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Tao Psychotherapy: Introducing a NewApproach to Humanistic Practice1

Erik CraigDirector, Center for Existential Studies and Licensed Psychologist

in Private Practice, Santa Fe, NM

This article introduces a relatively new and unknown approach to humanistic psycho-

therapy, called Tao Psychotherapy that was founded by a Korean psychiatrist, Dr.

Rhee Dongshick, in 1974. Today, Tao psychotherapy is a synthesis of Eastern and

Western psychotherapies seeking to integrate psychoanalytic, existential, humanis-

tic, and transpersonal, and Eastern perspectives in a single coherent approach. The

article opens with a brief overview of the Tao and Taoism. A sample of writings at-

tributed to Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu is presented as a prelude to a discussion of the

meaning of the Tao itself. Following this, the author, a daseinsanalytic psychothera-

pist who has been studying Tao psychotherapy in South Korea for over two years,

presents an overview of this approach, introducing Rhee Dongshick and the Korean

Academy of Psychotherapists as well as the distinctive character of this new ap-

proach to humanistic practice. The article closes with a reflection on the ancient alle-

gory of the ox herder, as seen in the famous ten ox herder pictures, discussing it from

Taoist and Heideggerian perspectives, especially as it is relevant to the process of

psychotherapy. Throughout the article the author reflects on the cultural sources of

Tao psychotherapy and on the implications of the approach for humanistically at-

tuned, depth psychological thought and practice.

In August of 2004, I was invited to Seoul, South Korea to speak in a congress on

“Taopsychotherapy and Western Psychotherapy.” This experience gradually led to

an intensive collaboration with the founder of Tao psychotherapy, Dr. Rhee

THE HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGIST, 35(2), 109–133Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Correspondence should be addressed to Erik Craig, 113 Camino Escondido, #3 Santa Fe, NM

87501. E-mail: DrErikCraig@aol.com1This is a revised and expanded version of a paper presented in an APA Division 32 paper session

entitled “Topics in Spirituality and Psychology” held Friday, August 19, 2005, during the 113th Annual

Convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington, DC.

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Dongshick,2 and his students.3 I have been returning regularly to learn more about

Tao psychotherapy, to interview Zen-Buddhist masters on their experience of spir-

itual practice and enlightenment, and to share my own understanding and practice

of humanistic and existential depth psychotherapies.4 However, my first visit to

Seoul was the most surprising.

Arriving at the opening session of the congress, I found myself thrown into an

unanticipated world. There, in a large plush meeting room, were 350 participants

including psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, as well as twenty or so

Buddhist monks in full regalia, and nearly that number of philosophers, particu-

larly Heidegger scholars. I soon realized that, here, in this audience was nothing

less than a whole school of Korean humanistic psychologists, an impressive body

of dedicated practitioners of a compassionate, deeply intuitive, relational approach

psychotherapy. It was surprising to find such a vital community of humanistic

practitioners virtually unknown to humanistic psychologists in the West.

Here, in this article, it is my privilege to introduce this relatively new and un-

known known humanistic psychotherapy called Tao Psychotherapy, a synthesis

110 CRAIG

2For those unfamiliar with the use of the traditional use of names in Asia, it is worth noting that the

family name, in this case Rhee, is presented first with the given names following in sequence. If I were

born Korean, I would be addressed as Dr. Craig Peter Erik which could also be rendered in written form

as Dr. Craig Peter-Erik or, even, Dr. Craig Petererik. I specifically asked Dr. Rhee what his preference

would be in writing about him in Western presentations and journals. He immediately responded that he

wanted me to present his name just as it would be presented in Korea. As always, of course, there is

more than meets the eye in such a cultural tradition. Whereas in the West we emphasize the individual

and self-actualization, in the East it is the family and one’s ancestry that is considered most important.3In keeping with the millennia long traditions of teaching of Eastern practices, in Korea, Dr. Rhee is

often called “Master,” and his students “disciples.”4I should clarify what I mean by depth psychology, a term first used by Eugen Bleuler (1910) to des-

ignate Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalyse. In spite of the common erroneous belief that depth psychology

refers primarily to Jungian psychology, the term is actually more widely and accurately used to refer to

all those psychologies that developed out of Freud’s psychoanalysis, including but not limited to, psy-

choanalysis itself, analytical psychology, object relations, psychoanalytic ego psychology, psychoana-

lytic self-psychology, interpersonal psychiatry, psychodynamic psychology, intersubjective psycho-

analysis, relational psychoanalysis, existential analysis, and so forth. It is worth noting that Jung

himself never thought of his analytical psychology as the first or only depth psychology and, indeed,

always acknowledged Freud as the founder of depth psychology and saw his own psychology as only

one among many depth psychologies all of which owed their source to Freud’s groundbreaking work.

The essential claim of all depth psychologies is that there is much about being human that remains hid-

den to the eye, indeed, even to thought at all. Thus, depth psychology is simply that kind of psychology

that takes seriously the unseen, the unthought, and, even, the unthinkable and unspeakable. Most sim-

ply put, depth psychology is “a psychology of the invisible, a psychology of the secret, a psychology of

concealment as such” (Craig, 2005, p. 10). Depth psychotherapies, therefore, all have at least one pur-

pose in common, namely, to entice out of hiding those secrets that contain, among many other things,

the key, first, to understanding the individual’s own-most suffering and, second, to freeing up those pos-

sibilities for being in the world that have been held hostage to that suffering and the psychological de-

fenses against it.

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of Eastern and Western psychotherapies seeking to integrate psychoanalytic, ex-

istential, humanistic, and transpersonal perspectives in a single coherent ap-

proach.5

INTRODUCTION

In order to fully appreciate the nature and contribution of Tao psychotherapy to-

day one must understand not only the above mentioned western

psychotherapeutic perspectives but also certain traditional Eastern ideas, tradi-

tions, and practices, especially with respect to the teaching of mindfulness, or,

more appropriately, “mind-emptiness.” Immediately, you can see what I mean

about understanding Eastern thought and practice: for one thing, it is intractably

paradoxical (from the Greek meaning alongside or beyond dogma, received

opinion, or logical thought). In this case, for example, students of enlightenment

are taught to be mindful just in order to be mindless, to have an empty mind, a

mind free of determinative, categorical conceptualizations. In keeping with this

kind of psychological openness, Tao psychotherapy rejects linear, abstract, logi-

cal analysis in favor of empathic affect in the flow of immediately given experi-

ence. Another foundational consideration is that Tao psychotherapy is pro-

foundly culturally sensitive, that is, deeply rooted in the values and customs of

Korean culture and, beyond this, Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism.

This cultural backdrop influences everything from the attitudes to authority and

manner of relating to others to the way one thinks and comports oneself every-

day life, including such mundane behaviors as how one sits, sleeps, and eats.

Naturally, this also influences the process of psychotherapy which emphasizes

one’s way of being over the mastery of technique.

Although the conundrums that Tao psychotherapy will likely present to West-

erners cannot possibly be addressed thoughtfully in a single article, I will at least

touchonwhatare formethemost salientattitudesandvalues. Iwillbeginwithabrief

historical and philosophical overview of the Tao and then introduce Tao psychother-

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 111

5Naturally, the emergence of Tao psychotherapy in Korea is not the first sign of interest in inte-

grating Western psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with Eastern thought. Carl Gustav Jung (1958)

must be credited with the most significant early contributions to the field, publishing as he did a

number of works on the subject as early the thirties and forties. In 1960, Suzuki, Fromm, and De

Martino published the first classic in the field entitled Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. More re-

cently, interest in the integration of Eastern meditative traditions and Western psychotherapy and

psychoanalysis has begun to blossom and the last decade or so has witnessed the appearance of a

number of very fine works in the field (e.g., Epstein, 1995, 2001; Molino, 1998; Mruk & Hartzell,

2003; Rubin, 1996; Safran, 2003, Suler, 1993). Nevertheless, to my knowledge, Tao psychotherapy

is the first attempt to programatically integrate Eastern and Western approaches into a single coher-

ent approach to theory, training, and practice.

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apy, its founder Rhee Dongshick, the Korean Academyof Psychotherapists, and the

distinctive character of the approach itself. I will then introduce the venerable ten ox

herder pictures, discussing them from Taoist and Heideggerian perspectives, espe-

cially as they are relevant to the process of psychotherapy.

WHAT IS TAO AND TAOISM?

Taoism is one of the great religious traditions arising from the Far East. Philo-

sophical Taoism, as opposed to religious Taoism, draws on the thinking gener-

ally attributed to Lao Tzu, especially as it is found in the Tao Te Ching, and the

philosophy and anecdotes of Chuang Tzu, especially as these are found in what

are called “The Inner Chapters.” The idea of the Tao as such goes back at least

2,500 years to pre-Confucian times. Recent archeological finds, in 1973 and

1993, make it clear that written versions of the Tao Te Ching deriving from re-

lated but independent intellectual traditions appear to have existed as early as the

fourth century B.C.E.

The Ancient Taoist Philosophers

Since Western psychologists generally know very little about the ancient philoso-

phers who are credited with the intellectual foundations of philosophical Taoism,

at least a scanty introduction seems worthwhile.

Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching. Although Lao Tzu (pronounced laodza

and meaning, literally, “Old Master,”) is widely accepted as the author of the Tao

Te Ching (pronounced, daodayjing or daodaycheong) there is no concrete histor-

ical evidence to support this conclusion. Indeed, most contemporary scholars be-

lieve that Lao Tzu is a legendary cultural composite rather than an actual histori-

cal figure. In spite of this problematic historicity, there are a number of famous

legends about the Old Master that are recited widely and with unexamined au-

thority even today. Chief among these are, first, that Lao Tzu was born under a

plum tree, already old with a full head of white hair; second, that in provocative

encounter with Confucius,6 he (Lao Tzu) left the honored Chinese philosopher

muttering that he had just met a dragon; and, third, that when he was an old man

and leaving the region, he was asked by the guardian of a mountain pass to write

down his thoughts, which the Old Master promptly did in a single immortal vol-

112 CRAIG

6Confucius, originally known in China as K’ung-Tzu (551-479, B.C.E.), founded the first school of

wisdom in that country. When visiting China in 2002, I learned that, even today, Confucian history and

philosophy is one of the very first classes Chinese children take in elementary school.

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ume of approximately five thousand words, the volume we today call the Tao Te

Ching.7

However, in spite of the question of authorship, thanks to the discoveries of an-

cient texts in 1973,8 we now have recovered authentic original manuscripts written

on silk, bamboo, or wood dating well into the second century B.C.E. After the Bi-

ble and the Bhagavad-Gîtâ the Tao Te Ching is the third most widely translated

work in history.9 However, to my mind, more important than such historical and

textual significances is the fact that, even after two and a half millennia, the Tao Te

Ching continues to touch, inspire, and guide human beings around the world, and

to do so in spiritual and philosophical as well as practical ways. Who has not been

moved to wonder by its ethereal first chapter?10

The Tao that can be told

Is not the eternal Tao.

The name that can be named

Is not the eternal name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.

Naming is the origin

Of particular things.

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 113

7Complicating historical study even further is the fact that one often finds Lao Tzu spelled Lao-Tzu

(i.e., sometimes with a hyphen and sometime not), Lao Tsu, Lao Tse, Lao Tsi, or Laozi and, further, re-

ferred to as Lao Dan, Lao Laizi, Lao Lai Tzu, Lao Dan, and Historical Dan and Dan (See, for example,

Chan, 1963, pp. 35-59; Fu, 1999, p. 36; Sih, 1989, p.xiii). A number of Eastern scholars claim Lao-Tzu

was actually a man known as Li Erh (literally, “plum ear”) while still others suggest he was a man origi-

nally known as Lao P’eng (see Chan, 1963, pp. 35-59). Reading all these legends and historical dis-

putes, one begins to imagine, as Confucius did, that the old master Lao Tzu is only part human and that

today he may well still be somewhere mischievously laughing over his own millennia-long vocation as

the trickster, that dissembler who we in the Southwest fancy we see in the eyes of the Coyote.8Two complete manuscripts of the Tao Te Ching were discovered in the grave of a the son of a mar-

quis who lived near the Hunan province in south-central China and who was buried in the Spring of 168

B.C.E. The grave was located in a little village known as Ma-wang-tui and, therefore the texts are also

known by that name (Henricks, 1989, pp. xi-xiv).9Ipersonally own about twenty different translations with my scholarly favorites being those by

Ames and Hall (2003), Chan (1963), Chen (1989) Henricks (1989), Ivanhoe (2002), and Star (2001)

primarily because of the rich linguistic, historical, or philosophical contexts they variously provide.

However, for simplicity and poetic richness I have most enjoyed Bynner (1944), Ivanhoe (2002), Lau

(1963), Le Guin (1997), Mair (1990), Mitchell (1988), and Wu (1961). Being a Daseinsanalyst I have

also especially appreciated the translation by the philosopher and Heideggerian scholar, Chang

Chung-yuan (1975).10In most subsequent presentations of quotations from the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu, in keep-

ing with the spirit of Eastern philosophy, I will leave the passages themselves largely unanalyzed, prefer-

ring to save their contemplation and evolving meaning for the reader to experience for him or herself.

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Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you see only manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations

Arise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.

The gateway to all understanding.

(S. Mitchell, 1988)

While I have often been impressed by this first chapter as an exceptionally lucid

description both of certain foundational Heideggerian ideas and of the ontological

grounds for depth psychology and psychotherapy, it is not as though the Tao Te

Ching is lacking in practical guidance. Consider, for example, these quotations as

counsel for the presence of the psychotherapist:

Lingering like gossamer, it has only a hint of existence; and yet when you draw upon

it, it is inexhaustible. (Chapter 6, Wu, 1961)

Practice non-doing, and everything will fall in place. (Chapter 3, S. Mitchell, 1988)

Less and less is done

Until non-action is achieved.

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. (Chapter 48, Feng and English, 1972)

The sage is self-effacing and scanty of words. When his task is accomplished and

things have been completed, all the people say, “We ourselves have achieved it!”

(Chapter 17, Wu, 1961)

It may be of some interest to humanistic psychologists that Carl Rogers carried

a hand written copy of the whole of Bynner’s (1944) translation of this Chapter 17

in his wallet wherever he went.11 Further, Rogers did not hesitate later in his life, to

114 CRAIG

11I had often heard it rumored that this was Rogers’s habit but I am grateful to several generous

members of APA Division 32 listserv, especially Valerie Bowley-Claudel, for providing both literary

and anecdotal testimony that this was in fact the case. Chuck Stuart was kind enough to send me a de-

scription of a moment in a 1977 workshop when Carl pulled this verse out of his wallet and read it to the

group. Art Bohart suggested that I write to Natalie Rogers, Carl’s daughter, to see what she might know.

Just today I received an e-mail from Natalie telling me that he did indeed carry this verse, from Chapter

17 of the Tao Te Ching, on a little piece of paper in his wallet. In fact, she added that she carried that

same piece of paper in her own wallet for many years after he died in February of 1987. Although the

original, written in Carl’s own handwriting, became so creased and worn over the years that she decided

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testify of his appreciation of the Tao Te Ching (see Rogers, 1961, p. 164; 1973, pp.

12–13).

Chuang Tzu and The Inner Chapters. Although, like Rogers, many

American psychologists are familiar with the text of Tao Te Ching, not so many are

familiar with the work of the allegorist Chuang Tzu,12 an iconoclastic

anti-rationalist, who rejected any form of categorical, demonstrative, or even para-

doxical logic, replacing it with an enigmatic form of intuitive apprehension, appre-

hension that requires the individual’sownimmediatepersonalengagementandvoli-

tion with respect to the matter at hand. Here, for example, is a storyfrom Chuang Tzu

describing a discussion between himself and his best friend, Hui Tzu, a contempo-

raryrationalist philosopher, whom Chuang Tzu taunts about the sterilityof categori-

cal and analytical thinking:13

“Can a person really have no nature?” asked Hui Tzu of Chuang Tzu.

“Yes,” replied Chuang Tzu.

“But if you have no nature, how can you be called human?”

“Way gives you shape and heaven gives you form, so why can’t you be called

human?”

“But if you’re called human, how can you have no nature?

“Yes this and no that—that’s what I call human nature,” replied Chuang Tzu. “Not

mangling yourself with good and bad—that’s what I call no nature. Instead of strug-

gling to improve life, you simply abide in occurrence appearing of itself.”

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 115

to preserve it, she still now carries her own copy of these same lines. Both Carl and Natalie thought this

Chapter 17 described the essential nature of the effective group facilitator. In its entirety it reads:

A leader is best

When people barely know that he exists,

Not so good when people obey and acclaim him,

Worst when they despise him.

‘Fail to honor people,

They fail to honor you,’

But of a good leader, who talks little,

When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,

They will say, ‘We did this ourselves.’

(Bynner, Trans., 1944, p. 46)12Chuang Tzu (pronounced Chwongdza, 369-286 B.C.E), also known as Chuang Chou, built his

own philosophy on the teachings of the Tao Te Ching and, like the legendary figure Lao Tzu, was also a

trenchant critic of Confucianism. His classical work called Chuang Tzu or The Divine Classic of

Nan-hua is made up of 33 chapters, at least the first seven of which, called The Inner Chapters can be at-

tributed to Chuang Tzu himself with the remainder apparently being contributed by his disciples.13Of the many available translations of Chuang Tzu’s work, here I use Thomas Merton’s (2004)

translation of this tale. Though, as Merton himself acknowledges, it may not be the most linguistically

correct, I find it among the most intuitive and poetic. Other informative and lucid translations include

those by Giles (1926), Graham (1981), Hamill & Seaton (1999), Hinton (1997), Palmer & Breuilly

(1996), and Watson (1964).

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“If you don’t try to improve on life, how do you stay alive?”

“Way gives you shape and heaven gives you form, so why mangle yourself with good

and bad? But you

Make an exile of your mind

And wear your spirit away.

You brood, leaning on a tree,

Or doze, slumped over a desk.

Heaven made this your form,

And you waste it twittering

Away in the darkness of arcane

Distinctions and quibbling.”

(Hinton, 1997, pp. 77-78)

Such enigmatic, intuitive apprehension defies our Western attachment to dem-

onstrative or analytical logic and yet it is the former that serves as the foundation

for mental training in the East, most notably through the fascinating vehicle of Zen

pedagogy known as the kôan, a problem that cannot be solved by logical and con-

ceptual thought but requires a spontaneous perspicacity, a radical aperçu. Quite of-

ten, this kind of teaching is presented in the form of stories such as this one from

chapter twelve of Chuang Tzu:

The Yellow Emperor went wandering

To the North of the Red Water

To the Kuan Lun Mountain. He looked around

Over the edge of the world. On the way home

He lost his night colored pearl.

He sent out Science to seek his pearl, and got nothing.

He sent Analysis to look for his pearl, and got nothing.

He sent out Logic to seek his pearl, and got nothing.

Then he asked Nothingness, and Nothingness had it!

The Yellow Emperor said:

“Strange, indeed: Nothingness

Who was not sent

Who did no work to find it

Had the night-colored pearl!”

(Merton, 2004, p. 83)

116 CRAIG

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Following Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu also emphasized, among other teachings, the

importance of the Tao and of non-interfering action (Wu Wei), as well as the unity

and transformation of beings. Indeed, with respect to this last notion, perhaps the

most famous passage in the entire history of dream literature is found at the end of

the second of The Inner Chapters:

Long ago, a certain Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly – a butterfly fluttering here

and there on a whim, happy and carefree, knowing nothing of Chuang Tzu. Then all

of a sudden he woke to find that he was, beyond all doubt, Chuang Tzu. Who knows if

it was Chuang Tzu dreaming a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming Chuang Tzu, Chuang

Tzu and butterfly: clearly there’s a difference. This is called the transformation of

things. (Hinton, 1997, pp. 34-35).

The Tao Itself

Speaking the word Tao, one refers both literallyand primarily, to the “Way,” not only

to the Wayof all that is, to the Wayof Being itself, but also to Wayof all the particular

beings thatcomprise the totalityofwhat is.TheWayof theTao isnot somestaticcon-

dition but, rather, the ever unfolding becoming of all that is, the very immediately

present, fundamentallymysteriousdestiningofBeing itself.Thus theentirecosmos,

the entire universe of Being has its own Way, or, better, its own “Waying,” its own

coming-into-presence even as we speak. Further, you and I each, as manifestations

of Tao, have our very own distinctive “waying,” our very own inimitable com-

ing-into-presence, our veryown Tao or “Taoing,” which is also unfolding even as we

speak. So the first signification of the Tao today is not just the comprehensive Wayof

all Being, but also the distinctive way of each and every particular being in the uni-

verse, including each of us here as we meet one another now in this text.14

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 117

14Those of you who are familiar with Heidegger’s Daseinsanalytik might, for good reason, find

yourselves thinking about some of the philosopher’s ontological terms such as being, beingness, Being,

Beingness-as-such, Way (Weg), or, perhaps even Logos. Unfortunately, the problems and possibilities

of a thoughtful comparative analysis of Eastern and Heideggerian would be impossible even to begin to

address here. For now, perhaps it is enough to notice that such associations seem to occur so naturally.

What these associations might ultimately reveal is another matter entirely.

For readers interested in Daseinsanalysis, it might be worth mentioning that when I was studying

with Medard Boss he, too, commented on what he saw as the similarity between Eastern and

Heideggerian thought. In fact, in his favorite book, A Psychiatrist Discovers India (1965), where he de-

scribes his own “apprenticeship” with Swami Govinda Kaul, he wrote: “I could hardly believe my ears,

for I heard him [his Indian master] say things which often corresponded exactly, word for word, with

phrases I had heard in the West from the lips of the philosopher Martin Heidegger (p. 128, brackets

mine)….Could it be that in quite another part of our earth, in the Black Forest of Germany, the same

deepest insight into that which is is trying to well forth?” (p. 129).

Although Boss was quite, as he put it, “dumbfounded” by these similarities between Heideggerian

and Indian thought, it is puzzling to me that he remained convinced that he was telling Heidegger about

these great Eastern philosophies for the first time. However, we now know Heidegger had already been

studying Eastern thought for nearly thirty years. Not only had he had a number of lengthy conversations

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As it happens the Tao has one other kind of meaning, which, historically, actu-

ally preceded the ontological significations noted above. This second meaning of

the Tao refers to the teaching and practice of the Tao, the carrying out of Tao in ev-

eryday human affairs, and is concretely manifested in the little Chinese word Te,15

which is most often translated as “virtue,” thus speaking to the way we as human

beings find our own alignment or correspondence with the Tao. So this second

meaning of the Tao does not have to do with how things are but with how we are

with how things are. Although, to my knowledge, James Bugental, one of the

founders of humanistic psychology, never spoke of the Tao as such, he quite aptly

articulated this second significance of Tao, the teaching and practicing of Tao,

when he described the challenge of authenticity as follows: “A person is authentic

in the degree to which his being in the world is in accord with the givenness of his

own nature and of the world” (Bugental, 1965, pp. 31-32).

In both the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu a specific manner of being is rec-

ommended in the practice of the Tao or Taoist virtue or, as Bugental puts it, being

“in accord with the givenness of the world and of our own nature.” That manner of

being is known as wu wei. Wu wei means, basically, not meddling or interfering

with things, letting oneself and the world be: letting oneself be who and what one

is, and is on one’s way to becoming; letting others be who and what they are, and

are on their way to becoming; and letting the world be what it is, and what it is on

it’s way to becoming. In essence wu wei means to allow oneself to be in a relational

flow with the Tao, with one’s own Tao, with the Tao of others, with the Tao of all

that is. This was one of the principles that Carl Rogers most admired in the teach-

ings of Lao Tzu. In fact, he mentioned wu wei in a 1973 article and went on to

quote the following passage, indicating it was perhaps his very favorite from Lao

Tzu:

If I keep from meddling with people, they take care of themselves,

If I keep from commanding people, they behave themselves,

If I keep from preaching at people, they improve themselves,

118 CRAIG

with Eastern religious scholars but he also had even attempted a translation of the Tao Te Ching with a

Japanese scholar (Hsiao, 1987). Why Heidegger never seemed to have confessed and discussed these

interests with Boss and why Heidegger was, in general, so secretive about his apparently sophisticated

knowledge of Eastern and, specifically, Zen and Taoist thought remains unexplained to this day. Two

thoughtful philosophical works, Heidegger’s Hidden Sources (May, 1989) and Heidegger and Asian

Thought (Parkes, 1987) would be excellent places to begin for those interested in further inquiry.15The relationship of Tao with Te is so inseparable in Taoism that the book attributed to Lao Tzu is

often written Tao-te ching. Indeed, it is generally understood that the first thirty-seven chapters are elu-

cidations of the Tao as such and the last forty-four elucidations of Te, the teaching and virtue of living in

accord with the Tao. As mentioned above, the very earliest use of the term Tao actually referred exclu-

sively to human behavior. As the original Chinese pictogram looks like a man walking, one could fairly

say that the Tao first referred to the human beings manner of “walking-in-the-world” or “being on one’s

own way.” It was only with the Tao Te Ching or, as it is often called, the Lao Tzu that Tao came to have

the more metaphysical or ontological meaning that it is often first associated with today

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If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.

(Chapter 57, W. Bynner, Trans.)

Naturally, there is much more to the Tao than these brief comments can cover.

Crucially omitted are the inextricable relationship of Beingness and Nothingness

and the importance of Nothingness as such. For example, in the Tao Te Ching we

find references to “the mutual production of being and non-being” (Henricks,

1989, p. 54) repeatedly appearing in a number of contexts. For example, Lau

(1963) translates a famous line from chapter two as “Thus Something and Nothing

produce each other” (p. 58) and S. Mitchell (1988) translates the same line as “Be-

ing and non-being create each other.” Indeed, the encounter with the Nothing ap-

pears throughout Taoist poetry and literature. For instance, on his way to a cruel

political exile, the early 9th Century poet Po Chü-I wrote this poem entitled,

“Reading Chuang Tzu:”

Leaving homeland, parted from kin, banished to a strange place,

I wonder my heart feels so little anguish and pain.

Consulting Chuang Tzu, I find where I belong:

Surely my home is there in Not-Even-Anything land.

(Watson, 1964, p. vii)

My hope with this admittedly inadequate introduction to the Tao, is first to pro-

vide something of the philosophical and cultural context for understanding Tao

psychotherapy. In addition, I hope that readers might be drawn to the possibility of

contemplating the some of the paths of thought found in the Tao Te Ching and the

Chuang Tzu. Why not read their passages before going to sleep or memorizing a

story or a single line before going for a walk and contemplating it while on your

way? I have found such meditations enormously enriching in my own life and I can

think of few better ways to prepare oneself for the challenges of intensive

psychotherapeutic work.

WHAT IS TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY?

The following is a brief summary of Tao psychotherapy. First, I introduce its

founder, Dr. Rhee Dongshick, then the Korean Academy of Psychotherapists

(KAP), and, finally, something of the distinctive character of Tao psychotherapy

itself.

Who is Rhee Dongshick?

Born on July 26, 1921, in the little village of Waegwan, near the city of Daegu, Ko-

rea, Rhee Dongshick was never a child of privilege. His father, who was only fif-

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 119

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teen years old at the time, simply could not conceive of himself as a parent, leaving

his little son with lifelong memories of his father running away from him to play

with his friends. Furthermore, when little Dong Shick was only five his younger

sister, whom he dearly loved, suddenly died, a loss that has never been forgotten.

Hardship was thus no stranger in the home of this child who grew up to be a re-

vered psychiatrist, teacher, and author in his own country. Yet, like the little Aus-

trian boy, Sigisimund Freud, this Korean child (Rhee) from a disadvantaged fam-

ily was also seen very early in his life as blessed with unusual gifts, an

exceptionally able intellect and an unusual sensitivity to human situations.

Determined to make something of himself, after high school Rhee enrolled in

Daegu Medical School in 1938 and, a year after graduating in 1941, he began psy-

chiatric training in what is now Seoul University. He served as a psychiatrist in the

last years of the Japanese occupation and in the first years of an independent Ko-

rea. After the Korean War, in 1954, he traveled to the United States to undertake a

residency at the New York University Bellevue Medical Center and to study psy-

choanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute. There, personally encouraged

and supported by Dr. Clara Thompson, he entered psychoanalytic courses and en-

gaged in a twice weekly psychoanalytic psychotherapy. It was through this experi-

ence of depth psychotherapy that Rhee discovered what he came to call a “nuclear

feeling” that originated in the first three years of his life and that has occupied his

own on-going self-analysis ever since. Since he returned to Korea in 1958, he has

held a variety of clinical and teaching positions to this day.

Having learned English and German as a teenager, Dr. Rhee devoured literature

in both languages. He still remembers the powerful influence of two particular

ideas from the German speaking psychiatrists, Eugen Bleuler and Ernest

Kretchmer. Among the writings of Bleuler,16 the Chair of Psychiatry at the

Burghölzli Sanatorium in Zurich and the first clinical supervisor of C. G. Jung and

Ludwig Binswanger, the young Dr. Rhee was deeply impressed by the emphasis

Bleuler (1927/1916) placed on the doctor’s empathic understanding of the pa-

tient’s total situation (Gesamtbild). From the work of the German psychiatrist, Er-

nest Kretchmer, Rhee was especially taken by the notion that effective psychother-

apy depended on the development of the therapist’s own personality. These two

ideas along with Karl Jaspers’s emphasis on verstehende Psychologie came to

form the core of the mature Rhee Dongshick’s own approach to psychotherapy.

While studying psychoanalysis, Rhee was introduced to European philosophy,

particularly phenomenology and existentialism. Therefore, like the European exis-

120 CRAIG

16Bleuler was one of the most influential European psychiatrists in the early part of the twentieth

century. He coined the terms “depth psychology” and “schizophrenia,” was a leading figure, (following

Freud and Jung) in the development of psychoanalysis (in spite of his deep ambivalences), and super-

vised and trained a whole generation of European psychiatrists. What is less well known is his deeply

humanistic feeling for patients whose well being he thought best served by productive activity and gen-

uine, caring, human relationships.

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tential psychiatrists with whom we are more familiar, Ludwig Binswanger and

Medard Boss, Dr. Rhee, too, was doubly influenced: first, by the thinking of

prominent psychoanalysts (e.g., Freud, Bleuler, Fromm, Sullivan, Horney, and

Jung) and, second, by existential and phenomenological philosophers (e.g., Buber,

Jaspers, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Scheler, and, especially, Husserl, and

Heidegger). Rhee was also profoundly touched by many works from German liter-

ature, especially the novels of Herman Hesse. In the sixties, Rhee read with great

interest the works of American humanistic psychologists, particularly valuing the

thought of Maslow and Rogers. Indeed it was some of Rogers’s case studies that

were originally published in the late 1950’s (Rogers, 1958, 1959; Lewis, Rogers &

Shlein, 1959) that confirmed some of Rhee’s own independent clinical discover-

ies. In the 70’s and 80’s Dr. Rhee also became an international colleague of Profes-

sor Medard Boss, founder of daseinsanalytic psychotherapy, and collaborated

with him on several occasions.

What is particularly distinctive about Rhee Dongshick’s work, however, is that,

in the mid 1960’s, he also began studying his own cultural and religious traditions.

Realizing that in order to help his own Korean people he must develop an approach

to psychotherapy that honored and drew from their own historical heritage, he

studied Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Zen. In fact, in 1972, he was

awarded a Ph.D. from Kyungpook University for his thesis on “Research on Psy-

chotherapy in Korean Patients.” It was during this period that Dr. Rhee began de-

cades-long personal tutorials with a number of Confucian scholars and Zen Bud-

dhist masters and, ever since then, he has maintained a serious, devoted study of

Taoist and Buddhist thought. In fact, on several occasions in the last two years I

have witnessed Dr. Rhee’s earnest and silent attention to the lectures of Zen Bud-

dhist monks. As I have known him, Dr. Rhee is rarely silent in any group but with

these spiritual Masters he listens and takes notes with the diligence of a first year

graduate student.

As serious as Rhee is about the study of Taoism and Buddhism, he is essentially

“ecumenical.” For him, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Zen all show the way to the

Tao as does even Christianity, at least to the extent that it leads to the purification of

mind. Indeed, as he sees it, anything that seeks the purification of mind and the re-

alization of truth is, in actuality, on the path to the Tao.

Dr. Rhee founded Tao Psychotherapy in 1974 and, under his theoretical, clini-

cal, and educational leadership, it has been developing steadily ever since that

time. Today, the now 86 year old psychiatrist17 still maintains a sixty hour per week

practice in Seoul as well as a heavy teaching and supervisory schedule. Although

he has published several books in Korean, unfortunately, not one has been trans-

lated into English.

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 121

17Readers doing the math will notice that the difference between 1921 and 2006 does not come to

86. However, in Korea, age is counted from conception so when we consider children one year old, in

Korea they are two.

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Though physically diminutive, short and wiry, Dr. Rhee has an impressive, en-

ergetic presence and works seven days a week. He typically rises at 5:30 in the

morning, goes to the gym for his daily three hour workout, and is in the office see-

ing patients by ten. I have seen him after a workout at 7:30 in the morning and after

a full day in the office and classroom at 10 o’clock in the evening when his eyes are

still sparkling as bright and alert as they were in the morning. He has endured two

bouts with cancer, a serious episode of adult-onset hydrocephalus, and, not so

many years ago, the loss of his only son, also a psychiatrist, in an automobile acci-

dent, and, yet, to the astonishment of everyone who knows him, Dr. Rhee keeps re-

covering, returning as bright and eager as ever. Sometimes I see in the eyes of his

students the question, “How many lives can this remarkable man possibly have?”

As a man, Dr. Rhee seems almost characterologically allergic to what Hellmuth

Kaiser (1965) called the universal symptom of duplicity. Whether in the consulting

room, the lecture hall, the teahouse, or the university, Rhee is invariably quick to

respond when individuals, to use Kaiser’s words, do not “talk straight,” when they

are not “completely, … wholeheartedly behind their words” (p. 36). Indeed, his re-

fusal to brook duplicity on his own part led to his being thrown in prison for nine

months in 1962 under the Martial Law of Chunghee Park, chief of the military

junta, because he (Rhee), with full awareness of the possible consequences, dis-

closed the foul play of the Korean C.I.A. and the Committee of Investigation and

Control about the university’s affairs.

As one gets to know Dr. Rhee, one increasingly has the sense of a light hearted

but formidable character who is thoroughly comfortable with his own being. He is,

on the one hand, a long married man18 and deeply loyal Korean patriot and, on the

other hand, a heretic, firebrand, outlaw, and tease. He can be extraordinarily gentle

and tender, then suddenly aggressive and forceful, and even, at times, socially in-

delicate. One finds him sometimes intense, sometimes light hearted; sometimes

still, sometimes restless; sometimes kind, sometimes mischievous; sometimes

soft, sometimes irascible; but always, always alert, present, and full of élan. It has

been quite striking to me the number of people who spontaneously and independ-

ently describe him as interchangeably a child and a bodhisattva. Though he can be

both loved and hated, simple and enigmatic, it is still for good reason he is called,

with profound and unqualified fondness, “Teacher” and “Master.”19

122 CRAIG

18In 1950, Dr. Rhee married another psychiatrist, Dr, Kim Dongsoon and they have been together

ever since, raising two children and working together in their common vocation.19I am sure many humanistic psychologists would balk at these terms. But one cannot forget, we

are in Korea. Such reverent titles fly in the face of American individualism, but in Korea where, in the

new year, even adult children still get down on their hands and knees and bow fully to the floor before

their parents, the words “Teacher” and “Master” are not spoken (usually) out of obedience but, rather,

with gratitude and love. Whether we Americans should be suspicious or envious is a question worth

asking.

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What is the Korean Academy of Psychotherapists?

When Dr. Rhee founded Tao Psychotherapy in 1974, he also gathered a group of

dedicated, gifted, and promising clinicians who eventually comprised the core of

what came to be known as the Korean Academy of Psychotherapists (KAP). From

its early modest beginnings involving weekly psychotherapy case studies, by 1979

this working group of serious and gentle clinicians had evolved into a thriving

academy which just two years ago celebrated its 30th anniversary with the interna-

tional forum on “Taopsychotherapy and Western Psychotherapy” mentioned

above. Although Dr. Rhee is the founding father of Tao psychotherapy and still its

chief intellectual, clinical, and spiritual luminary, today the KAP is also fortunate

to be sustained and reinforced by the efforts of a three other actively involved se-

nior clinicians, most notably, Dr. Kang Suk-Hun (2004), but, in addition, quite

substantially by, Dr. Huh Chan-Hee (2004), and Dr. Lee Jung-Kug. There are also

a number of other senior clinicians, therapeutic sages in their own right, who,

though not involved in planning and organizational matters, participate in many of

the academy’s activities adding both depth and wisdom. Moreover, there are a

number of young, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and trainees who actively serve

in the academy, performing many menial but necessary tasks with impressive de-

votion, sacrificing both time and energy for the larger purpose. Many of the 300

clinician members of the KAP maintain an active practice of some form of Eastern

meditation and integrate this into their personal and professional lives. Finally, it

should be added that a number of Buddhist and Heideggerian scholars also partici-

pate in the activities of the Academy.

The Academy has developed a rigorous training program for therapists at every

level of education. In addition to weekly Wednesday evening seminars that alter-

nate between psychological and spiritual studies,20 there are monthly Friday eve-

ning case studies as well as classes and case studies on the weekends. Psychologi-

cal studies include, among other areas, developmental, cross-cultural, and

abnormal psychologies as well as psychodynamic, client-centered, existential,

transpersonal, and Eastern psychotherapies.21 The Academy is constantly reevalu-

ating the program of study and training to insure the highest level of preparation

for the practice of psychotherapy. There are three basic groups, beginners, juniors,

and seniors with responsibility and training appropriately graduated along the way.

But now, what about the kind of psychotherapy Dr. Rhee has developed, Tao

psychotherapy?

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 123

20KThese “spiritual studies” are lectures and discussions with Zen Buddhist masters from Seoul

and the surrounding areas.21KAP students read a wide range of psychological literature including psychoanalytic literature

(especially neo-Freudian approaches), existential (especially Daseinsanalysis), humanistic (especially

Rogerian), and transpersonal (for example, Sylvia Boorstein, Alan Watts, and John Wellwood) per-

spectives in the practice of psychotherapy.

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What is Tao Psychotherapy?

Tao psychotherapy (Chung, 1995; Huh, 2004; Kang, 2004; Rhee, 1995, 2002a,

2002b, 2004; Shim, Lee, & Ahn, 2002), offers a fundamentally humanistic ap-

proach to depth psychology and psychotherapy. It is at once psychodynamic and

concerned with human suffering and conflict, and at the same time essentially tran-

scendental, transpersonal, or spiritual. Like Daseinsanalysis in the West, Tao psy-

chotherapy primarily offers a philosophical (i.e., ethical, epistemological, and on-

tological) foundation for psychology and psychotherapy. However, instead of

following the hermeneutic ontology of Martin Heidegger’s Daseinsanalytik, Tao

psychotherapy draws its philosophical foundations from ancient Eastern thought

and practice. More specifically, Korean Buddhists, and therefore KAP members

as well, follow the teachings of the “Northern” branch of Buddhism, known as

Mahayana Buddhism and called the “Great Vehicle” because of its emphasis, be-

yond individual enlightenment, on the liberation and welfare of all beings, particu-

larly as this ideal is embodied in the presence of the bodhisattva.

More concretely, Tao psychotherapy centers around four basic emphases. The

first emphasis is on the development of the personality of the therapist through, on

the one hand, Western depth psychotherapy and, on the other hand, Eastern

thought and practice focusing on emptying or purifying the mind, the latter being

roughly akin to Husserl’s practice of phenomenological reduction. The second

core emphasis is on the therapist’s empathic attunement with and compassion for

the patient, the latter practice being explicated in the “Four Sublime States” or

Brahma-viharâs: namely, loving kindness (mettâ), compassion (karunâ), joyous

sympathy (muditâ), and equanimity (upekkhâ). The third basic emphasis is on

what Dr. Rhee has calls “nuclear feelings,” by which he means, roughly speaking,

a highly charged affective complex originating in childhood as a primary motiva-

tional influence throughout one’s life. This particular emphasis is, perhaps, Rhee

Dongshick’s most distinctive and important contribution to the practice of depth

psychotherapy whether that therapy is conducted in the East or the West. The

fourth emphasis is on the irreplaceable value of lived experience (Erlebnis), with-

out which none of the above can be appropriately grasped and carried out with gen-

uineness and grace. This emphasis on lived experience implies that the therapist

eschews intellectual interpretations in favor of the creation of an atmosphere of au-

thenticity and compassion, in which much of what is given to the patient is embod-

ied more in a kind of lambent presence than in clever verbal interpretations and ex-

positions.

With respect to specific therapeutic methods, like Daseinsanalysis, Tao psycho-

therapy basically follows the spirit and practice of standard Western depth psycho-

logical technique. To put this in everyday rather than technical language, the thera-

pist establishes rapport, a sense of genuine concerned relatedness with the patients;

124 CRAIG

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the therapist abstains from personal gain and, rather, inquires, listens, and engages

the other with honesty and commitment to the person and to the therapeutic com-

mission; patients say whatever it is that is alive and true for them in the moment;

together, the therapeutic partners seek the meanings, limitations, and possibilities

that present themselves directly in the patient’s life. However, unlike

Daseinsanalysis, Tao psychotherapy does add other specific methods: among

these being a plainly manifest sustained empathic inquiry and a deliberate, skill-

fully directed focus on the patient’s nuclear feeling. In addition, in keeping with

Korean culture, Tao psychotherapy can be decidedly active, especially in the em-

ployment of cultural myths and allegories. However, it should be added, that Rhee

is not the kind of teacher to go about touting technique. It is being, not doing, that

lies at the heart of his form of therapy. Thus one is most likely to hear from him

pithy, evocative phrases such as this koân-like therapeutic axiom: “The therapist

brings Spring to the frozen land of the patient.”

Although Dr. Rhee and his colleagues have conducted a number of interesting

outcome studies using traditional statistical methods, what most inspires these ther-

apists and their everyday work with patients is not the demonstrative power of

proofs, but the evocative power of lived human experience and of ancient metaphors

to free up the wellsprings of that experience. Thus in the literature on Tao psycho-

therapywefindreferences to thefingerpointing to themoon, the threeveils, the three

profound gates, the 360 degrees of transformation, and the ten ox herding pictures.

Each of these metaphors is used to evoke experience and awareness that lead, hope-

fully, to freedom from psychological suffering and constriction.

THE ANCIENT ALLEGORY OF THE OX HERDER:TAOIST AND DASEINSANALYTIC READINGS

FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY

What initially drew me as a humanistic psychologist to Tao Psychotherapy was its

grounding in the Tao and, by implication, The Tao Te Ching, a book I had long

owned and admired but could only barely understand until I began studying

Heidegger both alone and with Medard Boss and his colleagues in Zurich. But per-

haps my most compelling interest came upon first seeing pictures portraying the

ancient allegory of the ox herder that Dr. Rhee uses to evoke the essence of his ap-

proach to psychotherapy and its difference from Western psychotherapies. These

ten pictures have been foundational for the practice of Zen Buddhism for centuries,

showing, as they do, the path to enlightenment and the Mahayana Buddhist ideal of

becoming a Bodhisattva. When I first saw them I was immediately struck by their

astonishing correspondence to the progress of Martin Heidegger’s philosophical

thought, essentially combining the early Heidegger, with his philosophy of exis-

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 125

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tence or Dasein, (Heidegger, 1927/1962) and the later Heidegger, with his under-

standing of Ereignis (Heidegger, 1989/1999) and Gelassenheit (1959/1966).22

Here is the entire series of ten figures depicting the allegory of the ox herder.23 I

invite you to spend some time contemplating for yourself these ten pictures as a

whole, especially with respect to your own understanding of psychotherapy and

enlightenment, before going on to the subsequent discussion.

On an entirely manifest or phenomenal level, these pictures trace the journey of

an ox herder who sets off in search of his ox (pictures 1-3). The ox herder then

catches, struggles with, and eventually tames the ox (pictures 3-6), and then, at

last, returns home with the ox so the ox is no longer a concern (picture 7). As Dr.

Rhee points out, however, seen as metaphor, these first seven pictures may be un-

derstood as portraying the journey of patients in Western depth psychotherapy, es-

sentially, the journey from being alienated from ourselves to coming home to our-

selves. Although in Buddhist thought the ox is understood as our human or Buddha

nature, for Dr. Rhee, the ox represents the patient’s “nuclear feeling,” the central,

affect driven dynamic that lies at the heart of many of his or her most intractable

difficulties in living. Dr. Rhee also repeatedly insists out that dealing with such hu-

man difficulties and coming to a place of graceful self control and equanimity, the

palpable sense of self realization one finds in figure 7, is as far as Western psycho-

therapy can lead the individual patient or seeker.

With respect to Heidegger’s thought, we find in these first seven figures a sur-

prisingly homologous correspondence to the philosopher’s thought as it is found in

Being and Time (1927/1962), beginning with the questioning of Being (figures

1-2), the discovery of human existing/Dasein (figure 3), the struggle with the fun-

damental conditions of human existence (figures 4-6), and the realization of a gen-

uine, calm acceptance of the everydayness of one’s very own human existence (fig-

ure 7). Now, you may ask, what could there be beyond such a graceful acceptance

of being-in-the-world we see portrayed in figure 7?

In answer to this question, in figure 8, we see a great empty circle, an enso, in

other words, the encounter with the Nothing we find so often in Taoist and Zen

Buddhist thought as well as in Heidegger’s What is Metaphysics? (1929/1977b)

which he ends with his great question, “Why are there beings at all, and why not

126 CRAIG

22Although in the following reflection I continually make reference to the correspondence between

these ancient pictures and aspects of Heidegger’s thought, I do not intend to assert an objective, apodic-

tic correspondence but, rather, only my own heuristic reflections intended primarily to invite readers to

consider their own and to evoke fresh perspectives for understanding the process of psychotherapy and

human transformation.23I personally took these pictures from the side of one of the buildings of the “Ocean Seal Temple”

(Haein-sa) where the entire collection of Buddhist scriptures is preserved on 80,000 hand carved

wooden blocks. Every temple in Korea has one building on which the great legends of Buddhism are

painted. Although thematically identical in every temple, the pictures themselves are rendered uniquely

according to each painter’s own vision.

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rather nothing?” (p. 112). Here is Heidegger’s “openness” (Offenheit) or clearing

(Lichtung),24 especially his “openness to mystery” (1959/1966, pp. 55-56). In

Eastern terms, this picture embodies the experienced recognition of the

Not-Even-Anything Land mentioned by the exiled Chinese poet, Po Chü-I, cited

above. According to the Tao Te Ching (Chen, 1989), “The Tao is a whirling empti-

ness” (p. 60), ”everlasting Non-being” (p. 51). However, in Taoist, Buddhist, and

Heideggerian thought, this Nothingness is far from anything like philosophical ni-

hilism. To the contrary, this emptiness or No-thing, is that central, profoundly

pregnant experience in Buddhism known as Sunyata often captured, as it is here,

by the enso, which also represents the perfect meditative state known as Satori (en-

lightenment).

In figure 9 the emptiness or nothing of figure 8 has given rise to the world of

particular beings, for as we learn from both Tao psychotherapy and

Daseinsanalysis, “being and non-being give rise to each other” (Chen, p. 60). In

both Eastern and existential thought the No-thingness or Emptiness is the very

wellspring of being, the Mother of “the ten thousand beings,” the womb of all that

is. Any doubts as to whether this understanding of the Nothing is meant to encour-

age nihilism are dispelled by this picture 9 which shows the “co-arising” (to use a

term from Thich Nhat Hanh) of this Emptiness along with the world of beings as a

whole. Remarkably, this very interdependence of non-being or no-thing with Be-

ing was precisely what Heidegger (1998/1999) sought to express with his thought

of Ereignis, the event or occurrence of the co-emergence of the openness of human

existing with the coming into being of all that is, with Beingness-as such. As

Heidegger expressed this, “man necessarily belongs and has his place in the open-

ness...of being. But being needs man as the there of its openness in order to open

itself”(As quoted in Stambaugh, 1992).25 Also implicit in picture 9 is Heidegger’s

understanding of Gelassenheit (1959/1966) by which he meant “the releasement

toward things” (pp. 54-56).

Finally, in figure 10, we see a picture of the Bodhisattva, the individual, who,

having achieved a sense of enlightenment, purity of mind, or, in Heidegger’s terms,

radical openness, goes into the world to take on the suffering of others and to live a

compassionate and altruistic life. For those familiar with Heidegger’s thought, you

TAO PSYCHOTHERAPY 127

24Throughout his life Heidegger used the German terms das Offene (the Open) and das Offenheit

(the Openness) to designate ontological openness, a fundamental characteristic of both Beingness as

Such (Seyn) as well as of Dasein, human being. Over the years he gradually came to prefer the more

sublime die Lichtung, meaning a clearing or glade in the forest, to point to the fundamental Opening of

being, to the circumstance that only by virtue of such a Clearing or Opening can anything be at all.25According to Medard Boss (1988), “A human openness is required for anything to become pres-

ent, or to be, but also the openness of Dasein itself, in turn requires Being in order for it [Dasein] to be.

The ‘light-of-human-existence’ and ‘everything-else-that-is’ require one another and ‘call on’ one an-

other in a unified inseparable ‘e-vent’ [Ereignis]. Ereignis is the indivisible unity of the appeal of Being

to Dasein and of Dasein’s response to this appeal (P.61, brackets mine).

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128

FIGURE 1

Searching for the ox.

FIGURE 2

Finding the tracks of the

ox.

FIGURE 3

Glimpsing the ox.

FIGURE 4

Catching the ox.

FIGURE 5

Taming the ox.

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129

FIGURE 6

Riding the ox home.FIGURE 7

Forgetting the ox, self

alone.

FIGURE 8

Forgetting both ox

and self.

FIGURE 9

Returning to the Source.

FIGURE 10

Entering the World with

open hands.

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will perhaps recognize the kinship of the Eastern ideal of the bodhisattva with that

of Heidegger’s understanding of Dasein as the shepherd of Being (See, e.g.,

Heidegger, 1977a/1947, p.210; Boss, cited in Craig, 1988, p. 42; Craig, in press).

Again, for the Tao psychotherapist, Western psychotherapy can only take the

individual as far as figure 7 where there is still a focus on personal existence or

self. Rhee is emphatic that some kind of philosophical, spiritual, or meditative

practice is required to go beyond this purely individualistic position to the reali-

ties portrayed in figures 8-10. Thus, Tao psychotherapists are fond of quoting

Medard Boss’s comment that “Western psychoanalysis and psychotherapy are

only an introductory course” for the fulfillment of what it really means to be hu-

man.

SUMMARY

In Tao psychotherapy one finds much that is in common with today’s contemporary

practiceof relationalandintersubjectiveapproaches topsychoanalysis (Atwoodand

Stolorow,1984; S. A. Mitchell, 1988; Stolorow and Atwood, 1992) as well as with

certain kinds of humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapies, and, certainly, with

Daseinsanalysis. Although the last decade or so has yielded several important Eng-

lish works integrating Western psychoanalysis and psychotherapy with Buddhism

(e.g., Epstein, 1995, 2001; Molino, 1998; Mruk & Hartzell, 2003; Rubin, 1996;

Safran,2003,Suler, 1993),unfortunatelymost of thepublicationsabout thephiloso-

phy and practice of Tao psychotherapy are available only in the Korean language,

with just a very few dispersed articles and conference proceedings having been

translated into English. It is hoped that this brief introduction to this relatively new,

profoundly humanistic approach to depth psychotherapy, will begin to remedy this

unfortunatecircumstanceandopen thewaytofutureexchangeandcollaborationbe-

tween interested American and Korean psychotherapists.

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AUTHOR NOTE

Dr. Erik Craig is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Santa Fe, New Mex-

ico. He received his doctoral degree from Boston University in 1978 and has

mentored with such humanistic psychologists as Clark Moustakas, Paul Stern,

Charles McArthur, and Medard Boss. He has been teaching and practicing human-

istic-existential psychology for nearly forty years while holding full time positions

at Assumption College, University of New Mexico, and Pacifica Graduate Insti-

tute. For the last two years he has been studying with the Korean psychiatrist, Rhee

Dongshick. Over the past twenty five years he has been developing daseinsanalytic

perspectives for understanding critical issues in psychological theory and practice;

has been active in the development of heuristic, phenomenological, and hermeneu-

tic approaches to human science research; and has has served as the research coor-

dinator in clinical and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is on the

editorial board of six psychological journals and was the editor of the 1988 special

issue of The Humanistic Psychologist entitled, Psychotherapy for Freedom: The

Daseinsanalytic Way in Psychology and Psychoanalysis (1988). Dr. Craig is a past

president of APA’s Division for Humanistic Psychology and of the International

Association for the Study of Dreams.

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