brian Bruya

From Publishers Weekly

Much has been written about the link between Buddhism and psychotherapy in recent years. Yet this thoughtful work by longtime psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner Welwood (Love and Awakening) shows that an experienced observer can add much to the emerging conversation about a path of development that could embrace both personal psychology and the deeper reaches of our inner nature. In traditional Chinese philosophy, the human condition was seen to touch three dimensions: earth, heaven and man. At its best, Welwood believes, psychotherapy acts as earth, grounding the individual, while Buddhist thought and practice can be heaven, liberating a person from fixed ideas and blind spots by providing a spacious view of the real self. To become fully human--able to embrace our experience with an open heart and an open mind--we must stretch between heaven and earth. Welwood illustrates how this stretching works by showing how various concepts from Buddhism and from psychotherapy play out in practice. "The Mahamudra lineage of Tibetan Buddhism sees the awakened mind and the confused mind as two sides of the same reality," he writes. "An image from this tradition that portrays coemergence is that of the silkworm binding itself in its own silk." Welwood describes how one client built a sense of self in a deprived environment by identifying with deprivation itself; how another nurtured a sense of specialness and aliveness by identifying with sadness to distinguish himself from his uncaring family. The author helped these clients appreciate the brilliant resourcefulness behind the defensive personalities--the better to eventually let them go. Rich, potentially transforming insights abound here. Psychotherapists and spiritual seekers alike will be enriched by this book. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala (May 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570625409
• ISBN-13: 978-1570625404
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #267,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

As a psychotherapist, teacher, and author, John Welwood has been a pioneer in integrating psychological and spiritual work. Welwood has published several books, including the best-selling Journey of the Heart (HarperCollins, 1990), as well as Challenge of the Heart (Shambhala, 1985), and Love and Awakening (HarperCollins, 1996). He is an associate editor of the Journal for Transpersonal Psychology. He leads workshops and trainings in psychospiritual work and conscious relationship throughout the world.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Integrating couch and cushion., April 18, 2002

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation (Paperback)

"In addition to waking up to our ultimate spiritual nature," John Welwood observes about the psychology of awakening, "we also need to grow up--to ripen into a mature, fully developed person" (p. xviii). Welwood is a San Francisco psychotherapist and a thirty-year student of Tibetan Buddhism and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this collection of articles written over the past three decades, Welwood integrates Eastern spiritual practice with Western psychology, maintaining that "awakening needs psychology just as much as psychology needs awakening" (p. xvi).

Too often Westerners attempt to avoid dealing with their "emotional unfinished business" by turning to spiritual practices instead. Welwood calls this "spiritual bypassing (pp. 5; 11-12; 207-13). Many people engaged in spiritual practice suffer from psychological wounds including self-hatred, aggression, emotional reactivity, narcissistic egocentricity, depression, and other defensive patterns, and Welwood maintains that a course of psychologically-oriented personal work could serve, support and further their movement toward awakening (p. xviii).

Welwood's 330-page book is divided into three sections, each exploring the interface between Eastern spiritual practice and Western psychology. The first explores what it means to be human: the relationship between personal growth--becoming a more mature, authentic person--and spiritual development (p. 3). "Enlightenment is not some ideal goal, perfect state of mind, or spiritual realm on high" Welwood writes, "but a journey that takes place on this earth. It is the process of waking up to all of what we are and making a complete relationship with that" (p. 33). In the second section of his book, he explores the capacity to be fully present with our experience "as it is" through psychological healing (pp. 134-35). He calls this "unconditional presence" (p. 141)--"just being with what is, open and interested, without agenda" (p. 143). Welwood confronts the subject of depression not only as an affliction that should be suppressed, but as "a potential teacher that can convey an important message about our relationship with ourselves, the world, or life as a whole" (p. 172). Part three explores personal relationships, intimacy, love and passion, and more specifically, how to remain conscious in our personal relationships with friends, lovers, coworkers, parents and children (p. 229), "in a sane, wide awake, spiritually vital way" (p. 231).

Fascinating, compelling, and insightful, Welwood's guide to personal and spiritual transformation is sure to become one of the most frequently revisited resources on my bookshelf, and is highly recommended for anyone interested in living a more meaningful life.

G. Merritt

75 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book on integrating psychology and spirituality, November 16, 2000

By 

a reader (San Rafael, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation (Hardcover)

This is the best book on integrating psychology and spirituality that I've read, written in both a clear and heartfelt way.I'm truly moved by the great depths that the author has touched. His ways of discussing how healing happens and the warmth and brilliance and range of his insight are quite inspiring. His way of discussing the ground of being is the clearest I've read, and he writes of it in many different ways that will reach a wider range of people, both in the healing professions and in ordinary life. I felt that everything he discussed came from his own realization. He shows how spiritual work helps us discover how "the ground of our being actually holds us up" and how the essence of healing lies in learning how to let be. Can someone heal who doesn't learn that whatever emotional states they have can be held openly and unconditionally in awareness? This book shows how in both psychotherapy and spiritual work, it is being awake with thoughts, feelings, and sensations, without separation and distance, that heals. Then the mind can "self-liberate" when we stay open right in the middle of what's coming up.In Welwood's words,"unconditional presence is the most powerful transmuting force there is, because it is a willingness to be there with our experience." Each one of the therapy examples in the book moved me and focused on the larger field of how we are with our experience.This book will undoubtedly by a guide for brand new ways of practicing therapy. Let me share one of my favorite quotes (among so many). Welwood describes a client whose fear of nothingness was a symptom of being cut off from herself. As she began to open unconditionally to "being nothing," her inner division fell away "as she stepped out of the fixed stances/attitudes/associations she held toward 'being nothing' with their long history dating back to childhood. In becoming present in a place where she had been absent, she experienced her being, rather than her nothingness. 'Being nothing' transmuted into the empty fullness of being--where the fear of being nothing no longer had a hold on her." For me, this is the crux of healing and the author describes it so wisely and compassionately that it has opened up many new vistas for me.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More intellectual than John Welwood's more popular books on relationship, October 8, 2006

By 

Patrick D. Goonan "see profile for URL" (Livermore, CA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation (Paperback)

TOWARD A PSYCHOLOGY OF AWAKENING is a dense book that describes the path of spiritual transformation from both an Eastern and Western perspective. Its primary value lies in trying to synthesize these two ways of looking at reality and describes in detail how each path informs the other.

Many paradigms both East and West aren't necessarily integrative for many modern people. This book is an attempt to provide a more holistic worldview that reconciles psychology with Buddhist insights into human nature, love and transformation.

There is also a good section on relationship as a path. I think this is an important area to address because something arises in intersubjective experience that has emergent qualities that transcend each individual. In other words, things like love, compassion and community. We can only be fully human when we are fully engaged with others in a conscious manner. This book discusses these issues and does a great job of it.

Many people won't find this book an easy read. It contains a lot of material and it explores many ideas in-depth. It also attempts to synthesize a lot of material in a brief space. However, if you have a deep interest in psychology or Buddhism, you will discover a treasure trove of good information and innovative ways of bringing it together.

If you are not very familiar with Western Psychology or Buddhism, but have a deep interest in personal and spiritual growth, you will still get a lot out of this book. However, you may find it a slower read and will undoubtedly have to take time to assimilate all of the concepts. It will be well worth the effort, but this isn't a superficial bedtime story.

Overall, I give this book my highest recommendation. It is original, well-organized, and well thought out. It is an important contribution in the area of psychological and spiritual growth and the relationship between them.