BOOK REVIEW –
Jan. 11, 2022 – Attempts to bridge the two philosophies are liable to devolve into mere intellectual exercises, or else to peter out in the banal advice that therapy sessions ought to begin with a period of concentrating on the breath. (For anyone who’s ever paid out of pocket for a therapeutic “hour,” the idea of using valuable minutes that way may evoke strong feelings.) But in “The Zen of Therapy,” a warm, profound and cleareyed memoir of a year in his consulting room prior to the pandemic, the psychiatrist and author — and practicing Buddhist — Mark Epstein aims at something meatier. He seeks to uncover the fundamental wisdom both worldviews share, and to show, as a practical matter, how it might help us wriggle free from the places we get stuck on the road to fulfillment.
