Buddhist and other

Contemplative Contributions to
21 Century Psychotherapy

Copyright © 2020 by
Paul B. Whittemore, Ph.D., ABPP
 The Contemplative Traditions and Their
Shared Fundamental Assumptions
• These traditions were born during the Axial Age (ca. 800-200 BCE)
in Greece, the middle East, India and China, and later encompassed
all major world religions such as Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam.
• The goal of all contemplative traditions is to enhance control of the
mind in order to reduce suffering, increase joy, and improve one’s
alignment with what is “really real.”
• They all recognize and teach that there is a significant difference
between the “really real” and what is typically mistaken for “real.”
Understanding this difference and living in harmony with it is the
ultimate goal…and this process takes (at least) a life-time.
• As Roger Walsh notes, they all share the “startling conclusion of
enormous importance: we are only half-grown and half awake.”
(p. 432 in Wedding & Corsini, 11th ed. 2019).
 The Life of the One Who Became the Buddha
• Born Siddhartha Gautama in Northern India in a royal and wealthy
family around 560 BCE, he grew up in a highly protected, walled,
affluent estate with every privilege in education and recreation.
• Said by tradition to have been handsome, athletic, and bright, he
married a neighboring princess when he was 16, she bore him a
healthy son; he lived a charmed life until his late twenties.
• Legend describes him suddenly encountering the harsh realities of old
age & decrepitude, the prevalence of disease, the inevitability of death.
• After seeing a monk with shaved head and begging bowl, he himself
sets out on a quest to discover the truth about life and reality in order
to deal with suffering that is everywhere and all around.
• After many years of searching very different paths, philosophies &
religions, he settles under a Bodi tree weak from extreme asceticism
and is given some simple nourishment to prevent him from starvation.
• Without warning or recognizable stimuli, he suddenly experiences a
profound “enlightenment” that has him entranced for many days.
• Then he arises and begins a 100 mile walk for the city of Benares, and
stops outside town in a “Deer Park” where he gives his first sermon.
 The Teachings of the Buddha, which means the
“Awakened One” or the “Enlightened One”
• He sums up his awakening wisdom with what he calls “The Four
Noble Truths.”
• First, life is suffering.
• Second, the cause of suffering is craving (over-attachment).
• Third, there is relief from suffering through overcoming craving.
• Fourth, the way to overcome craving is “The Eightfold Path.”
1. Right Knowledge
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
 The Contemplative Traditions Fundamentally
Agree with the Buddha as follows:
• The universal delusion is that things are supposed to be the way we
want them or expect them to be. Our suffering results from living out
this false assumption. We are attached to the wrong vision (we lack
“right knowledge”).
• In order to detach from this delusion of “wishful thinking” we must
first recognize our automatic tendency to avoid all unpleasant
experiences (our aversions) and to cling exclusively to the pleasant
ones (our “addictions”).
• We must learn to replace our aversions and “addictions” (i.e. over-
attachments) with active and wise acceptance (this is “Right
Intentions”)
• A good summary of this active and wise acceptance is found in the
“serenity prayer” attributed in the West to St. Francis of Assisi: “God
grant me the courage to change the things I can, serenity to accept the
things I cannot change, and wisdom to know the difference.”
 Further Incorporation of Contemplative and
Buddhist Wisdom by Psychotherapists
• Buddha’s “Right Mindfulness” is taught directly as a way to expand
our “awareness” (similar to Gestalt’s goal).
• Buddha’s “Right Concentration” is taught directly in the form of
various types of “meditation.”
• Simple (but not easy) exercises often take the form of focusing on
one’s breath and noticing the immediate tendency of the mind to
wander.
• Instead of resisting this, one simply notes where it wandered to and
then one draws attention back to ones breathing.
• This continues with non-critical, effortless noticing and redirecting
attention back to the breath, over and over again.
• This noticing where the mind wandered expands our awareness---this
is mindfulness.
• The drawing attention back to the breathing improves our
concentration---this is the “meditation” part.
 Common therapeutic benefits of
meditation and mindfulness
• Practicing meditation techniques promotes
physiological calmness.
• Practicing meditation techniques helps train the
“monkey mind” to do what we want instead of
what it wants to do.
• Practicing mindfulness techniques help expand
our awareness.
• Practicing mindfulness techniques helps cultivate
acceptance, release unhealthy control tendencies,
and to recognize hidden fears and attachments.
 Specific Meditation Topics for Special Needs

• Lovingkindness meditation (for all to be happy)

• Compassion meditation (for all to suffer less)
• Empathic joy with others meditation
• Equanimity meditation to intend peace to others
• Disidentification meditation helps you to
recognize that you are
---not your thoughts,
---not your feelings,
---not your bodily sensations, etc.
 Contemplative and Buddhist Principles
Already Present in Existing Psychotherapies
• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), desensitization, and
EMDR guide clients to face unpleasant experiences instead of
avoiding them.
• Rogers’ “organismic valuing process” specifically requires “tuning
into one’s inner self,” which often includes bad feelings. This is
another therapeutic way of not avoiding the unpleasant.
• Gestalt Therapy specifically asks clients to notice bodily sensations,
such as tension, and to voice what it feels like and what thoughts or
memories are associated with it, especially those that are painful. The
“Empty Chair Technique” specifically requires remembering,
expressing and confronting negative emotions and there perpetrators.
• The psychodynamic tradition was the first in the West to guide clients
to recall and speak about what happening in their childhood, youth,
and family. Recall Freud’s “catharsis” following hypnosis and Jung’s
“confession” stage of therapy.
 Contemplative and Buddhist Principles
Recently Incorporated in Psychotherapy
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (Marsha Linehan) draws extensively
upon the principles of acceptance and the health normal need to face
and stare down unpleasant feeling. She created an entire work book
filled with practical exercises to reduce avoidance and over-
attachment.
• Similarly, “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” (Steven Hayes)
also makes “acceptance” of one’s current situation, one’s current
experiences, and one’s feeling as fundamental to the entire therapy
techniques.