Forms of Emptiness: Psychodynamic, Meditative and Clinical Perspectives

In my efforts to synthesize Buddhist and psychodynamic psychologies of mind, the inner experience of emptiness has emerged as the most beguiling and yet the most treacherous subject common to both fields. There is confusion within psychodynamic theory about what constitutes emptiness, there is confusion within Buddhist theory about what constitutes emptiness, and there is certainly confusion among psychodynamic psychotherapists about what Buddhists mean by emptiness, and confusion among Buddhists about what psychotherapists mean by emptiness. The word is applied to such an array of states of mind that its meaning has become virtually impossible to grasp. Yet a careful examination of the various forms of emptiness does much to illuminate the special contribution of Buddhist thought to contemporary understanding of the nature of the self.