Talking Therapy

Talking Therapy

Introduction

Talking therapy involves the provision of psychological assistance through word of mouth. Other terms commonly used to mean the same thing include psychotherapy and counselling. Counselling is done to people for various reasons. Some people are counselled to change their behaviour while others are given psychotherapy to improve their mental health. Modern talking therapy involves someone who has specialized in providing mental health care. The professionals focus mainly on identifying issues that affect the client’s mental health. They then help the client understand the possible causes of mental health and provide some of the appropriate ways of dealing with the problems. There are several types of talking therapy. The classification is based on factors such as the client’s mental problem, the available options, and what the client wants at a particular time.

Buddhist practices can be applied to talking therapy in many ways. According to Germer, Siegel, and Fulton (2016), talking therapy has similar impacts with meditation in Buddhist practices (Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2016). Both make a person feel whole and more alive in the long run. In talking therapy, Buddhist psychotherapy practices recommend the client to stop focusing more on interpreting their feelings and instead, “just feel.” The approach appears to be too simple, but if one develops the ability to do so, the outcomes are significantly great. “Just feeling” seems to be as simple as breathing or other essential life activities. According to Epstein (2013), many people fail to experience the benefits of “just feeling for several reasons” (Epstein, 2013). Most of them respond in ways that can hardly let them get the best out of their mental problems. They try to analyze them in a bid to get a better understanding of their causes and possible solutions. Some decide to change them while others think of how to escape them. Buddhist psychological health practices advise people on the need to master the art of “just feeling” as opposed to the idea of rushing to analyze, change or escape adverse mental feelings (Epstein, 2013). According to Haque (2010), avoiding mental feelings is one way to create a barrier against a person’s true self (Haque, 2010).

The argument is base on the belief that feelings constitute a significant percentage of wholeness in human life. For those reasons, a mental health provider in Buddhism focuses more on showing clients the importance of “just feeling.” The methods of talking therapy in Buddhism are based on the belief that a human’s most important skill in life is the ability to relax (Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2016). Mental relaxation is necessary for doing almost all essential life activities. Some of the critical life events such as falling in love and death require a person to have the ability to surrender some of the things that cause fear. The past is sometimes traumatizing. It forces most people to search for the cause of unhappiness in a bid to overcome their connection with past events (Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2016). Some people end up blaming other people for the adverse events that happen in their lives. That is one of the lowest methods of dealing with the past because in most cases, a person determines the kind of life experiences they go through. A talking therapist should have a proper understanding of these events to offer holistic mental care to their clients.

The importance of “just feeling” in Buddhist talking therapies is that it helps the patient avoid the root cause of a negative psychological experience. A mind that successfully avoids the cause or the possible outcome of a particular mental experience becomes free from compulsive actions and negative emotions (Rosenbaum, 2015). Such minds become awakened. The awakening of the mind is crucial because it breaks the cycle of suffering. The person can then perceive reality and self more clearly. The person also experiences some degree of contentment. They become friendlier with other people. They do not need a lot of conditions to love other humans and use their skills to better their lives and those of others (Rosenbaum, 2015). For that reason, almost every talking therapist in Buddhism aims at ensuring that the client masters the skill of “just thinking” which involves experiencing the current feelings without minding about their causes or the possible outcomes.

The recent past has seen a significant rise in the number of students committed to studying Buddhist psychotherapy and other methods of solving significant mental problems. Many of them have learned that meditation, which has been used for a significantly long time for solving psychological issues, is not enough for that purpose (Lin & Seiden, 2015). Talking therapy based on Buddhist practices was accepted several decades ago and has been used to achieve significant success in solving many psychological problems. Buddhist methods of mental therapy differ significantly with conventional psychotherapy practices. Buddhist practices perceive a human’s natural state of mind as being outside of their conscious control (Lin & Seiden, 2015). The “ordinary” human mind has not achieved full development and is, therefore, dysfunctional. The practices are based on the belief that the dysfunctional nature of the human mind is almost uniform such that people end up perceiving it as being ordinary. People have also been made in a way that they can use some defence mechanisms to conceal the dysfunctional nature of their mind from themselves and others, a factor that makes the mind even more dysfunctional (Lin & Seiden, 2015). The adverse psychological events that people experience are as a result of the frequent disruption of the mind from its natural state of balance. The adverse events include the mere feelings of dissatisfaction to severe mental illness. Talking therapies in Buddhism aims at informing patients that some negative psychological experiences such as disturbing emotions, inaccurate perceptions, and unrealistic cognitions are results of the dysfunction of the mind (Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2016). The patient must be taught some of the ways to deal with the dysfunction to better deal with the issues.

The United States and many other Western countries have significantly large numbers of people of Asian origin. A significant percentage of these people grew up under Buddhist cultures (Helderman, 2016). The cultures involved various practices of dealing with issues of importance to both mental and physical health. Healthcare providers in most western countries have, for a significantly long time used the Judeo-Christian methods of psychotherapy, some of which do not go well with the people of Asian origin (Helderman, 2016). The recent past called for the use of Buddhist practices in providing mental health care to patients of Asian descent and other people who practise Buddhism. According to Helderman (2016), Buddhism has, for a significantly long time been known to interact well with different cultures of the world and to come up with something new (Helderman, 2016). The recent past has seen the emergence of many innovative ways of psychotherapy in the West. There is a belief in the existence of a significant connection between Buddhism and psychology. For that reason, many researchers have studied the relationship between the two entities. Some of the Buddhist practices of talking therapy have been found to have significant impacts on reducing negative mental experiences (Helderman, 2016). Many of the methods have been incorporated into the processes of modern psychotherapy with substantial success. The successes in using various Buddhist practices of mental therapy have encouraged many Western-trained therapists to become Buddhist practitioners.

Most people decide to seek a mental health provider after reaching a point at which they can hardly let themselves go. That is a point at which they feel blocked, creatively and emotionally (Lin & Seiden, 2015). They can scarcely get satisfied with some of the primary sources of pleasure, such as sex and sleep. They experience significant feelings of alienation and isolation. In most cases, one feels like falling apart. According to Buddhist psychotherapy practices, such events are due to lack of the ability for one to give up control of self. Some of the people who seek talking therapy do so because they are unhappy with their feelings (Lin & Seiden, 2015). The impacts of the feelings may be the same, regardless of whether the person is individuated enough or not. Buddhist practices of talking therapy could be of significant importance to such people for several reasons. The most notable is that the exercises do not focus on interpreting the causes or the possible outcomes of particular mental experiences, but concentrate more on teaching the person the ability to “just feel.”

Buddhist practices of talking therapy have significant positive outcomes for patients who experience mental problems. They are also appropriate for patients who may be unable to perform the regular meditation due to lack of time (Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2016). Psychotherapy that is based on Buddhist teachings involves the exchange of feelings between a mental health provider and the patient, a process that significantly helps in letting go the deafness that blocks the patient from living a meaningful life (Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2016). Even though the process is not the same as that of formal meditation, it focuses on achieving results similar to those of meditation, which are to let go of the negative mental experiences.

Conclusion

The above is a brief description of talking therapy and how it can be done based on Buddhist practices. The paper shows that psychological issues can be solved through the exchange of information between a mental health provider and a patient. The purpose of talking therapy in Buddhism is similar to that of meditation. The two practices focus on enabling a person to achieve mental freedom. Buddhist psychotherapy practices appear to focus more on training people how to “just feel.” That involves feeling mental experiences without caring about their causes or possible outcomes. In conclusion, every person could be happy to live in a mentally healthy world. That calls for people to support any positive method that focuses on achieving that goal.

 

 

References

Epstein, M. (2013). Thoughts without a thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist perspective. Basic Books a Member of Perseus Books Group.

Germer, C., Siegel, R. D., & Fulton, P. R. (Eds.). (2016). Mindfulness and psychotherapy. Guilford Publications.

Haque, A. (2010). Mental health concepts in Southeast Asia: Diagnostic considerations and treatment implications. Psychology, health & medicine, 15(2), 127-134.

Helderman, I. P. (2016). Drawing the Boundaries between “Religion” and “Secular” in Psychotherapists’ Approaches to Buddhist Traditions in the United States. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 84(4), 937-972.

Lin, P., & Seiden, H. M. (2015). Mindfulness and psychoanalytic psychotherapy: A clinical convergence. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 32(2), 321.

Rosenbaum, R. (2015). Zen and the heart of psychotherapy. Routledge.