With the doctrine of anatta (Pāli; Sanskrit: anTemplate:Atman) Buddhism maintains that the concept of an Template:Atman is unnecessary and counterproductive as an explanatory device for analyzing action, causality, karma, and reincarnation. Buddhists account for these and other "self"-related phenomena by other means, such as [[pratitya-samutpada|pratTemplate:Itya-samutpTemplate:Ada]], the skandhas, and, for some schools, a pudgala. Thus it is not necessary for Buddhists to posit an ātman, and they further regard it as undesirable to do so, as they believe it provides the psychological basis for attachment and aversion. Buddhism can analyze the apparent self itself as the very act of grasping after a self--i.e., inasmuch as we have a self, we have it only through a deluded attempt to shore it up.
It should be noted that the critique of the individual self does not differentiate Buddhists from Advaita Vedantists, as they, too, deconstruct the individual self. It is in pushing the critique of the ātman through to the level of metaphysical being in itself, i.e. to Braḥman or Paramatman, that it becomes that Buddhism distinguishes itself from Advaita on this point.