BBuddhist Psychology: a different way of thinking about ourselves « Sacred Awe
Buddhist Psychology: a different way of thinking about ourselves
Western psychology tends to speak of the unconscious. There are notable exceptions — even James Hillman, whose work is with imagination and archetype, never mentions the unconscious — but since Freud, the unconscious has played a major role in the way we think about and understand ourselves. I tend to think of the unconscious as a vast inner storage space that contains all my memories, my pain, my desires, my habits, and everything else I’m not explicitly aware of at the moment, and perhaps will never be. I’m sure I’m not alone in forgetting that the unconscious is merely a model, just one metaphor describing how we seem to function. We speak of the unconscious as a realm, a place deep within us, and Freud spoke of dreams as the “royal road to the unconscious.” The unconscious is a place, an aspect of ourselves, and we have a tendency to identify with it.
Awakening [אפי פז] 