Aftermath:
I’m having lunch with my supervisor, a meditation and Buddhism enthusiast, someone particularly interested in the fusion of psychotherapy and meditation. I am present with him and in my day-to-day life in a way that is both different from before and yet paradoxically noteworthy and not-special at the same time. He tells me he can see how much the retreat impacted me: “You got it, man. I can tell. I can see it in your eyes.”
I notice my own skepticism arise at this. The contradiction of my doubt that this is true clashes with the novel awareness of that doubt as a mental process distinct from my awareness. I notice both the thrill at being recognized and praised, while also being aware I’m not sure it’s true—and that holding all of that in awareness is, in fact, new and different.
Ah, but I ACT’ed a Fool
During my second year of graduate school, I focused on ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), which was the most direct fusion of Buddhism and Psychology. When I was deep into it, I had the unfortunate zeal of a new convert. I felt that psychotherapy was incomplete without meditation, that the revolution was imminent in which the full marriage of psychotherapy and meditation would happen, and teaching mindfulness would become not only the new normal but the sine qua non of mental health.
Looking back, super cringe. Note to self, whenever you think the “glorious new world is imminent” you’re probably on some hyped up bullshit.
Two things happened that changed my mind: more experience with meditation and more experience with therapy.
As I worked with more and more people in psychotherapy, I came to the same conclusion most therapists do after a few years of experience, and the consensus of the research literature – one size just doesn’t fit all. While some people loved meditation, others found it baffling and far, far away from what they came for help with. Plus, therapy isn’t two widgets interacting with each other. It’s two people in a complex relationship that’s both intensely personal and utterly professional. There are power dynamics, it costs money. If I set myself up as the therapist who is teaching someone meditation, teaching them something that can help and positioning myself as an expert on the topic, that feels different to different people. It also becomes meaningful who does the practice to appease me (“Look, aren’t I a good student? Am I your best patient?”) or people who don’t do the practice/homework (“Are you going to reject me because I’m not a good student? Or, alternatively, “Are you going to be idle while I neglect myself?”)
As a result, I began to focus more and more on what someone wanted, what their style of learning was, and how therapy developed organically from getting to know each other.
As I was becoming more experienced as a therapist, I was also deepening my practice of meditation. Initially, my practice was done in short bursts of 10-20 minutes. These were lovely. I remember having a clear sense of hey, if this is step one and it’s more and more of this, I’ll feel so good after a few years.
Oh, younger me. How idealistic you were, friend! I envy your enthusiasm and naivete. Ah, but I was so much older than, I’m younger then that now.
Obviously, the story detailed in the previous posts was my first experience on a retreat. In my defense, we didn’t know nearly as much about the adverse effects of meditation as we do now.
Looking back my first retreat, I’m sometimes not sure why I continued with meditation. Rather than relaxing, meditation dredged up enormous amounts of deeply disturbing and destabilizing content from the bowels of my unconscious mind. My body was beset by intense pain while sitting for long periods, both because I simply wasn’t prepared for the physical demand and also as a manifestation of psychic suffering.
I continued, again, for reasons that still aren’t always clear to me. I went on another retreat. I found a teacher and began to house my practice in a Korean style of Zen (it was the only game in town during my internship year in Kansas). My practice got weirder. I would tell people initially meditation felt like putting the stuffing back into the cushion. Now, it felt like it was pulling it out. As I went further on the path, I began to rely more and more on the accrued wisdom of literally thousands of years of practice, of a hundred generations of spiritual weirdos who had also spent an inordinate amount of time staring at the floor. I began to realize just how little I actually knew about this practice, how much work lay before me, and how deep this rabbit hole really was.
As these two things developed, you may understand why I became less bullish on teaching meditation in therapy. It began to feel like preaching triathlons to people who weren’t asking for it. Sure, triathlons are great. But they aren’t great for everyone. Meditation is great, but it’s not great for everyone. I was also chastened by my practice – I don’t feel qualified to teach meditation beyond the basics. In fact, I began to see how profoundly irresponsible it could be to do so. I did, and still do, use awareness practices for myself during therapy to be more present, to be more focused, to be more open to my patients. I believe this has helped me be a better therapist, but it isn’t about teaching or shaping another person through introducing them to meditation, it’s about my relationship with my practice and how it helps me attend to another person in their suffering.
These days, if meditation comes up organically, or if someone comes in with a practice, it becomes a part of therapy. I try to stay cognizant of both the practice itself and also the dynamics in which a patient and I are utilizing, discussing, or incorporating the practice. And I’m acutely sensitive to the boundaries of my own competence. Becoming a legitimate meditation teacher makes getting a doctorate look easy. People spend decades in practice, hundreds of days on silent retreat in community, and usually long, long periods of solo practice. Long like months, dude—maybe even years. And beyond all that, you’re still subject to the verification of your lineage’s living teachers. It is possible to spend forty years meditating and still not “get it” well enough to be ordained as a teacher.
Carl Jung called psychotherapy “the yoga of the west.” It is, inescapably, a deeply relational art. Perhaps it came into being as a direct reflection of the core wound of Western modernity: alienation and isolation. I came to see the value and power of its own unique tradition and approach, as well as its effectiveness. So these days meditation may be a part of the work I do with someone, or not. What’s more important are the patient’s goals and the unique path we need to take to get you there.
References – Post 7
Note: This post is primarily personal reflection and clinical experience, drawing on concepts established in previous posts.
