I’ve not posted for a while because I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how I work as a therapist and how I would like to work and how I integrate everything and how I want to integrate all the theories, techniques, and models of therapy into my current work. This is still work in progress, but I thought I’d get some thoughts onto my blog for anyone who’s interested to look at.
Most clients come to see me because they want, in one way or another, to be happy or fulfilled or less anxious or less depressed or less traumatised etc. This begs the question: “how do we live to be happy or less anxious or …?” How I help clients with this is something I’ve been pondering for the past months. (Actually, I think about this regularly and in the past few months I’ve experienced some life-changing events which really made me step back and give this a great deal of thought).
In therapy the relationship I have with clients is paramount, indeed research has indicated that it is the quality of the relationship that is the single most important factor in the work, more so than therapeutic modality, techniques etc. Without the therapeutic relationship there can be no effective or meaningful therapy. This applies to all forms of counselling and psychotherapy regardless of the theoretical orientation of the therapist. If follows that who I am as a person, as a therapist is foundational to the therapeutic enterprise.
Over the past 18 months or so I’ve done a lot of my own personal therapy, gone on several retreats, left a ‘safe’ job with a guaranteed income to start my own private practice and experienced some life-changing personal events. I took stock of my life returned to my roots, reflected this and am now moving forward. I might write about this in another blog but for now what’s happening in the present…
…I’m much more of a Buddhist psychotherapist rather than a Buddhist who does psychotherapy. Existential philosophy and therapy play a larger part in my work that of late and I am integrating EMDR much more than I used to do. All three have common ground and integrate well (I’ll look at EMDR in a later blog).
I use the Buddhist Four Noble Truths as the foundation for the way I work, but I’ve adapted them in a way that makes sense for clients to use in their day-to-day lives. I also have qualms about calling them either “Noble” or saying that they are “Truths” because both “noble” and “truth” are words rich with connotations that position them as special or even as rules that one must believe in or follow, as part of a religious canon, or doctrines you must accept. Rather than having truth proclaimed and delivered to us, the Buddha taught that it was more important for each of us to deal with these issues in our own minds, indeed he stated that one shouldn’t just do what he said as an act of blind faith but instead to try things out and they work for you accept them, if not then reject what he said. However, if you read about Buddhism you will find that they are always referred to as “The Four Noble Truths”:
The Truths are:
- The truth of suffering (dukkha)
- The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)
- The truth of the end of suffering (nirhodha)
- The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga)
That life is suffering is the “bad news of Buddhism.” This is not as dire as it sounds; it’s quite the opposite, which is why it can be confusing. Much confusion is due to the English translation of the Pali/Sanskrit word dukkha as “suffering.” According to the Ven. Ajahn Sumedho, a Theravadin monk and scholar, (and one of my first Buddhist teachers!) the word means “incapable of satisfying” or “not able to bear or withstand anything.” Others replace “suffering” with “stressful” or “unhappiness” or “unease” etc. Dukkha also refers to anything that is temporary, conditional, or compounded of other things, even something precious and enjoyable is dukkha because it will end.
Further, the Buddha was not saying that everything about life is relentlessly awful. In other talks, he spoke of many types of happiness, such as the happiness of family life. But as we look more closely at dukkha, we see that it touches everything in our lives, including good fortune and happy times.
The Four Noble Truths in an Everyday-Buddhist way:
Awareness (Mindfulness): Life is crappy sometimes and we suffer. This is the Awareness and understanding we need to get familiar with and know to be the truth of our human existence. Awareness prevents fear and confusion. Awareness is the first principle of the Buddha’s teaching because it is necessary to first be aware of how things really are before we can begin to accept, appreciate, and act in the ways we must act to minimise our own and others’ suffering.
Acceptance: We suffer not necessarily because life is crappy. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of being relatively content EVEN when we are in a crappy phase of life. We don’t suffer because of the circumstance in our lives but because we grasp or cling to things being something other than they are. We grasp at things we want and don’t have; we grasp at getting rid of the stuff we don’t want. The way to ease or eliminate that suffering is to learn to adopt an attitude of active acceptance or as I’ve said in previous blogs – radical acceptance.
Appreciation: There is a way out. The way out offers a path of sincere appreciation for the teachings of the Buddha and the new awareness and acceptance that we now have for life as it is. This is the Appreciation phase. When we stop focusing on things that we want but don’t have or pushing away things we have but don’t want, the things that are right in front of us take on a new perspective. We truly begin to experience life. We appreciate everything in our life.
Action: The way out is practicing the Eightfold Path. This is the Action Path. When we are aware of things as they are and we begin to accept and appreciate life as we experience it, the right actions become more obvious and sensible to us. “Right” actions are the way the actions of The Eightfold Path are phrased, as the right actions to take. Yet we need to chill a bit around the rightness of right. These are not commandments or moral directives but suggestions about what actions may be the most effective. When studying and practicing the Eightfold Path, relaxing your grip on the necessity or “rightness” of having to do certain things exactly the way you interpret this “rightness” will be beneficial for you. Think of the word “right” in this respect as the suggestions and not a requirement or insistence but more “something to think about and try out”.
(The Four Noble Truths in an Every-day Buddhist Way is adapted from: Haylett, Wendy. Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices For Real Change (pp. 27-29). Cabin Publishing. Kindle Edition).
I am not going to discuss the Eightfold Path further because in therapy I do not go into the Eightfold Path, I am not trying to proselytise, to convince or convert anyone to Buddhism or anything else. It guides my life, but it isn’t for everyone, and it is not my job to persuade anyone. I use the psychotherapeutic process as a way of action.
One important strand of my therapeutic approach is existential therapy and philosophy and there is an overlap between existentialism and Buddhism. One key conjunction is on suffering. Buddhism and existential psychology view suffering as a given and often it is not something that can easily be overcome or just coped with. Additionally, both recognise the value in suffering as well as other emotions that are uncomfortable. From Buddhist and existential perspectives, our uncomfortable emotions and suffering are something for us to explore and learn from. There are similarities in how individuals can learn from this as well as differences. For example, within Buddhism, there is a spiritual end where the eventual goal is to escape the cycle of suffering and attain nirvana, however, this is something that one strives for over a lifetime. (Some Buddhists believe this can take many lifetimes through the process of rebirth, I personally do not subscribe to this view, I very much see myself as a secular Buddhist. Instead of nirvana being located in a transcendent realm beyond the human condition, I see its rightful place at the heart of what it means each moment to be fully human). In existential thinking and therapy, the goal is to change one’s experience of suffering to transform the experience of suffering, increase one’s self-awareness, live more authentically in the face of suffering, and achieve personal growth. In therapy I adhere to the latter aim, I am aware that clients do not come to see me to attain spiritual goals (at least I haven’t yet had a client who stated this was something they wanted to achieve in therapy!).
Existential therapy and Buddhism both value the experiential realms. First, experience is understood as a valid way of knowing. In much of psychology, there is a strong rational bias and often a distrust of emotion and subjective experience. While existential therapy and Buddhism are not irrational or anti-intellectual, they recognise that there is more than one valid way of knowing. Additionally, the growth and healing process is often understood as experiential in both existential work and Buddhism. Clients limit their growth and healing if growth and health are confined to the cognitive level and do not incorporate an experiential component.
Mindful awareness is important to both existential therapy and Buddhism although I have not mentioned this topic in any detail so far. I first came to Buddhism in the late 1960s (perhaps more about that in another blog), my point is that for me mindfulness and meditation are not new and I am surprised and pleased that it has become much more mainstream but for me however, existential and other depth therapies have long have advocated for approaches quite similar to mindfulness long before mindfulness entered the psychology vocabulary.
I am concerned that mindfulness, as it originated in Buddhism, is quite different to the mindfulness that is often integrated into psychology today, particularly in the West. Indeed, Ronald Purser calls this “McMindfulness” and debunks the so-called “mindfulness revolution,” exposing how corporations, schools, governments, and the military have co-opted it as technique for social control and self-pacification. Despite this, I believe there is a value in a non-judgmental or inquisitive awareness of one’s cognitive, emotional, and somatic experiences.
Both Buddhism and existential therapy are growth-oriented and recognise human potential. Although there are many variations across the different approaches to Buddhism, there is a consistent growth-oriented focus in which individuals, through self-development and training of the mind through mindfulness and meditation attempt to continually grow and embrace their potential. Similarly, existential therapists encourage their clients to achieve their potential rather than focusing solely on overcoming problems.
There are similarities here and both – believe it or not despite all the talk about suffering – focus on making your life happier and becoming a better person.
