Contemporary mind sciences are revealing facts about the brain and its development that have much to teach us about health and happiness. For a greater part of the twentieth century, psychology and psychotherapy had little to say to one another. Despite Freud's early wish to consider psychoanalysis a science, academic psychology had scant time for what it considered at best an "art" form, while psychotherapy found little interest in psychology's lack of concern with subjective experience. Since the rise of the interdisciplinary fields of cognitive science, neuroscience and consciousness studies and the growth of new technologies, all this has changed. This new knowledge challenges many of our common sense and long-held beliefs. It has important implications for education and health, and illuminates both natural optimal development and the way later therapy may heal early insufficiency. What is perhaps more surprising is that these findings engage with the "first" psychology, that of Buddhism.

This work presents an exploration of Buddhist philosophy and practice as a potential resource for an approach to psychotherapy which is responsive to the needs of its time and context, and attempts to open up a three-way dialogue between Buddhism, psychotherapy and contemporary discourse to reveal a meaningful theory and practice for a contemporary psychotherapy.

In Beyond Happiness, Gay Watson deepens the discussion between Buddhist thought and psychotherapy and the new findings of neuroscience. Buddhist teachings are concerned with a way of living and engage most resonantly with practice rather than with theory, thus the conversation between Buddhism and psychotherapy has been a particularly fruitful one. In search of a way to happiness, Buddha set out to explore our experience and, in so doing, presented what may well be called the earliest psychology, an experiential exploration of subjectivity. In the West, for much of the twentieth century, psychology (science) and psychotherapy (practice) had little to say to one another.Despite Sigmund Freud's early wish to consider psychoanalysis as a science, academic psychology has had scant time for what it considered at best an art form, while psychotherapy found little of interest in psychology's lack of concern with subjective experience. All this has changed since the growth of the interdisciplinary fields of cognitive science, neuroscience and consciousness studies, and the development of new technology. Today, ideas arising from Buddhism and from contemporary cognitive science may encourage us to engage anew with our experience, our embodiment and our relationships.A compelling and original synthesis of psychotherapy, Buddhist meditation, neuroscience, ecology and feminism, Beyond Happiness points to a more sane and compassionate way of living in this world at this critical juncture in human history.

In this book Gay Watson offers an alternative view of emptiness via a tour of early and non-Western philosophy, taking us from Buddhism, Taoism and religious mysticism to the contemporary world of philosophy, science and art practice. While traditionally most Western philosophies have been concerned with substance and foundation, she finds that modern and postmodern times have seen a resurgence of ideas of emptiness and offers reasons why this concept has attracted contemporary musicians, artists and scientists, as well as pre-eminent thinkers of earlier ages. A Philosophy of Emptiness probes the idea of how a life without transcendence might be lived, and why one might choose it. It links these concepts to current ideas of meditation and the mind, and offers a rich and intriguing take on the idea of emptiness, reclaiming it as a positive, empowering state.

Attention is central to everything we do and think; yet it is usually invisible, transparent, lost behind our fixation with content. We pay attention to this and that moment or we let our attention wander, but we rarely give attention to the process of attending and distraction. It is typically viewed instrumentally, in terms of what it can achieve, and so its process and practice are overlooked, yet it is central to neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to create new neural pathways in order to adapt - and underlies both the mindfulness revolution and the concern about the influence of new social and digital media. Gay Watson explores attention in action through many disciplines and ways of life, from neuroscience to surfing. The book contains interviews with, among others, John Luther Adams, Stephen Batchelor, Susan Blackmore, Guy Claxton, Edmund de Waal, Rick Hanson, Jane Hirshfield, Iain McGilchrist, Wayne McGregor, Garry Fabian Miller, Alice and Peter Oswald, Ruth Ozeki and James Turrell.A valuable and timely account of something central to our lives yet all too often neglected, this book will appeal to all those who find their attention wandering owing to the distractions and clamour of modern life, and want to know why.