From the Introduction: The Eastern traditions and disciplines steadily taking root in our culture during the past few decades have finally begun to influence the practice of psychotherapy. This has happened as more and more health professionals are practicing meditation and applying their experience with it to their work with others.

The growing attraction of the Eastern teachings grows out of a widespread perception that Western psychology and medicine are incomplete both in their understanding of human nature and in their ability to promote health and well-being. What Western psychology has done well is to describe and analyze neurotic behavior-- primarily in terms of childhood conditioning and family dynamics-- and to develop therapeutic methods to help free people from bondage to their past. What Western therapists know much less about, however, is how the mind actually works, and how people can either perpetuate or heal their neuroses from within. Our general ignorance about the source of health inside us has contributed to the crisis of modern health care (so that hospitals are usually too sterile to provide a truly healing environment, the major form of therpy for psychiatric patients is drug maintenance, many health providers suffer from burnout, and the suicide rate among psychiatrists is notoriously one of the highest of all professions).

This book presents new perspectives on health nd the healing relationship growing out of the cross-fertilization between Eastern meditative disciplines and Western psychological practice. The chapters are primarily practical and personal, rather than theoretical or technical. And this is as it should be. For the major orientation of the book is to explore the healing relationship as an intimate encounter that can awaken the heart-- of both therapist and client.

As a psychotherapist, teacher, and author, John Welwood, Ph.D., has devoted more than two decades to exploring the terrain of the mind, heart, and soul. Through more than fifty articles on psychotherapy, relationships, consciousness and personal change, and seven books, Welwood's innovative approach focuses on psychological work in a spiritual context, integrating Eastern contemplative teachings with Western psychotherapeutic insight.

Welwood received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Chicago in 1974, where he also studied and taught existential and Buddhist psychology. It is these two influences that have shaped, in equal part, his unique psychospiritual approach. In the 1980s he emerged as a major figure in the leading-edge fields of transpersonal psychology and East/West psychology. The former Director of the East/West psychology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, he is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. Along with his wife Jennifer he travels the world to present workshops and trainings in psychospiritual integration and "conscious relationship"-- the subjects he explores in such books as the best-selling Journey of the Heart: The Path of Conscious Love, Love and Awakening: Discovering the Sacred Path of Intimate Relationshiop, Awakening the Heart: East/West Approaches to Psychotherapy and the Healing Relationship, and Ordinary Magic: Everyday Life as Spiritual Path. His forthcoming book, Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation, will be published in the spring of 2000.