title: The terminology of the soul (attā): A psychiatric recasting.
abstract: Among all the beliefs of the Theravāda Buddhist tradition, none has stirred more controversy than theanattā doctrine. This teaching suggests that nowhere can a substantial self be apprehended. On the contrary, belief in a fixed, unitive self is to be regarded as an ineluctable condition for the emergence of suffering (dukkha). Only when such a truth is grasped by means of wisdom (panñā) can the perennial peace of Nibbāna be found. By providing a model of understanding drawn mainly from psychoanalytic and clinical practice, this essay purports to illumine the pathology of exaggerated self-entitlement (narcissism) rampant during the age of the historical Buddha, and the latter's reaction against it by means of theanattā doctrine.
authors: Manhattanville College, USA.
authors: J F
authors: JF
authors: Roccasalvo