Sudhir Kakar

"Psychoanalysis . . . has been insufficiently aware of its underlying paradigm and its deep roots in Western culture. The implicit model of man that underlies the psychoanalytic meta-theory is certainly not universal; the psychoanalytic notion of the person as an autonomous, bounded, abstract individual is a peculiarly Western notion. In contrast, the holistic model of man that underlies Indian mystical approaches and propels their practices is rooted in the very different Indian cultural tradition which, in some ways, lies at an opposite civilizational pole."

"I had read Kakar’s The Inner World, an exploration of Indian childhood and society that had received favorable reviews. But personally I thought his application of Freudian ideas, which had already been shown to be invalid by new research, to analyze the mind of the Indian child was pointless."