Dalai Lama or Davanloo, #2.
January 25th, 2011 adminI wish to express much gratitude to Bridget Quebodeaux for her penetrating questions/comments that inspired my last posting, “Dalai Lama or Davanloo.” I alerted the STDP listserve of this vibrant topic and counted 39 thought provoking exchanges that resulted.
Before sharing further reflections on this topic, I’m happy to say that my excitement over both practicing and teaching ISTDP continues to grow. Dr. Tom Brod and I are currently conducting an extended workshop in ISTDP to a terrific group of therapists in L.A. We are including an experiential portion that invites therapists to share their feelings as they are exposed to our teaching, as they participate in our group, and towards us as well. It brings us to a deepening level of connection, compassion and respect for one another and lessens barriers to learning. Now, to continue on the topic…
Bruce Ammons, Ph.D.. Clinical Psychologist, quoted Jack Kornfield, a teacher of the Buddhist mindfulness practice known as Vipassana, who tells us that while “some people have come to meditation after working with traditional psychotherapy…[and have] found therapy to be of value, its limitations led them to seek a spiritual practice. For me it was the opposite. While I benefited enormously from the training offered in the Thai and Burmese monasteries…I noticed two striking things… first, there were major areas of difficulty in my life, such as loneliness, intimate relationships, work, childhood wounds, and patterns of fear, that even very deep meditation didn¹t touch; second, among the several dozen Western monks (and lots of Asian meditators) whom I met during my time in Asia, with a few notable exceptions, most were not helped by meditation in big areas of their lives. Many were deeply wounded, neurotic, frightened, grieving, and they often used spiritual practice to hide and avoid problematic parts of themselves.”
I see inevitable limitations and also breathtaking strengths in many of our therapeutic and spiritual practices simply because we are, after all, humankind. It is our nature to evolve and yet never to arrive. I believe it is a fearful thing to be human in a grand universe over which we have little control and both the Dalai Lama and Davanloo advocate the wisdom of surrender, utilizing our capacities for discipline and awareness, as have many other great teachers. Each teach us different aspects of surrender. Davanloo would have us flow with, rather than against, the feeling forces within us and also to engage in the daily practice of self/other compassion.
The grand debate seems to whether anger is a less evolved state, an emotion to rid ourselves of, or whether it is a feeling to be trusted and fully experienced. I subscribe to the latter and have found invaluable direction, protection and also satisfaction through respect for this emotion. Anger is not pleasant but both physical and psychological pain is always made worse by resistance and fear, which also serve to suppress our joyful, loving feelings. Anger is also a part of ourselves, like it or not, so to reject it is to turn away from a vital part of who we are. There are 2 relationships we cannot live without…to self and other. I happen to be among those who believe that a spiritual relationship is also vital to our fulfillment.
James Phillips, MBACP UKCP reg., tells us “the Buddhist writer Pema Chodron’s motto for meditating on difficult emotions is ‘neither repress nor indulge’ which I think is exactly what we train our patients to do, to experience their full range of emotions and impulses as they arise within, without either repressing them or acting out. I do struggle to get some patients, who are very identified with ‘transcending’ anger, to see that this amounts to repression and is the surest way to guarantee that the anger will in fact hang around and leak out in all kinds of undesirable and unconscious ways.”
Thanks for this contribution, James. I do have one suggestion…When you say “to get some patients to,” you may be placing more of a burden on yourself than is necessary. I might say to such a patient, “We see how your attempts to transcend anger has not prevented it from coming out in ways that you do not want. It is futile to try to convince you that there is a link between your disdain for your anger and your (explosive outbursts) or (cutting comments to your wife). However, we could experiment with a new way of approaching and fully exploring your anger and you will then see for yourself if you get a better result. On the the hand, you could continue to pursue transcending rather than experiencing your anger. It is up to you.
My hope is to help people to SEE their dilemma..to risk cooperating with the ISTDP therapist’s approach or to guarantee that the treatment will fail. It helps a great deal that I have grown so confident in its efficacy. I really can’t think of a patient who has CHOSEN to try the ISTDP approach and engage in a practice of tracking emotions, anxiety and defense…working through rage, guilt, grief and almost inevitably arriving at longing/love…and practicing caring treatment towards the self…who has not seen real change, often character change, in themselves. Success over the resistance to deep exploration of feelings will depend both on the client’s choice and the therapist’s skill, but once this path is embraced, the outcomes are rich.
James goes on to say, “I would agree that many writings about Davanloo’s work lead one to believe that it’s about “anger, rage, murderous rage, etc.” but my experience of his tapes has been different (and I’ve been to quite a few of his metapsychology workshops in Montreal). He does work in very penetrating ways, and the work he shows illustrates a high rise in complex transference feelings. The tapes almost always include anger, and they often stir up a lot for the therapists watching them, but ultimately his work is about freeing the person from the repressive forces which haunt them. This, in turn, gives room for re-connection and forgiveness to arise – and for a more caring and compassionate life. Whether we talk about it from a ‘spiritual’ perspective or a ‘psychotherapeutic’ perspective, isn’t that what it’s all about?
One listserve participant shared this quote from Einstein: ‘A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.’ ”
One of my supervisees had a patient who declared, “I do not WANT” to care about others.’ My question to her would have been, ‘And do you WANT to care about yourself?” To “widen our circles of compassion,” must we not start within?
