Freud and Yoga: Two Philosophies of Mind Compared

Connection emerges from the most unexpected of dialogues in this sensitive merging of Eastern yoga with Western psychoanalysis%E2%80%93two seemingly opposite disciplines from equally distant hemispheres. The book is structured almost entirely as a conversation between yogi Desikacher (Health Healing and Beyond) and psychoanalyst Kruche highlighting their point-by-point discussion of Pantanjali's Yoga Sutras, a foundational text for modern yoga. This format works well to foster an illuminating discussion, but takes too much for granted that psychoanalysis remains an apt stand-in for the modern world, given that the practice has lost some of its luster in the last few decades. Further misleading are the references to Freud, whom, despite his image's prominent placement on the cover, receives little mention in the actual dialogue. The East-West dichotomy drawn here between yoga and psychoanalysis also underemphasizes the prominence yoga has attained specifically in the West. But even if we are not given a complete sense of what defines these philosophies, Desikachar and Krusche do manage to convey their shared focuses on the internal and interpersonal. What readers can gather from this discussion, then, are the fundamental values that unite two disciplines usually considered so disparate that they are rarely spoken of in the same breath (Dec.)