Presence of Mind: Literary and Philosophical Roots of a Wise Psychotherapy

Through the voices of William Blake, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, Martin Buber, Lao-Tzu, Gregory Bateson, and Jiddu Krishnamurti and his own commentary on their texts, Schoen explores values in psychotherapy and the values of meaning in life. In the final chapter Dr. Schoen, a psychiatrist in private practice and former president of the Gestalt Institute of San Francisco, discusses terms, "Contextual Therapy," and outlines a new paradigm of therapy. Schoen goes beyond the Transpersonal and the existential, and asks readers to explore their own values by exploring the values and world views of these great thinkers, poets, and story tellers.