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Psychotherapeutic Observations on the Zen Discipline - One Point of View

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Psychotherapeutic Observations on the Zen Discipline - One Point of View Psychologia, 1960,3,100-112. PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC OBSERVATIONS ON THE ZEN DISCIPLINE - ONE POINT OF VIEW - ERNEST DECKER ~raCllse University psychotherapeutic observations on Zen, which attempt to equate its result with that effected by psychoanalysis, have generally been uncritical. Obviously, no word can be final in the present state of knowledge, and the entire question is open to and in need of much more thorough study. But there is one need which is not being met, it seems, and that is for a critical antidote, at the very outset, to a too complete equation of Zen with psychoanaly­ sis. This essay is an attempt in this direction, and criticism that it may stir up by its view of Zen will be scientifically welcome. Every parti pris repr'esents a point of departure, which is looked back to as knowledge advances, with inevitable misgivings about initial naiveness and unconscious bias reflecting one's own values. Any opportunity made available for a cross-fertilization of Eastern and Western views is uniquely in the scientific interest. One of the first psychiatrists to offer a survey of the psychological essentials of Zen was­ Albert Stunkard.* Most of his observations, representing insights of a skilled specialist, are right to the point. What Stunkard left unsaid seems to reflect the need for deeper study and more historical perspective on Zen. Deficiencies in his analysis stem from too rigorous a comparison of Zen to the psychoanalytic situation per se, as we shall see further on. Aspects of Zen which have "striking counterparts in current psychotherapeutic prac­ tice," are enumerated.** The first such element is the necessity for the presence of a master -a feature which in Zen is central to an acquisition of all the skills and to monastic life: "This necesity reveals the interpersonal character underlying the Zen methodology." (page 423) The manner in which the master acts upon the student is compared to the psychoanalytic method: the need to maintain a "delicate balance" between the "encouragement necessary to maintain the subject's participation, and the frustration required for his continued self­ examination." (page 424) Furthermore, Stunkard understands that the koan study "might be expected to lead to­ a certain degree of bewilderment." And, as he indicates, the central issue from a psychiatric point of view is "to account for the enormous emotional investment in such apparent non-­ sense." (page 424) The need for a resolution of ambivalence in the interpersonal relationship is particular­ ly clear to the psychiatrist-interpersonal adaptation under stress, and not reality-testing is. the main issue at stake for the disciple. Or, in the author's words: * "Interpersonal Aspects of an Orieatal Religion," Psychiatry, 1951, 14, pp. 419-431. ** All the attributions which follow are from Stunkard, op. cit., unless otherwise noted. 100 PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC OBSERVATIONS ON ZEN 101 " ..• if the master is the essential element of the training, the koan achieves its importance as it serves to relate the master and his disciple. The fact that all meditation is done in anticipation of the next contact with the master makes this most probable. And in a peculiarly apt way the koan symbolizes the impossible task of the child trying to find out what the parent wants; for he cannot give the right answer, and somehow the necessity that he do so grows." (page 425) This frustration leads to regression, and the "old reality loses its appeal." (page 425) The new task before the disciple is to win over the forbidding authority figure of the master, and it is this that becomes all-important. "The student attempts all his tricks of intellect, all his methods of feeling." In Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953), he recounts how he painfully arrived at a trick release of the bow-aimed to please the master, and not really to trick him. In other words, he wished to relieve the master's stressful censoriousness.* The stressful nature of the Zen discipline is apparent in the fact that there is no communication or symbolic mediation that can solve the koan dilemma: "The nature of the problem which is set is such that its solution is clearly and from the first beyond any attempt to understand it through the use of symbols. Instead Zen attempts a continuous con­ trontation of the student with the problem of defense as such-that is, with the problem of symbol mediation." (page 426) In psychoanalysis, on the other hand, a premium is put on symbol recall in free association. "if for no other reason than for the purpose of communication between the analysand and analyst." (page 426) The auther indicates that the koan method of extreme frustration might be expected to "lead to a deeper regression than one which relies in part at least on symbols." (page 426) " And there is evidence that such is the case, that regression occurs to pre-verbal stages of ego orga­ nization. In the experience of Enlightenment, one of the most striking aspects of the descriptions is what appears as a loss of ego boundaries •.. 'As I walked along I became aware that I was the same as the trees at which I was looking. It was not that I had ceased to be myself, but I had be­ come the trees as well." "Here is an abandonment of defense to a degree unknown in psychoanalytic procedure, an abandonment of defense not only against anxiety, but even against the loss of ego integrity. It is no wonder that accounts of the Enlightenment experience have a psychotic ring." Stunkard's observation on satori is that it seems to involve "no special insight." (page 4271 Rather, what occurs, is a change in the functioning of the individual. As we indicated else­ where (Ph. D. dissertation referred to above) even this change in functioning is not im­ mediate-satori is best understood as fmal introjection of the new value system, or superego of the master.** One of the tasks Stunkard sets himself is the psychiatric explanation of the arbitrary and irresponsible conduct described in the mondos (description in the literature, of persons who got satori.) The novice may hit or otherwise mock the master, etc. The auther * This account of his Zen training by a Westerner who spent over six years learning Zen through archery, is an especially valuable document in any analysis of Zen as psychotherapeutic. The writer has treated this account at length in a Ph. D. dissertation now being submitted (Syracuse University. Advisor: Pro£ Douglas G. Har­ ing). Suffice it to insist here on the fact that the clear-cut dominance-submission pattern in the master-disciple relationship is unmistakable. Successful resolution of the Zen tuining leads, of course, to a conversion, or re­ education. But this is a therapeutic result achieved by introjection of the master's own superego-a process typi­ cal of any authoritarian or support therapy. ** It is possible that Stunkard confuses descriptions of states which precede satori with satori itsel£ 102 BECKER uses Abraham's view that "the goal of therapy is the resolution of the patient's ambivalence and narcissism." (page 427) The origins of ambivalence are found "in the state of infantile helplessness and the con­ sequent dependence upon an outside source of security and satisfaction." Ingratiating tech­ niques alternate with hostility toward authority; the hostility gives way to attempts at concili­ ation,and the cycle "tends to perpetuate itself." Resolution of this ambivalence must be achieved by a resolution of the "infantile dependence upon symbols of authority." "Once this is achieved, it confers a freedom from. the threat of the disastrous consequences of un­ conscious attitudes, and permits action on a spontaneous basis impossible when ingratiation is a chief concern." (page 427) Stunkard sees in the Zen accounts of irreverence for authority reported in the mondos a therapeutic result precisely in Abraham's terms-a resolution of the ambivalence in the master-disciple relationship: the student slaps the master, and both laugh, etc. Bateson, et al., in their discussion of the "double bind" seem to agree with this point ofview.* Refer­ ring to the situation in which a stick is held over the pupil's head by the master, they com­ pare it to the double bind situation. The master says, "If you say this stick is real, I will strike you with it. If you say this stick is not real, I will strike you with it. If you don't say anything I will strike you with it." (page 254) In the double-bind situation, the schizophrenic is dis­ oriented. But, in the Zen situation, they claim that the disciple can achieve enlightenment by an assertive action: "The Zen pupil might reach up and take the stick away from the Master - who might accept the response, but the schizophrenic has no such choice ..." (page 254) Again, Zen is understood as having definite therapeutic results in its resolution of ambivalence toward authority. Stunkard finds this all the more remarkable, in that it comes against a back­ ground of "strongly patriarchal cultures of China and particularly Japan," where there is "painful acceptance of the traditional" on the part of the submissive individual. (page 427) Several qualifications are needed to this interpretation of a worth-while therapeutic re­ solution of ambivalence in Zen - a result that closely parallels the aims of psychoanalysis. This point is crucial, since most of the acceptance of Zen as a therapy, in the view of Westerners, is based on such an interpretation: spontaneous individuation and freedom derived from a resolution of ambivalence. From a psychoanalytic point of view, such an interpretation is quite natural.
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