Transcript On avoiding and embracing our pain

On avoiding and
embracing our pain
Buddhist psychological and Western
psychotherapeutical approaches to defensive
conditioning
Adeline Van Waning
Stirling, June 2004
Buddhism and psychotherapy,
avenues of connecting:
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1 Buddhist practice: nonjudgemental awareness,
mindfulness, meditation
2 understanding the workings of the
mind: Five skandha model
3 ethics and values: the Three
characteristics, suffering-unease,
impermanence, non-self
Four questions:
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1 How do we see and name these
defenses and avoidances?
2 How do we evaluate their
existence?
3 What is our overall perspective and
purpose in mental functioning?
4 How do we handle these defensive
conditionings, from our intention to
realise this perspective, this
purpose?
Buddhist psychology views
`Basic suffering-unease’ (dukkha):
illness, loss, impermanence, absence
of a core `self’ or personality, as an
independent entity; `having nothing
to stand on’
`Extra-suffering’ : attachment,
originating in ignorance, connected
with the illusion of a separate
independent personality (that is
`protected’ by the defenses…)
The Three Roots of Suffering
(B-2.1.1)
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Greed, possessiveness, addiction, attraction (lobha)
Hate, ill will, anger, aversion (dosa)
Delusion, ignorance (moha)
They can be seen
a)
as driving forces, and also
b)
in the the ways we handle these forces defensively
The Four Mara’s (B-2.1.2)
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1 Devaputra mara (pleasure-avoidance)
2 Skandha mara (back to `old self’)
3 Klesha mara (emotional heat)
4 Yama mara (life-death anxiety)
The Five Skandha’s (B-2.1.3)
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1 Form, physical body, input
2 Feeling-tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral)
3 Perception, recognition
4 Conditioning, mental formation, output
5 Consciousness, mentality
Five skandha’s: meeting a dog…
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1 form: a dog
2 feeling: unpleasant
3 perception: my eyes see a big dog; physical
startle
4 conditioning: I wanna get out!
5 consciousness: I may be harmed, I’m a
person that doesn’t like big dogs…
Five skandha’s: therapy with Ann
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1 form: fantasy of her friend with another woman
2 feeling: unpleasant
3 perception: she `sees’ him in the situation, goes on
automatic pilot
4 conditioning: anxiety of being left out, abandoned,
which makes her act
5 consciousness: on guard if there is anything
pointing to that… and up to `form’: yes, he was late
this night, he may have been…
Evaluating: Three roots of suffering,
Four mara’s and Five skandha’s
(B-2.2)
… are all connected with the illusion of a
personality that needs to be defended (cf nonself);
The defenses are also used against the realising
of the reality of our suffering, interdependence,
impermanence
Defending against (irrealistic) anxiety, and also
against what is reality
Buddhist perspective in mental
functioning (B-2.3)
A clear, clean state of mind; perceiving the world
without distortion, selective perception and
preconception, as maintained by the defenses.
Accepting and embracing what is.
In Enlightenment defenses have evaporated, are
non-existent.
How to handle the defensive
conditionings (B-2.4)
Defenses need not be seen as obstacles, rather
opportunities to observe what we do in the face
of pain.
Embracing the pain, not identifying with and not
indulging in - ; perceiving and not escaping
Transformation with mindfulness.
Psychotherapy
Centrality of the personality, cherished
as a coherent, continuous and
separate, independent entity
`Defensive functioning scale’
DSM IV, levels (P-3.1)
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1
2
3
4
5
6
7
High adaptive
Mental inhibition
Minor image-distorting
Disavowal
Major image-distorting
Action
Defensive dysregulation
Evaluating the existence of
defenses (P-3.2)
Defenses are inavoidable, they form
our habitual, typical pattern of
adaptation, that’s who we are!
`Being a character’
Psychotherapy perspective in
mental functioning (P-3.3)
Lessening of mental suffering,
promoting psychical adaptation
Finding compromises in defensive
arrangements that are least (self)
destructive, with a good share of
high adaptive defenses
How to handle the defensive
conditionings (P-3.4)
Psychotherapy = handling and
structuring, in a methodical way, a
relationship of client and therapist,
with the help of certain
interventions.
Opening, `uncovering’: seeing how our
suffering is not so much because of
the underlying condition, but
because of outdated defenses.
Defenses, avoidances (BP-4.1)
Common ground: f.i. the 31
Psychotherapy ways can fit within
the Four mara’s
Differences:
P: ego-personality in a detailed
developmental phase-model, more
linear
B f.i. in skandha’s: more cyclical, selfreinforcing conditioning
Evaluating the existence of
defenses (BP-4.2)
Common: `Humankind cannot bear
very much reality’, T.S. Eliot
Difference:
P: person less flexible and apt to
change, defenses more irreversible
B: a more positive view of humans:
they are ignorant, and not guilty,
bad, dumb…
Perspective in mental functioning
(BP-4.3)
Common: making a person more
happy
Difference:
B: practice, in the end, aims at
enlightenment
P: client must be content with less
destructive defensive compromise
formations, within a dualistic
context…
How to handle the defensive
conditionings (BP-4.4)
Common: defenses ask for attention
Difference:
P: pain and suffering in general are
seen as to be avoided, they are
hindering our wished for life
B: suffering is unavoidable and
essential. Trust in silence, being with
what is; selfhealing qualities
The Three roots: affective
neuroscience
A functional neuroanatomy:
Approach system facilitates appetitive
behavior
Withdrawal system facilitates
withdrawal from sources of aversive
stimulation, connected with both fear
and disgust.
Prefrontal cortex, amygdala
MBSR research Richard Davidson, Jon
The Three roots: psychotherapy
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Psychoanalysis (Klein): introjection,
projection, denial
Client centered therapy (Rogers):
core conditions and sweet roots:
unconditional positive regardgenerosity, empathy-loving kindness,
congruence-wisdom
The Three roots: society
Attraction: greed, need to win, `ours’
Aversion; defenses: denial, projection,
splitting, `others’
Ignorance; defenses: rationalization,
intellectualization
B emphasises the `higher third’: not
winning or losing, but transcending
ignorance
Embracing the pain
Basically there are two ways of being in the
world:
1 try to control and fixate the world,
defensively, at the price of amputating and
misleading our senses, ourselves;
BEING IN FEAR, with greed and hatred
2 open ourselves, with greater acceptance
of open-endedness, having nothing to
stand on
BEING IN LOVE, transcending ignorance
= Buddhism: religion-philosophy, way of
life, blueprint for a civilization, path of
personal salvation
= Domain of psychotherapy: the dualistic
conceptual self-centered personality
= No `comparing of apples with pears’…
= Psychotherapy can help to transform
`ordinary’ (neurotic) suffering into
existential suffering; Buddhist psychology
aims at embracing, transforming and
transcending existential suffering.
W psychology, psychotherapy
strength: theory formation and
research on childdevelopment, forms
of defense and resistance,
therapeutic interaction
 B emphasis: more positive view of
human potential, selfhealing
qualities; moral stance, more action
directed
With mindfulness, that illuminates,
accepts and transforms…
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