Publications
(ROUTLEDGE PRESS, 2017)
Blending the knowledge of contemporary psychoanalysis with the wisdom of Buddhist view, Inquiring Deeply explores how mindfulness can be integrated into psychodynamic treatment as an aspect of self-reflection rather than as a cognitive behavioral technique or intervention.
Inquiring Deeply investigates how problems are constructed and shows how mindfulness and other ‘self-reflective awareness practices’ can be used strategically in psychodynamic treatment to amplify and unpack psychological experience.
Written for Buddhist-minded psychotherapists and psychologically-minded Buddhist practitioners alike, Inquiring Deeply describes a method for practicing with problems in the Buddhist sense of the word practice. It elucidates a strategy for finding the wisdom in problems and the opportunities for growth which are contained within them.
Schuman, M. (2019)
Inquiring Deeply About Equanimity, Wise Brain Bulletin, 3(5): 16-25
Equanimity may be defined as the ability to maintain mental and emotional stability in the midst of challenges from all manner of circumstances, misfortunes, losses, and traumas. The most basic question(s) to be considered are what disrupts us emotionally, and why.
Schuman, M. (2018)
Mindfulness and Psychotherapy: Deepening The Conversation.Wise Brain Bulletin 12(1), 2018
Both psychotherapy and Buddhist mindfulness meditation have the purpose of helping us to get to know our own minds. The shared core of these two modalities of introspection is the ability to notice and be with what is; to be intimate with experience.
Schuman, M. (2018)
Speaking and Listening: The Intimate Dance of Communication. Wise Brain Bulletin, 12(5), 2018
Conversation is an essential element in the dance of human existence. In fact, since we do spend a large part of our lives talking to people, bringing attention to what takes place during communication…
Schuman, M. (2018
Mindfulness Meets Psychoanalysis: Inquiring Deeply About “SELF”
The experience of being a “self”, being “someone”, is a given in ordinary experience. We all have some sense of “who we are”, some sense of coherent identity in the core of our being.
Schuman, M. (2017)
Inquiring Deeply: How to Use Intuitive Inquiry To Deal With and Help Solve Problems The Mindful Word, October 2017
Everyone has problems: situations or circumstances that are unwelcome and cause perplexity or distress. This universality suggests that problems must, in some way, be intrinsic to the very nature of our minds. Indeed, the mind seems…
Schuman, M. (2006)
Driven To Distraction:[1] Observations on Obsessionality. in Cooper, P. (ed) Into the Mountain Stream: Psychoanalysis and Buddhist Experience. Rowman & Littlefield, Maryland
This paper explores the nature of “obsessional mind” from Buddhist and psychoanalytic points of view. It takes up basic questions about the inherent qualities of restlessness or lack of attentional focus in the mind and compares these experiences with the clinical features of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
“Driven To Distraction” discusses obsessionality both from the perspective of indwelling patterns of arousal in the brain/mind as well as with respect to personality traits and psychodynamic factors.
An integrative explanatory perspective is developed which draws upon the psychoanalytic concept of the “mind-object”. In its conclusion, the discussion centers on the usefulness of mindfulness meditation in the mitigation of obsessionality.
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[1] The title of this chapter was created without knowledge of the existence of a book by the same title, on the subject of Attention Deficit Disorder, written by Edward Hallowell.
Schuman, M. (1998)
Suffering and the Evolution of Subjectivity. paper presented at conference on Psychotherapy, Spirituality, and the Evolution of Mind. Santa Monica, CA.
The human mind is impressive in its evolutionary progression of consciousness and intelligence. We see the emergence of imagination and creativity and the development of remarkable abilities to understand, mimic, and manipulate natural processes…
Schuman, M. (1991)
The problem of self in psychoanalysis: Lessons from Eastern Philosophy. Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought, 14(4): 595-624.
In the Eastern philosophical paradigm, as in psychoanalytic theory, there are two distinct frameworks for the concept of self.
Schuman, M. (1980)
The psychophysiological model of meditation and altered states of consciousness. in Davidson, J.M. and Davidson, R. J. (eds) The Psychobiology of Consciousness. Plenum Press, New York.
In recent years, a growing literature has addressed itself to the psychophysiological bases of altered states of consciousness (ASCs). An unpredented interest in mediation, biofeedback, and other techniques for altering …