Over the past fifty years, numerous attempts have been made to integrate Buddhist philosophy and meditation within psychology and psychotherapy. The fusion of Buddhism and psychology has led to the creation of new schools of psychotherapy. Buddhist meditation has become transformed into a psychological technique and appropriated into mainstream western culture. Yet the association between Buddhism and psychology is far from new. The speaker will argue that Jung played a pivotal role in the cross-fertilisation of the two disciplines. Although his influence was highly creative, it also raises problematic questions for those interested in a rapprochement between psychology and Buddhism.

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Oliver Knox: Oliver’s PhD was in the History of Jung's psychology, in particular how his interpretation of Buddhism and Indian thought shaped his psychology and how Jung, in turn, shaped our modern-day understanding of Buddhist theory and practice. His project was at UCL, under the supervision of Sonu Shamdasani.  He is a Zen Buddhist practitioner and a member at the London Buddhist Society and a trainee psychotherapist at the Society of Analytical Psychology.

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Jung, C.G., Collected Works, Vol. 11, Psychological Commentary on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, pp. 475-508.

Liebscher, M., ‘Introduction’ to C. G. Jung, Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, Princeton: Oxford, 2020,pp. xlv-lxix.

Knox, O.,‘The Buddha at Eranos’, Journal of Global Buddhism, 22 (1): 1-17

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