Conjunctive Psychology

The integration of Buddhism and Western psychology is a subset of a broader project that also involves integration of Western psychology with other Eastern health traditions including yoga, ayurveda (the national healing system of India), Chinese medicine, and Taoism (Mikulas, 2002). In all the Eastern traditions psychological health is part of the overall health of body, mind, and spirit, which are all intertwined.
The integration of Eastern and Western thought, as it relates to psychology, is called "Conjunctive Psychology." The integration takes place across four "levels of being": biological, behavioral, personal, and transpersonal. The biological level is the domain of the body; the behavioral level is the activity of the body, including cognitions; and the personal level concerns the conscious personal reality, including the sense of self and will. The transpersonal level, discussed later, includes forces and domains of being that are superordinate to and/or prior to the self-centered personal reality.
A few conceptualizations, unique to Conjunctive Psychology, are used in this paper, including behaviors of the mind, components of meditation practice, and a "solution" to the self/no-self issue. Hence, whenever the expression "Conjunctive Psychology" is used, the reader will know this is an idiosyncratic theoretical view of the author, and that further information and references can be found in the basic text (Mikulas, 2002).