Mindful Counselling & Psychotherapy

Practising Mindfully Across Approaches & Issues

Meg Barker, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781446211113, 9781446211106
• eBook ISBN: 9781446292921
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy Counselling
• Index: Psychology

This book breaks new ground by relating mindfulness to all of the other therapeutic approaches, across all the common presenting problems in counselling & psychotherapy.

 

Mindfulness is increasingly recognised as an effective therapeutic treatment with positive research outcomes evaluating its success. Meg Barker responds to our growing consciousness of mindfulness approaches, considering how its principles can inform everyday therapeutic work.

The book: 

- covers ways in which mindfulness approaches complement each therapeutic approach, as well as any potential conflicts and tensions that might arise

- spells out how a mindfulness approach would understand - and work with - common presenting issues, including depression, anxiety and addiction

- brings together work on mindfulness from across psychotherapy, science, and philosophy

- suggests possible future directions in mindfulness, particularly those which emphasise the social component of suffering.  

This engaging and accessible book will appeal to all counselling and psychotherapy students, as well as any therapist looking to complement their own approach with mindfulness theory and practice.

Meg Barker is a senior lecturer in psychology at the Open University.

PART ONE

Mindful therapies

ONE	Mindful theory and practice

Aims

This chapter aims to:

• introduce the key theory behind mindfulness: the Buddhist understanding of human suffering and how to end it,

• briefly describe the history of Buddhism,

• consider how Buddhist ideas are relevant to the current western world and to therapy, covering two key ways in which they have been adapted to these contexts: secularisation and psychologisation,

• give a sense of the range of mindful practices that have emerged from the various forms of Buddhism and from more recent engagements with it, particularly focusing on forms of meditation.

Theory

While you read this chapter – as Keown (1996) suggests in his brief history of Buddhism – it is worth remembering the Buddhist tale of the difficulty of describing an elephant when you can’t see it. Touching one part of the elephant will leave us with a poor perception of what the whole animal is like, and it is inevitable that such a short overview won’t capture the entirety of Buddhism. Hopefully, though, I will give some sense of the parts I am emphasising and missing out so that you can access appropriate further reading if you’d like to gain a fuller picture.

The ideas and practices that we are drawing on in this book originated around the fifth century BCE in the foothills of the Himalayas with the man who became known as ‘the Buddha’. Whilst he clearly drew on many of the ways of understanding and relating to the world that were around in that time and place (e.g. reincarnation and meditation), he also put forward a new way of making sense of suffering and proposed an alternative form of meditative practice that would explicitly address this.

Right from the start we can see why Buddhist ideas would be of such interest to counsellors and psychotherapists because the whole philosophy originated in an attempt to understand why people suffer, and – like psychotherapy – the solution that is proposed involves internal exploration to yield a deep understanding of our own nature (Watson, 2008).

The Buddha was born to a noble family and named Siddhattha Gotama¹ (he was only called the Buddha, or enlightened one, after his awakening). The story goes that he lived his early years in palaces surrounded by servants who attended to all his needs. His father attempted to ensure that he was never confronted by anything that would distress him. However, as he grew older, he became restless and dissatisfied and wanted to journey beyond the palace walls. His father tried to make it so that he would see nothing disturbing on these journeys. However, despite this, Siddhattha saw one person crippled by old age, one person wracked with illness, a corpse and a wandering monk. As a result of this he realised that life was transient and uncertain, and that it inevitably involved suffering.

Troubled by these realisations, Siddhattha left his home and family, including a wife and son, and became a homeless monk himself, seeking a spiritual answer to the human condition. He practised the religions of the day, including entering profound meditative states, denying himself pleasures, and controlling his breath and food intake, which left him weak and emaciated. These experiences, after the pampered life of the palaces, encouraged him to seek a middle way between extremes of indulgence and austerity. At this point he sat under a tree (which later became known as ‘the Bhodi tree’) for seven days. At the end of this time he had an awakening and understood the nature of suffering and how to end it. Although he realised how difficult it would be to communicate this realisation to others, he decided not to retreat into solitude and instead spent the rest of his life travelling and teaching.

It is unlikely that this account of the Buddha’s life is historically accurate². Rather this story itself is a way of communicating the key ideas of the philosophy. We live our lives locked in ‘palaces’, often of our own creation, where we attempt to have all of the things that we desire and none of the things that we don’t. We distract ourselves from the scary realities of ageing, pain and death. Despite our sense of security and safety in our ‘palaces’, these realities make their way into our awareness and we realise, on some level, that life involves suffering and that it ends. Recognition of this calls us to engage directly with suffering rather than trying to avoid it. This is also intrinsically linked (as in the Buddha’s life) with the compassionate aim of ameliorating the suffering of others.

These elements of the story are captured in the main teachings of Buddhism (the Dharma). At the centre of this are the four ‘noble truths’. As with mindfulness, rather than seeing these truths as objects or things to believe, it can be more useful to view them as actions to take.

The four noble truths as actions (adapted from Batchelor, 1997)

1 Attend to suffering.

2 Understand its roots in craving.

3 Let go of craving, in order to end suffering.

4 Cultivate the path (keep practising 1–3 and they will become more effortless).

Let’s consider each of these ‘noble truths’ in a little more depth.

Suffering (or dukkha) is a broad term that encompasses the painful realities of life (the ageing, illness, pain and death of ourselves and others) as well as emotional and psychological forms of pain (such as grief, sorrow and despair) and the everyday dissatisfactions of not getting what we want and getting what we don’t want³. The first part of the cessation of suffering is to face suffering head on rather than pretending that it isn’t there or wishing that it didn’t exist (which, in itself, is a form of craving). There is obviously a paradox here that suffering is ameliorated by facing up to the inevitability of suffering. Perhaps one useful way to understand this is that being with our pain as it is prevents the extra layers of suffering that we generally add to our experience. Because we tend to try desperately to prevent any suffering, when we do suffer we often feel bad about it. We become sad about being sad, tense about being in pain, guilty about feeling angry, scared about being afraid and so on. Attending to suffering prevents that additional layer of suffering, enabling us to see it more clearly as it is.

As we’ll see later in the book, Buddhist understandings would not really separate out different kinds of suffering (as we frequently do with depression, anxiety, addiction, etc.) Rather these are all seen as part of general suffering, which is all rooted in the same thing: craving.

Craving, or thirst, is not the same thing as desire. Rather it is about a desire that is excessive or focused in problematic directions. So, for example, the desire to ease somebody else’s suffering, or to stop doing something that is damaging you, would not be seen as craving⁴. Craving includes grasping hold of what is pleasant (attachment), hurling away what is unpleasant (aversion), and also delusion or ignorance (Olendzki, 2011) which we could understand as not recognising the complexity involved in determining what is good and bad⁵. This is something that is captured in that classic Rolling Stones song: you can’t always get what you want but … you might find you get what you need.

I find Martine Batchelor’s metaphor for craving useful. She says that it is like having a precious object in our hand. We can grab hold of it so tight that we get cramp and can’t see it, or we can hurl it away and lose it entirely. A middle way is to hold it firmly enough to protect it, but gently enough not to crush it, so that we can see it clearly and decide whether it is something to keep hold of or to put down (Batchelor, 2007). We can usefully apply this to many things beyond our possessions, for example aspects of ourselves, our identities, our relationships, our work and our feelings and thoughts.

Letting go of craving, as I’m sure you are aware, is easier said than done. This is where the practices of Buddhism – including mindfulness – come in, which we will explore in greater depth shortly. We attempt to slow down and to notice our tendencies to try to avoid suffering, to grasp what we want and to hurl away what we don’t want, to distract ourselves, and to deny what is going on.

In observing these things we may realise some fundamental truths. For example, we see that everything – pleasant and unpleasant – passes away. At its most basic we find that the terrific itch we long to scratch during meditation is not there a few minutes later. Recognising the impermanence of feelings, sensations, thoughts and so on brings us into a different relationship with them. We may also realise what it is that causes something to come into being. Instead of just finding ourselves in a rage or a panic, we begin to notice the combination of things that led to it, for example the way in which we followed a certain thought and turned it into a big story. We see how things come to be, and that they end (Bodhi, 2011).

We might also begin to question our conceptualisations of what is ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ anyway as we notice the strength that comes from difficult experiences, for example, or the way in which something that feels good can be bad for us in various ways. Of particular significance in relation to letting go is our conceptualisation of ourselves. We may well notice that we cling to certain ideas of who we are and recoil from others. Letting go also involves putting down the sense of a fixed, static self. This can mean a relief from the suffering of trying to present a perfect self all the time and the fear that we are really lacking (Barker, 2012a).

Finally, cultivating the path involves committing to the first three ‘noble truths’ and practising them in meditation and in daily life. Stephen Batchelor (1997) uses the metaphor of a field of tall grass. Each time we walk a path through the field we flatten the grass and make it easier to walk the next time. Buddha proposed an ‘eightfold path’ of ways of being which would enable this cultivation. The path includes developing wisdom (through understanding the nature of suffering and resolving to let go of craving), developing morality (through communicating, acting and living in ways that will bring about the cessation of suffering in ourselves and others) and meditation (gaining control over our thoughts, and cultivating both mindful awareness and calm).

Pause for reflection

Does this understanding of suffering resonate with your own experience and/or those of the clients you’ve worked with? Do you think they are relevant to the world in which you are working today? (See Teasdale & Chaskalson, 2011)

History

The Buddha appointed no successor and encouraged people to weigh up the Dharma for themselves, considering both the scriptures and their own experiences when deciding what to accept⁶. However, being a missionary religion, the Buddha’s ideas and practices spread beyond the part of India where they began. Many different Buddhist schools and sects have developed over the centuries. One major separation is between the Therava–da school, which predominates in south Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma, and the Ma–ha–yana schools of North Asia.

Therava–da Buddhism emphasises the early teachings, whilst Ma–ha–-yana forms of Buddhism adapted and developed these with further scriptures such as the Lotus Su–tra, which proposed that the original Dharma was a simplified version which Buddha created to be understood by the people at the time. Ma–ha–yana Buddhisms include the Ch’an Buddhism of China (influenced by Taoism), and Japanese Zen which developed from this, as well as the Pure Land and Nichiren versions of Buddhism which flourished in Japan, and the Tibetan Vajraya–na (or tantra) school which is led by the Dalai Lama. Whilst there are commonalities between these schools, there are also important differences in both the ideas and practices that are considered to be key. It is worth being aware of which Buddhism/s are being drawn upon – and what their emphases are – when reading further around this area.

From this history we can see that the Dharma has adapted to fit each new culture it has entered; this isn’t new to the current engagement between Buddhism and western thought. However, many would argue that this most recent leg of the journey of Buddhism is without parallel in relation to the cultural differences concerned (e.g. Bodhi, 2011).

In the nineteenth century, scholars began bringing Buddhism to western audiences through translations such as the one by Rhys-Davids which we encountered in the previous chapter. This began the process of western thinkers (such as the philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche) drawing upon Buddhist ideas, and Buddhists from Asia bringing Buddhist ideas to western audiences (such as D. T. Suzuki and later the current Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh).

A particularly key moment occurred in the 1960s when many people who were disillusioned with western politics and ways of life went on ‘the hippy trail’. Several people returned from Asia after engaging with forms of Buddhism, incorporating these in various ways into their own philosophy. This often involved a secularisation as religious aspects of Buddhism (such as the ideas of rebirth, karma and the presence of gods) were often stripped away or reinterpreted as metaphors.

It seems that we are currently going through a second key moment following the take-up of Buddhist ideas (as translated through the previous group of interpreters) by mainstream psychology and psychotherapy. This psychologisation leaves so...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Advertisment
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I  Mindful therapies
• Part II  Practising mindfully across issues
• Bibliography
• Index