The primary goal of this volume is to describe the contemporary state of affairs in Western psychotherapy, and to do so in a Whiteheadian spirit: with genuine openness to the relative ways in which creativity, beauty, truth, and peace manifest themselves in various cultural traditions. This Whiteheadian Dialogue explores afresh an important cross-elucidatory path: what have we, and what can be learned from a dialogue with Eastern worldviews? In order to generate meaningful contrasts between these different systems of thought, all the papers address common core issues. On one hand, how does the given system understand the interaction of the individual, society, and nature (or cosmos)? On the other hand, what is the paradigm of all pathology and what is its typical or curative pattern?

Whitehead acknowledged that 'the philosophy of organism seems to approximate more to some strains of.Chinese thought.' Some scholars have attempted to explore this relationship and its implications. The Beijing Conference provided a good forum for interested and engaged scholars to address each other directly, in an atmosphere of mutual regard and respect. The ongoing scholarly work on process thinking in China is impressive. It is the editors conviction that the publication of this book in English will promote international discussion of the themes and issues herein set forth. This should contribute significantly to the broader discussion between West and East, so important in this age of cultural globalization. Contributors: John B Cobb, Jr, David R Griffin, Catherine Keller, Meijun Fan, Ronald Phipps, Joseph Grange, George Derfer, Wang Shik Jiang, Brook Ziporyn, Michel Weber, Wenyu Xie, HUAN Huogui, Zhihe Wang, HAN Zhen LI Shiyan, ZHANG Nini."

This book offers a uniquely process relational oriented Chinese approach to inter-religious dialogue called Chinese Harmonism. The key features of Chinese harmonism are peaceful co-existence, mutual transformation, and openness to change. As developed with help from Whiteheadian process thought, Chinese harmonism provides a middle way between particularism and universalism, showing how diversity can exist within unity. Chinese harmonism is open to similarities among religions, but it also emphasizes that differences among religions can be complementary rather than contradictory. Thus Chinese harmonism implies an attitude of respect for others and a willingness to learn from others, without reducing the other to one s own identity: that is, to sameness. By emphasizing the possibility of complementariness, a process oriented Chinese harmonism avoids a dichotomy between universalism and particularism represented respectively by John Hick and S. Mark Heim, and will make room for a genuine openness and do justice to the culturally and religiously other. "