Keeping Meditation Religious and Psychotherapy Secular

Abstract

This chapter examines psychotherapists personalizing religion approaches to Buddhist teachings and practices. Here clinicians can be dramatically influenced by Buddhist teachings, but, intent on maintaining a clear differentiation between Buddhist and psychotherapeutic practice, are loath to “mix” the two. Deep believing Buddhist clinicians betray no sign of Buddhist influence in actual therapy sessions eschewing embodied practices or explicit discussion of Buddhist concepts. They instead hold their Buddhist identities silently internal within “the person of the therapist,” thus “personalized.” The work of one of the most famous therapists to investigate Buddhist traditions, Erich Fromm, is detailed. Fromm’s innovative reconstructions of the terms “religion” and “secular” remain highly influential today. The chapter then describes contemporary therapists who keep their therapy offices clear of visible signs of Buddhist practice during their work day while, in the evenings, publicly speak on “Zen psychoanalysis” or even lead Buddhist communities. These therapists view their work to be fundamentally Buddhist in nature and their patients will sometimes seek them out precisely for their Buddhist association. Personalizing religion approaches thus blur boundaries between the religious and not-religious based on distinctions between the private and the public, the personal and the professional.