Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

[AlanLa]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

Your mimic-ing has my blessing, not that you need it.

[lora]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

Hi,

"by AlanLa on Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:30 am

I teach counseling as a form of zen without ever saying the words zen or Buddhism. I say things like "don't try, just do" and "don't think about your client, just BE with your client" etc. "

Your post hit it right on the head for me, AlanLa! Thankyou.

This is how my counsellor was, but "I" was bound, bent and determined to "defend my Buddhist teachings" - even to my own detriment! I had felt that I'd worked too long and too hard and did'nt want any more self-help, kissy, kissy, huggy, feel good affirmations to boost the very thing that really interferes with this life. Namely the ego. No ego there, right!?

Someone said on another post to just have enough ego to stop one from stepping in front of a bus. For a while there I was really challenging the bus!

I also realized that others may defend their belief systems (B.S.!) as strongly as I did and therefore lose out on valuable help. I'm grateful that he had much more sense than I did and enough compassion for both of us to just "be with me".

Thanks everyone,
Lora

[AlanLa]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

I need to correct myself regarding my response to Jordan above. Sorry, sometimes I am slow on the uptake.

It is NOT ok to mimic the process I described. The experience of BEing with a client needs to come from deep inside a person and be heartfelt, and from that source rise to also be on the surface. It is simultaneous multidimensional humanity (with some skills worked in). But to mimic is to be on the surface only. To mimic is to try; to experience is to Be as you Do. Students get into trouble when they mimic; students learn and grow when they experience.

Again, this could be about zen just as much as it could be about counseling.

OK, I think I've beaten this dead horse enough.....

[Fuken]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

Thanks Alan, I like that! I will grow :wink:

Harry, I think Watts, had his reasons for saying what he did at the time and place that he did. I am not a fan, but I think his comments were directed at a particular audience.

Gassho to all of you Buddhas, and thank you all for your practice.
Jordan

[John]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

If this is true then let us cease the 'meditation in prisons' programmes, all the genuine bodhisattva efforts in our 'normal' socially fragmented towns and cities and return to our safely suburban Zendos to thank the Buddha for our being born middle class and white.

Watts was full of it and was of that ilk of 'seekers' who were/are maybe a bit too concerned with the 'changing of consciousness'.

Ok Harry - sorry if you don't find Watt's teaching to your taste. Some of it is a bit outdated I agree but I still find a lot of value in it. I didn't interpret him in term of class divisions, though.

I don't see any harm in using techniques and therapies derived from Buddhism, like MBSR - they are very beneficial in relieving mental suffering, as has been well proved over the years. But they aren't the same as a Buddhist practice are they? Maybe I am making a false distinction where there shouldn't be one. But I'm not the only one. In 'Eight Gates of Zen' John Loori says: (and this section has bothered me for a few years)

"..[*]many people come to training centres and monasteries seeking something that is not necessarily within the province of what a monastery or training centre can provide. Most Zen teachers and Zen centres are not equipped to deal with someone who is troubled by significant psychological tensions and distortions. Common neurosis and anxiety are one thing, deep psychological problems are quite another.... Physical and psychological well-being are often byproducts of this training, but if they are the students main goal, there are more appropriate ways to work on them. But if the student is concerned with the ground of being, with fundamental questions of life and death -- Who am I? What is truth ? What is reality? What is life ? What is death ? -- then they have come to the right place. Those are spiritual questions, and that is what Zen training is specifically designed to deal with. Those who begin Zen practice without a central spiritual motivation usually do not last too long in training."[*]

But that last part opens up again for me a point that I thought I had got a handle on in another thread: Is Zen practice chiefly a way of dealing with suffering or answering spiritual questions? I suppose it's both. Or maybe I'm asking too many questions again, :?

Gassho,
John

[disastermouse]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

Zen practice is is about the heart of this moment. Open awareness. Wisdom.

It is not about dealing with issues. It is dropping issues. It is not a quick fix. It took Siddhartha 6 years. It is not about one person, it is about everything.

It is not about getting better, it is understanding there is no one to get better. It is seeing your original face.

I am only a little familiar with psychology , but within that field I am presuming that such issues don't come up on a regular basis. Or they are limited to a technical, experimental, verbal and methodlogical approach.

Although there are similarities, Buddhism has been dealing with the issue of self for 2600 years. In the future perhaps psychology will merge with Buddhism on the same level and bring with it a new practice, but at the moment it seems it is not necessarily a consistent practice. There are many theories and methods being produced all the time, whereas Buddhist practices generally have a common method. In Zen that consistent method is Zazen and Dokusan.

A teacher is very important in certain cases, as is a Sangha of practioners. However, I think if one continues to practice year after year, it will eventually become beneficial. Practicing on one's own though (in certain cases) may be detrimental or prolonged.

From what I understand therapy also has the capacity to reinforce the delusion that there is something wrong with you.

From the start there is not one thing.

Please correct anything that might be off. I'm not a psychologist. Thanks.

Gassho

Zazen is not, strictly speaking, a psychological practice. I would say it is trans-psychological.

I know this will expose me as the disgusting 'marketplace Zennist' that I am - but I am finding that using Byron Katie's 'Inquiry' as a discursive practice truly helps with my zazen practice. Discursively inquiring when I have pain-causing beliefs allows powerful but destructive thoughts to drop away of themselves. Anyone with any experience with compulsive thoughts (I suspect that means everyone) knows how difficult it is when a fearful or angry thought grabs hold of you and you cannot dismiss it because you truly BELIEVE the thought. Inquiry helps me realize that such beliefs are not fundamentally true.

Sitting zazen broadens the base of the wisdom thus arrived at. It is often provides experiential evidence that one is not one's thoughts. The synergistic action of these two is pretty amazing and I wish that I'd have had inquiry when I was sitting alone for so long as a beginner. I was under the sway of many neurotic thoughts.

It's not that zazen is insufficient but its job is significantly different than psychotherapy. Psychotherapy's job is to heal the ego. Zen's job is to transcend the ego. IMHO, YMMV.

[Dojin]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

well i dont think that zen has much goal or purpose in life except for living...

about therapy i have some experience on both sides of the met so to speak, as a person who went to it and as someone who worked with patients in a sanitarium ( i am a nurse ). my stay at the center was a short one ( i was there as a student ) but i did see the benefits of unconventional treatment, ranging for music and song interpretations to vent ones feelings to discussion groups about current affairs such as the changing of currency.

i have even performed a form of meditation, sitting quietly on the chair with relaxing music and the practice of simple breath counting.
unfortunately i only go a chance to do one of those but i did see how it helped patients and it was something the regular staff joined in and made a sense of equality in a way.
and i do think it could be a very good thing for some people.

as for therapy or zazen as a healing procedure i think it is less not the same. but some good could come from the combination of the 2. although i must say that not everyone could sit zazen and get any positive effects from it, in short i just think that both have something to offer but zen is not a therapy and any such uses would be only byproducts of practice, and since it is an endless practice it is not very useful in the short run.

[Gautami]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

hi... so many great comments... Forgive me my personal part of this note. At the age of 45, when my life completely fell apart inspite of doing "everything right" I became interested in psychology. 'Psychology' meaning 'mind-science.' At this time I never even heard of Buddhism or even 'Eastern Philosophy', functioning as a 'perfect' (meaning obedient to social/cultural expectations) sleepwalker all of my life. Did not cry for 40 years, could not laugh either... yes, I was always smiling... Completely numb and unaware of anything inside. In a desperate search for something to hold on to, some explanation why I was dying (literally - 5 years of depression - medicated to the point of not being able to function at all). Stumbled in to an announcement of a Yoga lecture in a bookstore. The lecture was a first and powerful enough stimulus to jolt me out of depression. First emotion I was ever aware of was anger... so much anger... yet the depression was gone and so the medication. This was a beginning of a "new" Gautami. Gautami who was able to walk away from everything she new and she was close to, continued through 8 years of full time college, dedicated herself to helping others who also struggled with their 'psychological' problems. This was Gautami who could finally cry and laugh and feel love for the first time in her life. After years of searching and coming back to Buddha's teaching, his path was the one she stayed on. In her work she quickly and to her dismay learned that the science of a mind (psycho-logy) she was taught was extremely culture-specific. In addition to this, the mainstream Western use of psychology seemed to be directed toward helping people to adjust to the culture, aspects of which I was very much beginning to question. Then Clients came. Clients with very different beliefs and expectations, Clients with a whole variety of cultural patterns, Clients with experiences (inwardly as well as external) impossible to quantify or comfortably fit in to diagnostic cathegories to satisfy financial aspects of care or therapeutic approaches.
Looking for some over-reaching starting point (s), points I was also able to relate to, an observation was made regarding the degree of a person's 'intraversion - extraversion'. A person's ability to be aware of their internal experience. In the Western culture, where extraversion is glorifyed and intraversion pathologised, people are so very much un-awere of their internal functioning.

This is where, finally, (if you are still with me) I found the value of a practice of meditation so very central to Client's needs. "Meditation" meaning practicing, as in practicing a skill, to first, paying attention to the awareness of the body, then thoughts, emotions... first to notice, then to learn to observe them come and go... learn to live with the experience of them coming and going... This (aparently simple :wink: ) practice proofed to have many other healing aspects... you know the rest of the story. If there is only one aspect of Buddha's (if not generally Eastern psychology) teaching that is so very needed in Western culture, is to balance the ideal of extraversion (attention to external) with the skills of 'self' awareness.
Yes, self-awareness is not a panacea for all psychological challenges, a specially where well informed psychiatric/medical intervention seem to be more appropriate. Yet, we all know, that even medical interventions are efective within a particular cultural mindset.
Ugh... Thanks for letting me to vent... :lol: So much more to muse upon...
Greetings and Gassho
Gautami

[will]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

This is where, finally, (if you are still with me)

You almost lost me, but I stuck around to the end

Gassho

[Gautami]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

... hi again... after thinking about this on and off most of the day, I would like to address an issue I would like to hear you comments on also:

There are people/teachers within Buddhist community who are radically against any "unqualified" teacher teaching anything related to the Buddhist tradition, a specially anything related to a meditation.

The assumed benefit of this restriction is that the teaching remains "pure" therefore potentially more effective. The assumed caveat is that the teaching becomes distorted and the Buddhist tradition and a particular practice (as meditation) loses credibility.

I can see both sides of the argument, and choose to (with an utmost care and effort to understand all issues involveed, including my own limits of competence) teach when I feel it is appropriate and might serve the client well.

What are your comments?

BTW... spend the day at the County Fair. While watching young children showing their animals... sheep, pigs... rabits, in a dusty and hot (close to 100F) arena, children who spend hours and hours working with and nurturing their animals. In front of me, on the hot metal bleachers, sat a young woman. She was carried to her seat by an elderly man, and she mainatined stability with a help of pillows supporting her body. In front of her stood a tripod with a camera... the young woman could not hide her excitement with the chance to take picures of compeating children and animals in the arena...It was life and it was perfect... Is it OK to be sentimental for a Zen practitioner? Or was it the heart of Zen?

Gassho
G.

[Dojin]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

.
It was life and it was perfect... Is it OK to be sentimental for a Zen practitioner? Or was it the heart of Zen?
.

i think it is the heart of our human nature...
it is impossible to be without feelings and it is what makes us be ourselves.
so embrace it and let it be all the time knowing that it is just that ( feelings ) and it will not last forever.
and than embracing that too

Gassho
Daniel.

[Eika]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

Well said, Daniel.

-Bill

[Stephanie]

Re: Psychology/psychotherapy/psychoanalysis and Zen

Psychotherapy and Zen are absolutely complementary. One is not a version of the other and they do not impede one another. Of course, just as you can get a bad Zen teacher, you can get a bad psychotherapist. But in general, I think both are useful and each addresses an area the other does not address as fully.

In Zen practice, you are training in the ability to see through and see beyond thinking. In zazen, you can drop everything, including concerns about the particular content of thought. In psychotherapy, you are delving into the content of thought and trying to come to a better understanding of how and why you think in particular ways.

I know from experience that people who have sat zazen for some time and developed some insight into the nature of mind can still be almost completely blind to their particular "issues," why they think and act the way they do. They might understand that thought has no inherent self-nature but they don't understand why they experience the same patterns in their relationships over and over again. And, of course, there are people that have gone through therapy and developed a better self-awareness in terms of understanding why they think the way they do, but who have not addressed the deeper background noise of dukkha in their lives.

In a way, I think it's an even greater concern when Zen practitioners don't develop a good working knowledge of the content of their own psyches than when people who do develop such knowledge don't practice Zen. Not everyone is drawn to or needs to address deeper questions to realize a basic level of happiness. But it is entirely possible for people to spend years practicing Zen and have almost no understanding of themselves at all. This can be toxic, as they may completely justify abnormal and destructive behavior to themselves as part of their practice or "enlightenment." I actually suspect that most Zen practitioners don't have a particularly deep understanding of their own psychology; I believe that many people turn to spiritual practice out of psychological need, and Zen practice becomes something of a "Band-Aid" that helps alleviate the distress and dysfunction caused by psychological rifts somewhat, but yet also allows it to continue.

Let me give you a fictional example (and no, this is not a thinly veiled version of myself or anyone I know, though many people I know, including myself, have issues somewhat like this, though differing in kind, origin, and degree). Let's say that Zimmy grew up in an emotionally abusive home. He was constantly called names and affection was withheld from him on a regular basis as punishment. He grew up with the feeling that something was wrong. As he started to have adult relationships, he started to notice recurring dysfunctional patterns in those relationships--he was drawn to people who would treat him very coldly. It was a comfort zone with him. Along the way, he discovered Zen practice. He started sitting with a sangha and going to retreats. His zazen deepened and he began to understand emptiness and feel a little less bothered by the disappointments in his life.

But he never recognized what had happened to him growing up for what it was. On the contrary, he began to criticize himself for not appreciating his parents enough, that they were just doing their best. As wonderful as zazen could be, it began to exacerbate the feelings of emptiness inside of him. Instead of getting any better, his relationships with others began to get worse. He told himself that this was simply natural for a spiritual practitioner, to withdraw from the world. When he yearned for better relationships, he told himself that this was just the kind of desire that creates dukkha. He sat until the sad feeling started to turn into numbness, and saw this as progress. His life became colder and lonelier over the years and he never realized that because of his childhood, he'd never been able to love himself. Because of this lack of self-understanding, his relationships never got any better, and whatever peace zazen brought him was tempered by a disconsolate sadness inside him that rendered his life into an emotionally barren wasteland for its duration.

This is entirely possible, and I have seen variations of it. Even worse, I've seen people whose harmful behavior toward others was aided and justified for them by their Zen practice. Learning how to see beyond thought does not automatically clarify for you the particular knots in your own thinking process. Nor are these knots magically untied simply by sitting zazen. Our selves are formed very early on and even as Zen practitioners we depend on those mental structures to navigate our world. We can never abandon them completely in normal everyday life. If we do not understand the particular wiring of our own version, we can suffer needlessly no matter how much wisdom we may have about the fact that these structures are inherently empty.

And the sadder thing is that in their pride, a lot of people would never even admit they have "issues," when most of us do, in one form or another. In a lot of ways, as difficult as it is, it's easier to enter into spiritual practice and ask questions about the cosmos than it is to enter into therapy and ask questions about one's own particular pain. I think I learned more about myself in one year of grad school for social work than I have in a lifetime of introspection and years of practicing zazen. Because you might become better acquainted with the contents of consciousness in zazen, but unless you have someone helping you who understands, you'll probably never understand why you think the way you do. And this is no small matter; your whole "spiritual life" could be built up around some psychological problem you've never understood as such.

I've noticed that a lot of really sick and damaged people find their way to zendos and there's some really sad, heartbroken people that become monks, that all along are enabled in their lack of awareness of themselves by the milieu in which they find themselves. They don't necessarily understand that they're sick or heartbroken, and that it's possible to heal. For such people, real liberation is not possible, because they are not free within themselves, from the detritus of what's happened to them. I would urge everyone drawn to Zen or the spiritual life to work with a therapist and/or study Western psychological concepts. The common notion in Buddhist circles that Western psychology is just watered-down versions of deeper ideas that can be found in Buddhism is false. These theories have their own wisdom, as they address areas the Buddha and most Buddhist teachers never bothered with at all.