Alan Watts on Psychotherapy East & West

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February 27, 2017
by James Ford

Alan Watts’ book Psychotherapy East & West was first published by Pantheon in 1961. It has just been reissued by New World Library, which is becoming one of my favorite spiritually oriented publishers. I was invited to re-read it and if I wished to write a review.

I read it. And I would like to share some thoughts.

New World’s publicity folk wrote a pretty good summary.

“Before he became a counterculture hero, Alan Watts was known as an incisive scholar of Eastern and Western psychology and philosophy. In this 1961 classic, Watts demonstrates his deep understanding of both Western psychotherapy and the Eastern spiritual philosophies of Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, and Yoga. He examined the problem of humans in a seemingly hostile universe in ways that questioned the social norms and illusions that bind and constrict modern humans. Marking a groundbreaking synthesis, Watts asserted that the powerful insights of Freud and Jung, which had, indeed, brought psychiatry close to the edge of liberation, could, if melded with the hitherto secret wisdom of the Eastern traditions, free people from their battles with the self. When psychotherapy merely helps us adjust to social norms, Watts argued, it falls short of true liberation, while Eastern philosophy seeks our natural relation to the cosmos.”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/monkeymind/2017/02/alan-watts-psychotherapy-east-west.html