mark epstein Buddhist and Psychotherapist and Who am I?

Struggling with this notion of Who am I? and being a psychotherapist, I picked up a book to reread called Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A buddhist perspective on Wholenss by Mark Epstein. He writes about psychotherapy and buddhism and the intersection between. (He is well schooled and practiced in both.) For anyone who has an interest in this convergence, this is a great read. Here's the set up...
He writes about learning to juggle as a significant breakthrough in his life and practice. Then he quotes one of my favorite poems by Wallace Stevens called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Here is the excerpt from the poem.
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

Then he says, "When we speak of the self from the perspective of Western psychology, we are most often taken with the beauty of inflection, with the self's whistle as it appears. But when we look at the self from the perspective of the Buddhist psychologies, we emphasize the beauty of the self's innuendo, of the space around the self. So perhaps my juggling breakthrough was the equivalent of hearing the blackbird's whistle "just after." I did not need to leave my ego behind, merely to see around its edges."

I find this useful and I am hoping that as I continue to reread this book and keep practicing of course, it might help me to grant myself permission to .... I don't know... open a door... note the "just after."

hey Peony,

I'm fascinated by this stuff too. Right now I'm in my internship for clinical psych and mostly do narrative therapy. What I find interesting is that the while meditation and therapy approach some of the same basic human problems, each does it differently.

Combining my views from meditation experience and what I've learned as a therapist, the self really does seem to be a story that we are telling ourselves and which we co-create with everyone else.

From what I can tell, therapy seems to be a way to re-author the self, but meditation seems to be a way to pry your awareness loose from the story and see clearly without the self story.

Each approach really helps to heal something fundamental for people. Though I have to admit, getting loose from the self story probably does a person more good in the long run than re-authoring it.

ron

Thanks guys. I enjoyed your post Ron. I like that re-authoring the self. There are some things that mediation does well--shattering your paradigm that therapy just doesn't. There are some things that therapy (which lately for me just means talking with wise people I know) does better for day to day behavioral issues. For instance when my spiritual practice is making me feel a bit aloof/isolated from people I interact with, the answer is to talk to people I trust about it rather than sit more...

Clayton what you wrote reminds me of the big meta-division of the path: morality, concentration and wisdom. As concentration deepens and wisdom grows, our morality gets challenged in new ways. Thats were the talking can help, I think, because that's where you can create new ways to relate the self to the new experience.

I know that for me I ran into this issue when A&P first became strong. I wanted to make everyone sit and meditate because I knew there was something important going on there (but wasn't sure what it was). My moral struggle then was not to become too preachy! At dissolution, it was to stay motivated in daily life, and now that I'm in the Dark Night, it's learning to be a peace with unsatisfactoriness. Since you're ahead of me on the path, it looks like I might struggle with aloofness in the near future.

It's funny how as you progressively see through the fiction of the self, you also work to make it more mature.

Yes, thanks SO MUCH for these replies. Great to find a buddhist/therapist fellow traveller (is there a gender neutral phrase I wonder for fellow traveller?). I am at the beginning of working in my psychotherapy practice with integrating what I am learning from my sitting practice. I currently work with two folks who are deeply immersed in mindfulness practice: one a buddhist and the other a woman who is a seeker and mindfulness is just her way. Anyway, my main approach 9with everyone actually) is to listen deeply and wonder to myself a great deal about how to be useful/helpful using what I know from wherever I know it (or what I think I know!). I agree with this....

"From what I can tell, therapy seems to be a way to re-author the self, but meditation seems to be a way to pry your awareness loose from the story and see clearly without the self story."

I believe however that a significant part of that re-authoring grows from the relationship between the two human beings (or the group) who meet together over time. It is very different from the teacher student relationship that exists and is also so important in buddhist practice. I lend my being in a way to others to use as they need as they construct and heal themselves.

contd

Sometimes I wonder if, for some, it takes a certain amount of therapy to be able to begin on a Buddhist path. This was certainly true for me. I feel as though I have in some essential ways re-authored my self and now can move on a path that helps me pry my awareness loose from my story- as you say. I needed to do one, to seriously do the other.

When I read Kornfield's recent book on Buddhist psychology, I found much brilliance and insight and help there. But at times I wondered about giving direction to students and then sending them out into the universe to work alone (say, after a month long retreat). I wonder what your thoughts are on this.

This a beautiful string of words Ron:
It's funny how as you progressively see through the fiction of the self, you also work to make it more mature. Love it!
Metta,
Peony

Yeah my boy Shinzen Young has a great little point about this. He really only starts talking about it at like 7.30 but he mentions how he went to a therapist to talk work on his procrastination after being a teacher for decades... haha as Ingram says in MCTB "Right Plane Right Time"

"It's funny how as you progressively see through the fiction of the self, you also work to make it more mature." Ron

The healthier I get the sicker I was...

I'm also a psychologist/meditator.

Right now my jury is basically out. It has been for a long while.

It's funny because the whole '-ologist' or even '-ist' suffix leads people to construe us as answer-men and answer-women. I think that's okay, but I've found myself eschewing that. In therapy, I see myself as an earnest companion; not an answerer of questions.

I like what you are both saying.

Not a huge amount to add. Just wanted to say hello.

It is great to hear from other "ologists" out there on the path. I have been learning about mindfulness-based therapies over the past two years and am curious what the other therapy or helping profession folks on the path think of these approaches.

To be frank, I am very skeptical. I've studied and used ACT and Mindfulness Based CBT and the results are pretty varied in the research and in my own experience. Also, the whole concept of mindfulness in these approaches seems a bit different from the way it is used in Buddhism.

Also, I guess since I'm going through Dark Night stuff, I'd be really cautious about recommending this practice to people who are already experiencing these kinds of symptoms...

Any thoughts or opinions?

Hello back Nigel and hello again all.
Folks come to theapy believing i have something to offer, and I believe I do for those who stick around at least for a bit. Of course I am a seeker/traveller and make sure that the people with whom I work know that I am as human as the next gal.

I like "earnest companion." My own therapist once referred to himself as "a friend like no other." I like this too. It is quote, but can't remember who he was quoting.

Ditto Ron, I am super cautious. People find their paths. By the way, I think Kornfield calls his "therapy" type work "CBT with heart." I have never been a big fan of (orthodox) CBT (not too much exposure to ACT), though elements of cognitive work and really all kinds of work will make sense at the right time for the right person.

What I love about being a therapist is that it is a kind of work that can allow for deep closeness and definitely requires embracing confusion. I can ask myself, what is going on with this person, and not have a clue and feel at ease, knowing that things will keep changing and shifting and clarity of some sort will emerge. It seems harder as a meditator to hold this point of view.

"Also, the whole concept of mindfulness in these approaches seems a bit different from the way it is used in Buddhism.

Also, I guess since I'm going through Dark Night stuff, I'd be really cautious about recommending this practice to people who are already experiencing these kinds of symptoms...

Any thoughts or opinions?"

Excellent points. I have checked out just a little writing on Mindfulness CBT, about a year ago, it certainly seems a lot different from the practice(s) we are doing here. A bit like a baby step towards Buddhist meditation. Can it be helpful-- simple mindfulness did help (although its just one tool) me get through some stuff before I had the commitment to pursue serious practice. I would imagine the person would run the risk of running into DN territory if they actually succeed in penetrating anything... If they are already in that territory (incidentally I wonder what percent of people in depression/anxiety are in a DN following some A&P?) I know I have spent several years bumping around between A&Ps and Dark Nights, having no idea how to progress further.

So I would say, (possibly) it could work to investigate if someone has had an A&P... If I am trying to find this out with someone I know I just ask them to describe their most powerful spiritual experience... If they have crossed it and are in a Dark Night, well then it might be worth it to show em the maps. Help em get to SE. But I imagine bringing in one religions maps would be hard to do in a Therapy situation.

Interesting discussion, everyone.

I'm starting an MA in counseling psychology program this fall, so I do not yet have any formal training in therapy. From the literature I've read on therapies like MBCT, studies have shown it to be pretty effective at preventing relapse for those who suffer from major depressive disorder. Whether or not it is really effective at treating MDD while one is in the throws of a full blown major depressive episode has not, to my knowledge, been empirically validated. Not that this thread is about depression - I just think it's interesting. Moving on...

It's difficult to know whether or not those practicing certain mindfulness based therapies will get so far as to cross the A&P and pass into a dark night. From what I gather, most mindfulness based therapies are done in group settings. The sessions are not usually intensive, though some therapies (e.g. MBSR) do incorporate a day of mindfulness towards the end of the treatment period. I suppose someone could jump start the progress of insight in such a setting, but I don't think it would be likely. Just a guess, though.

~Jackson

I've closely watched someone with MDD, or something very much like it, learn to cope with the disease. This is someone very close to me and who I have been with every single step of the way. I'm not a therapist. I have observed this arc as it has occurred, however, and would say that while medication and therapy are helpful there is a third dimension I've observed this person pursue, and while it's not strictly what we here call mindfulness it is very definitely about developing a model, an all-the-time operating awareness, of what is going on in the mind. The recognition that the mind is not the self, does not define the self, seems to me to have been a linchpin of this person's development and path out of the debilitating symptoms of the disease.

"studies have shown it to be pretty effective at preventing relapse for those who suffer from major depressive disorder. "

That is pretty much what I recommend it for at this point because I just can't be sure if it can do anything else.

Cmarti makes a good point about dealing with MDD by recognizing that the mind is not the self. It is funny, but most treatments that have been shown to work have this as an undercurrent in one form or another. In classic CBT one literally writes out the depressive thoughts and challenges them. The whole process really helps one move to an implicit understanding that the thoughts are not "me."

While mindfulness is no doubt useful for seeing mind as different from self, I worry that some of the mindfulness-as-therapy gurus out there are not really being honest about what mindfulness can and can't do. After all, we've all probably known greatly accomplished meditators who were extremely depressed. Mindfulness can change the way you relate to the depression, but it probably won't get rid of it.

My own lifelong chronic and acute depression went away the day I attained 4th Path. But I don't teach meditation as a cure for depression because it was such a long and perilous road and at times it was touch and go whether I would survive at all due to my frequent bouts of longing for surcease (read: suicidal ideation without a specific plan).

My guess is that anyone's depression would be cured upon attainment of arahatship, assuming you could keep them alive that long. But the fact that intensive meditation is likely to exacerbate depression in the short term is problematic. Taken altogether, I'm reluctant to tout meditation as a cure for anything other than ignorance (in the Buddhist sense of the word). Nonetheless, I applaud efforts to help depressed people awaken (the long term solution for depression) ALONG WITH therapies designed to keep them alive in the short term. I would be happy to consult with anyone who is working on such an integrated approach to the very serious problem of Major Depressive Disorder.