Thursday, April 5, 2012

Asian Psychology: Differences Between the East and West

“When the pupil is ready, the teacher will come” is the saying that describes the basic idea of Eastern philosophy. Many differences exist in Eastern and Western thought, however. First of all, Eastern psychology has been known to lay its foundations on religion, while Western Psychology has its foundation on empirical data and theories on observable phenomena. The three main Asian religions that have more commonality to psychology are: Taoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. In China, there is no institutionalized religion like Hinduism is in India, there is the influential views of Taoism though. Taoism is based on Confucius teachings that seek in the individual, traits like empathy, harmony, kindness, modesty, and self-control. Indian philosophers have historically shared the belief that all creatures go through a cycle of reincarnation unless they liberate themselves individually from the material world through pure consciousness, Hinduism stemmed from these beliefs. Siddarata Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, preached that the external world is real and is made up of easy particles, while complex and visible things are constructed out these particles (Shiraev, 2010).

In Buddhism, there is the belief that liberation of humans occurs when individuals are able to accept the right point of view. The field of Buddhism and psychology has a relatively short applied history. In its first generation, it was a field of battle, controversy, and large debate. Since then, it has become an interesting and respectful field that has a lot to offer to new therapy methods, because both areas assume they respond to similar human mental needs. They both assume that the mind is self-corrective when providing insights into its dysfunctional dynamics. The most important similarity between the two traditions is the assumption that the other follows a similar path and that if it does not provide the same insights, it at least provides complementary ones. Like in Buddhist tradition, psychology works to gain insight into the true nature of persons, attaining freedom from illusory ideas of ourselves that keep us unhappily attached (Prebish & Baumann, 2002).

Historical differences exist between psychology and Buddhism, as well as some terms. In Freudian psychology, attachment may refer to the mental attachment of being securely or insecurely attached to our caregivers as infants. In Buddhism, attachment is seen as a milestone in the path of an individual, an opponent. Psychology has generally expanded its goals in decades since Freud, claiming that it was just trying to term psychotic suffering into normal human unhappiness. Psychology seems to pursue a freedom less expansive than that of Buddhism, which ideally envisions a complete freedom from unhappiness and suffering. Currently, there is an intersection of Buddhism and psychology in the West, where Buddhism is becoming more psychologized and medicalized in its application (Prebish & Baumann, 2002).

The proper path in life, says Taoism, is one where the individual works in harmony with reality, the essence of the real world. Until recent, the concept of Eastern totality has been absent from Western scientific thinking, which lays its foundation on experiments based on causality. Taoism has been the Eastern religion most similar to Jungian psychology. Bolen (2004) describes Jung’s concept of synchronicity as the archetypes of the collective unconscious, saying that synchronicity is the only psychological equivalent to the Tao. Through this concept of synchronicity, Bolen (2004) explains that it lies in its ability to connect us to intuitive principles that are the path with heart, like Tao explains, a way to live in harmony with the universe.

It is found that in Chinese cultures, crisis is represented as both danger and opportunity. Both Taoism and Jungian psychology acknowledge the possibility for constructive change in the midst of chaos, but the decision of constructive change remains an individual choice. They also agree that through a transformation of our own psyches, we can truly change ourselves and society in a spiritual way. Some similarities include the world of opposites as found in the yin/yang for Taoism and the shadow/persona in Jungian theories (Rosen 1997). There is a strong recent interest in Taoism from the West, as the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist sacred text, is the second most widely translated book in the world after the Holy bible. The final belief is that in the Tao of Jung, Jungian psychology and Taoism agree that individuation is a process toward enlightenment, which is characterized by accepting and surpassing opposites. Letting go of the ego, confronting the shadow, and being guided by the soul and spirit is the way to achieve wholeness is very similar to Taoism teachings on enlightenment.

The principles of Hinduism are based on the Bhagavad-Gita, a spiritual guidance poem, which hopes to help individuals reach salvation from the reincarnation cycle, by helping them achieve pure consciousness in their actions by detachment from material things and good morale. Olson (2002) hypothesizes that the authors of Hindu scriptures may have made observations of anxiety, insecurity, and low morale in the community and therefore developed scriptures to help cope with personal distress and achieve salvation. As an example, he compares karma-yoga, a practice in Hinduism that appreciates and intends to impact behavior and role functioning on the morale of the individual, to a behavioral approach in psychotherapy. In Hinduism, human actions and attitudes are connected to spirituality. Individual is encouraged to renounce to the credit for self-focused actions, and to act on principles without thought of results in order to reduce anxiety and selfish interests. The ultimate goal of all the yogas, spiritual disciplines, are the union with Brahman, the supreme soul, they yield many other beneficial effects for the hopes of living a healthy life. This union is also compared to Gestalt’s psychotherapy of the “here and now” harmony with the environment, because of it’s emphasizes on individual responsibility and being concerned only with the present.

Since most of the population in the world practices an Eastern lifestyle, it is too important to be educated on practices from the East in order to be a good citizen of this world. There exist the criticism that too many occidentals judge the East entirely in terms of its poverty, maladjustments, and human suffering, while the Oriental judge the West in terms of its exploitations of minorities, disloyalty to religion, suicidal warfare, and materialistic love for comfort (Akhilananda, 1946). In terms of Hinduism and psychology in the Western world, the European psychiatrist Dr. William Brown was known to be more inclined to accept the theory of post existence of the mind after the body’s physical death. Akhilananda (1946) criticizes Western psychologists, with exception of behaviorists, in the nineteenth century for believing that men’s behavior was determined by the subconscious mind. However, most Hindu psychologists agree with Freud and Jung in the aspect that the greater portion of the mind is actually submerged, unknown to every one of us and can be compared to an iceberg. A person may not be aware of the forces that lie beneath their mind; Hindu psychologists call these hidden mental forces samskaras. However, most Hindu psychologists do not agree on Freud’s theory of psychosexual development and the “inborn” sexual urge and will to power.

In the Western world, there exist an unfortunate amount of authentic knowledge of Eastern religions and many individuals just find them too complex to understand, and make false assumptions about followers of these religions. It is rumored that people in Western countries will sometimes associate Hindu followers as being completely unreasonable in the way they feel about the body and soul connection. However a recent study has found that these unreasoned stereotypes are false. Francis, et al (2008), found that young -Hindu people living in England have a positive correlation with attitudes toward Hinduism and lower psychoticism scores. From the findings which were assessed in survey form at a Hindu Youth Festival in London, there is no evidence to correlate levels of religiosity with poor mental health among young people within the Hindu community. Again, these results may show that there is a tremendous lack of Eastern religious education in Western countries.

There is a lot of research emerging on the study of religion and mental health, currently. A study that explored the relationship between schizotypal personality traits and attitude of Balinese Hindus towards their faith found that attitude towards Hinduism, frequency of prayer, and temple attendance had a weak positive relationship with each other (Lesmana & Tiliopoulos, 2009). Prayer behavior exhibited negative low-to-moderate relationships with schizotypal traits; there is no reason to think as Hindu followers as having psychotic traits. Rather, it can be assumed that having a strong foundation on religion, one is less likely prone to develop a mental illness.

Many Hindu psychologists disagree with the Western scientific belief that all life is born from matter. To achieve pure consciousness, the Hinduism belief is that the first step is to acknowledge that one is above the physical bodily concept. There is criticism from firm followers of Hinduism of Westerners that preach that an individual is only a physical body and therefore identify and categorize humans by separating them into different ethnicities (Prabhupada, 1998). The author references the understanding of the Bhagavad-Gita, Hindu spiritual poem, as the only path to pure consciousness. He criticizes Westerners as being too attached to material possessions, which eventually have them forget their true selves and therefore remain attached of the physical world.

Conn (2011), reports that in Western psychology, mindfulness meditation is taught and applied unattached from its religious root, and that it is more commonly being used now to treat many conditions, like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, chronic pain, and other disorders. Mindfulness is the main foundation of Buddhist spiritual tradition, it is achieved through meditation. Conn (2011) brings to the present the concern that Buddhism is not being properly accredited of its successful ventures in Western cultures. Now and days, one can practice yoga and/or meditation in any city they walk through in the United States, but most would term it “natural medicine” here and not really follow through the roots of the actual practice.

There is the comparison of literature in both Eastern and Western societies that have found that many psychologists have assumed universality in their theories, while scholars in other fields believe that Westerners and East Asians have maintained very different systems of thought. Nisbett (2003 ) found that many scholars agree that Europeans assume that the behavior of objects, animals, and humans can be understood directly. Also, that Westerners have a strong interest in categorization, which helps them to know what rules to apply to objects in question, and that they use formal logic in problem solving. In contrast, East Asians are believed to attend to objects in broad context, in more complication. Asians tend to understand events while requiring consideration of many factors that operate in a deterministic way. Formal logic plays little role in problem solving for Eastern cultures, a person who is too concerned with logic may be considered immature. If these findings were one day validated, they would crush cognitive psychology theories that say that human cognition is the same, universally.

Uba (2002) explains that in Western science, especially in the United States, there is a lack of authentic knowledge of many different Asian cultures. She also elaborates on the lack of areas of study for many minority populations and their mental health. The main concern is that not all experiment findings can be generalized to all populations, but in American Psychology, results of many experiments are sometimes seen as universal and therefore are applied to many populations. Uba (2002) recommends that modern psychology needs to reconsider their study samples, facts, and research methods used to describe and explain behavior. There is also the criticism that many Western societies tend to generalize and refer to Confucius and Buddhism to explain the behavior of all Asian Americans.

Asian Americans have a 200 year plus history in the United States. Modern Asian psychology is currently growing at a very fast pace, while being concerned for multiracial research. There is over sixty different Asian groups in the United States currently, however it seems that many Americans classify these sixty groups into one big group, with many stereotypes. Alvarez & Tewari (2009) state that, “ [it is] amazing and unfortunate that public knowledge and perceptions of Asian Americans have been confined to stereotypes and superficial images.”

To conclude, American psychology has not been historically attentive to cultural issues. There exist too much universality in psychological theories and not enough research on any other race other than the Caucasian race. Eastern religions lay their basis on the assumption of the unity of all things, and experience many forms of ten thousand things as manifestations of a “oneness” (Bolen, 2004). Personally, as a psychology student, I take away from this project the strong need to urge new psychological methods of conducting research and to revise the teachings that are currently being given to college students in America. Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism do have a lot in common with psychology; it may be due to the fact that we are all human and may experience same processes insights on the way to pure happiness. I am however, a firm believer that there is a greater deal of ignorance about the Eastern world than that which is assumed. In the United States, if religion is taught, it is most likely Western religions that will be mentioned; however teachings Eastern religions are not prevalent in American schools. This deprivation of knowledge to us in the Western world is what leads to the creation of stereotypes and false beliefs that depict Asians in a negative light.

References

Alvarez, A., Tewari, N. (2009). Asian American psychology: current perspectives. New York,

NY: Psychology Press.

Akhilananda, S. (1946) Hindu psychology: Its meaning for the West. Boston, MA: Branden

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Bolen, J. (2004). The Tao of psychology: synchronicity and the self. San Francisco, CA: Harper

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Conn, V.S. (2011). The power of being present: The value of mindfulness interventions in

improving health and well-being. Western Journal of Nursing Research. 33, 990-995.

doi: 10.1177/0193945911416185

Francis, L.J., Robbins, M., Santosh, R., & Bahnot, S. (2008). Religion and mental among Hindu

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Lesmana, C.B., & Tiliopoulos, N. (2009). Schizotypal personality traits and attitudes towards

Hinduism among Balinese Hindus. Mental Health, Religion & Culture. 12, 773-785. doi: 10.1080/13674670902930344

Nisbett, R. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently and

why. New York, NY: Free Press.

Olson, R.P. (2002). Religious theories of personality and psychotherapy. New York, NY:

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Prabhupada, A.C., Bhaktivedanta Swami P. (1998). The science of self-realization. Los Angeles,

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Prebish, C., & Baumann, M. (2002). Westward dharma : Buddhism beyond Asia. Berkeley, CA:

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Rosen, D. (1997). The Tao of Jung. Harmondsworth, UK.: Penguin.

Shiraev, E. (2010). A History of Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc

Uba, L. (2002). A postmodern psychology of Asian American. Albany, NY: State University of

New York Press.

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