Psychotherapy East and West by Alan Watts

 Psychotherapy East and West by Alan Watts. 

This is the first book by Alan Watts that I have read. Wow. I started reading it on the bus to and from work. I averaged three pages day for several weeks. But then Watt's writing started to flow, and my brain was able to take in the information that he was giving and process it to the point where I could understand the key concepts. I still probably have no idea what the true meaning behind the book are and would write a horrible blurb if I was tasked to. However, I feel as if I have learned from this book. 

"The main resemblance between these Eastern ways of life and Western psychotherapy is in the concern of both with bringing about changes of consciousness, changes in our ways of feeling our own existence and our relation to human society and the natural world. The psychotherapist has been interested in changing the consciousness of peculiarly disturbed individuals. The disciplines of Buddhism and Taoism are concerned with changing the consciousness of normal, socially adjusted people."

I consider myself a normal, socially adjusted person, so this was a refreshing thing to read. One does not need to be a great thinking, or a person who is a peace with oneself in order to understand what Watts offers to his readers. In many cases, if one were to open a academic journal in any field, they would be stumped to try and understand what the author is talking about. Often times you have to have a litany of understanding of a subject that comes along after obtaining degrees in specific fields in order to understand what academics are speaking about. With Watts, there is a learning curve, but the curve soon flattens. 

There were times where I asked myself why I had decided to choose this Watts book to read first, and there were times when I was happily reading and annotating the book in order to emphasize key points, and I think that any reader who picks this book up with go through the exact same senarios.