At the Crossroads between Western and Eastern Views on Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach

This paper aims at indicating the convergence points between what is habitually understood as a pair of opposing terms: mind (as in thinking) and body (as in sensation). Structural models in psychotherapy conceptualize human mind in terms of levels of information processing (both internal and external information). We suggest that a mental split between mind and body leads to a feeling of estrangement from self, as well as an estrangement from external world. Drawing on relational approaches on psychotherapy, we suggest that focusing on perceiving own sensations does not necessarily imply a state of personal isolation from outside world; rather, this simultaneously means the perceiving and acceptance of “otherness”.