Gay Watson, Ph. D.

I am a writer concerned with the dialogue between Buddhist thought, psychotherapy and the Mind Sciences.

 

After studying for a degree in Religious Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) and a professional training in Core Process Psychotherapy with the Karuna Institute in Devon, UK, I brought these two disciplines together for my doctoral dissertation on A Buddhist Inspiration for a Contemporary Psychotherapy.  With recent and ongoing discoveries in the field of Neuroscience I have become aware that science must be a third partner in this conversation in search of well-being.  The resonance of these new discoveries with the ‘first’ psychology of Buddhist dharma, albeit in a different language, brings another dimension to this dialogue.  It also, I believe, provides some foundation for the ‘art’ of psychotherapy.  I continue to explore these themes in teaching, writing and life. Recently the scope of this writing has expanded beyond these core subjects to focus more around underlying ideas of philosophy and creativity.

 

A book on A Philosophy of Emptiness (Reaktion 2014) was an exploration of ideas of emptiness from early Buddhism and Taoism and Greek thought through to contemporary philosophy, science and art practice. This led to the next book Attention, Beyond Mindfulness, (Reaktion 2017), an exploration of attention through many disciplines and ways of life. It contains interviews with many scientists and artists skilled in practices of attention - click here for more information (PDF).

 

My most recent book is a short Slice for Mud Pie Books, Buddhism AND (Mud Pie Books 2019). Here are links to the publisher and a blog article I wrote about the ideas for the book: mudpiebooks.com.

 

Here are also links to two interviews and one cartoon which was, apparently, inspired by my writing (with thanks to Bradley Veley):
www.middlewaysociety.org, livingoutloudpodcast.org and bradveley.com