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Psychotherapy and Buddhism pp 57–79Cite as

Beyond Self-Blindness

Psychoanalytic and Buddhist Visions of the Self

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Part of the book series: Issues in the Practice of Psychology ((IPPS))

Abstract

The greatest danger, according to the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard, is to lose one’s self. And the greatest despair is not being one’s self. But what is this self that one can lose or not be?

The aspect of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes. The real foundation of... [one’s] inquiry do not strike... a [person] at all.... And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein

One must look for the assumptions which appear so obvious that people do not know they are assuming them because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them.

—Alfred North Whitehead

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York, New York, USA

    Jeffrey B. Rubin (Private Practice in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy)

  2. Bedford Hills, New York, USA

    Jeffrey B. Rubin (Private Practice in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy)

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  1. Jeffrey B. Rubin
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© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Rubin, J.B. (1996). Beyond Self-Blindness. In: Psychotherapy and Buddhism. Issues in the Practice of Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7280-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7280-4_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-7282-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-7280-4

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