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Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis
Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Inquiring Deeply provides a refreshing new look at the emerging field of Buddhist-informed psychotherapy. Marjorie Schuman presents a cogent framework which engages the patient at the levels of narrative, affective regulation, and psychodynamic understanding. Blending knowledge of contemporary psychoanalysis with the wisdom of Buddhist view, she examines how mindfulness can be integrated into psychodynamic treatment as an aspect of self-reflection rather than as a cognitive behavioral technique or intervention.
This book explores how mindfulness as a "self-reflective awareness practice" can be used to amplify and unpack psychological experience in psychodynamic treatment. Schuman presents a penetrating analysis of conceptual issues, richly illustrated throughout with clinical material. In so doing, she both clarifies important dimensions of psychotherapy and illuminates the role of "story-teller mind" in the psychological world of lived experience. The set of reflections comprises an unfolding deep inquiry in its own right, delving into the similarities and differences between mindfulness-informed psychotherapy, on the one hand, and mindfulness as a meditation practice, on the other.
Filling in an outline familiar from psychoanalytic theory, the book explores basic concepts of Self, Other, and "object relations" from an integrative perspective which includes both Buddhist and psychoanalytic ideas. Particular emphasis is placed on how relationship is held in mind, including the dynamics of relating to one s own mind. The psychotherapeutic approach described also delineates a method for practicing with problems in the Buddhist sense of the word practice. It investigates how problems are constructed and elucidates a strategy for finding the wisdom and opportunities for growth which are contained within them.
Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis demonstrates in clear language how the experience of Self and Other is involved in emotional pain and relational suffering. In the relational milieu of psychotherapy, "Inquiring Deeply" fosters emotional insight and catalyzes psychological growth and healing. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalytically-oriented clinicians as well as Buddhist scholars and psychologically-minded Buddhist practitioners interested in the clinical application of mindfulness.
"
This book explores how mindfulness as a "self-reflective awareness practice" can be used to amplify and unpack psychological experience in psychodynamic treatment. Schuman presents a penetrating analysis of conceptual issues, richly illustrated throughout with clinical material. In so doing, she both clarifies important dimensions of psychotherapy and illuminates the role of "story-teller mind" in the psychological world of lived experience. The set of reflections comprises an unfolding deep inquiry in its own right, delving into the similarities and differences between mindfulness-informed psychotherapy, on the one hand, and mindfulness as a meditation practice, on the other.
Filling in an outline familiar from psychoanalytic theory, the book explores basic concepts of Self, Other, and "object relations" from an integrative perspective which includes both Buddhist and psychoanalytic ideas. Particular emphasis is placed on how relationship is held in mind, including the dynamics of relating to one s own mind. The psychotherapeutic approach described also delineates a method for practicing with problems in the Buddhist sense of the word practice. It investigates how problems are constructed and elucidates a strategy for finding the wisdom and opportunities for growth which are contained within them.
Mindfulness-Informed Relational Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis demonstrates in clear language how the experience of Self and Other is involved in emotional pain and relational suffering. In the relational milieu of psychotherapy, "Inquiring Deeply" fosters emotional insight and catalyzes psychological growth and healing. This book will be of great interest to psychoanalytically-oriented clinicians as well as Buddhist scholars and psychologically-minded Buddhist practitioners interested in the clinical application of mindfulness.
"
- GenresPsychology
212 pages, Paperback
Published January 19, 2017
About the author
Marjorie Schuman
2 booksHow do we transform emotional suffering into deeper awareness, connection, and aliveness?
This question has guided my work throughout a lifetime of clinical practice as a psychologist and psychoanalyst. My integrative approach, "Inquiring Deeply", brings depth, clarity, and wisdom to the challenges of everyday life.
INQUIRING DEEPLY lives at the intersection of two wisdom traditions: the depth psychology of relational psychoanalysis and the meditative insight of Buddhist psychology. At its core is a simple but transformative understanding: our struggles are not merely problems to solve, but portals into deeper awareness.
In my clinical practice, I help people navigate emotional pain, relational suffering, and existential questions through deep psychotherapeutic dialogue and experiential exploration. By bringing sustained attention to what feels most problematic, new understanding can emerge—and awareness itself becomes an agent of transformation.
My book, "Inquiring Deeply: Problems as a Path to Awareness", is a collection of essays exploring these themes and inviting readers to turn toward life’s difficulties with curiosity rather than avoidance. When we stop running from our problems and begin listening deeply, we often discover that our struggles carry the seeds of their own transformation.
**********************************************
Dr. Schuman lives in Santa Barbara, California and provides on-line clinical consultation in Inquiring Deeply and relational mindfulness.
This question has guided my work throughout a lifetime of clinical practice as a psychologist and psychoanalyst. My integrative approach, "Inquiring Deeply", brings depth, clarity, and wisdom to the challenges of everyday life.
INQUIRING DEEPLY lives at the intersection of two wisdom traditions: the depth psychology of relational psychoanalysis and the meditative insight of Buddhist psychology. At its core is a simple but transformative understanding: our struggles are not merely problems to solve, but portals into deeper awareness.
In my clinical practice, I help people navigate emotional pain, relational suffering, and existential questions through deep psychotherapeutic dialogue and experiential exploration. By bringing sustained attention to what feels most problematic, new understanding can emerge—and awareness itself becomes an agent of transformation.
My book, "Inquiring Deeply: Problems as a Path to Awareness", is a collection of essays exploring these themes and inviting readers to turn toward life’s difficulties with curiosity rather than avoidance. When we stop running from our problems and begin listening deeply, we often discover that our struggles carry the seeds of their own transformation.
**********************************************
Dr. Schuman lives in Santa Barbara, California and provides on-line clinical consultation in Inquiring Deeply and relational mindfulness.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 8, 2024
BRILLIANT!
This book is a MOAJOR advance in the field.
Schuman has successfully integrated BUDDHIST PRACTICE and PHILOSOPHY with RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS.
LOTS of other BRILLIANT people have attempted to do this.
- JUNG
- KLIEN
- FROMM
- MILLER
- KOHUT
- HILLMAN
- EPSTEIN
- SIEGEL
- SCHORE
To name a few.
All of them hit the target.
All of them contributed something important.
Schuman builds on (and synthesizes) all of their work.
And hits a TOTAL BULLSEYE 🎯
She achieves this AMAZING FEAT by bringing the relational branches of BUDDHISM and PSYCOANALSIS together.
Shulman introduces and integrates Gregory Kramer’s insight dialogue, with Stephen A. Mitchel’s Relational Psychoanalysis.
And it just WORKS.
In the end.
She comes dangerously close to synthesizing Buddhist enlightenment/liberation with psychodynamic psychotherapy.
One of the AMAZING ideas Schuman explores is the notion of SELF as TRANSITIONAL OBJECT that serves to soothe us in short term, but entangles us in a stultifying ADDICTION to SELF in the long term. Recovering from that SELF/EGO addiction is an amazing way to conceptualize and Buddhist enlightenment in the language of object relations.
Schuman also discusses how we can develop a more loving more nurturing SUPER EGO. That is a profound way of reifying ahimsa and Buddha Nature in psychodynamic terms.
This book is ESSENTIAL for anyone who is SERIOUSLY integrating SERIOUS Buddhist practices (in their full spectrum), and SERIOUS relation psychoanalysis.
This book (IMO) is the current state of the art in this area.
GOLD!
Pure GOLD!
5/5 stars ⭐️ (but more like 5/5 magic talking trees that you discover in the forest, and you try to tell other people about, but no one believes you, so you’re like, all alone with this AMAZING experience, and you still love the tree, and it’s still RAD, but you WISH you could share it with someone else, but you can’t, and it’s extremely special, but also lonesome 🌳)
AMAZING.
Great BOOK!
This book is a MOAJOR advance in the field.
Schuman has successfully integrated BUDDHIST PRACTICE and PHILOSOPHY with RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS.
LOTS of other BRILLIANT people have attempted to do this.
- JUNG
- KLIEN
- FROMM
- MILLER
- KOHUT
- HILLMAN
- EPSTEIN
- SIEGEL
- SCHORE
To name a few.
All of them hit the target.
All of them contributed something important.
Schuman builds on (and synthesizes) all of their work.
And hits a TOTAL BULLSEYE 🎯
She achieves this AMAZING FEAT by bringing the relational branches of BUDDHISM and PSYCOANALSIS together.
Shulman introduces and integrates Gregory Kramer’s insight dialogue, with Stephen A. Mitchel’s Relational Psychoanalysis.
And it just WORKS.
In the end.
She comes dangerously close to synthesizing Buddhist enlightenment/liberation with psychodynamic psychotherapy.
One of the AMAZING ideas Schuman explores is the notion of SELF as TRANSITIONAL OBJECT that serves to soothe us in short term, but entangles us in a stultifying ADDICTION to SELF in the long term. Recovering from that SELF/EGO addiction is an amazing way to conceptualize and Buddhist enlightenment in the language of object relations.
Schuman also discusses how we can develop a more loving more nurturing SUPER EGO. That is a profound way of reifying ahimsa and Buddha Nature in psychodynamic terms.
This book is ESSENTIAL for anyone who is SERIOUSLY integrating SERIOUS Buddhist practices (in their full spectrum), and SERIOUS relation psychoanalysis.
This book (IMO) is the current state of the art in this area.
GOLD!
Pure GOLD!
5/5 stars ⭐️ (but more like 5/5 magic talking trees that you discover in the forest, and you try to tell other people about, but no one believes you, so you’re like, all alone with this AMAZING experience, and you still love the tree, and it’s still RAD, but you WISH you could share it with someone else, but you can’t, and it’s extremely special, but also lonesome 🌳)
AMAZING.
Great BOOK!
Displaying 1 of 1 review