Core Principles of Meditation for Therapy

Improving the Outcomes for Psychotherapeutic Treatments

Annellen M. Simpkins, C. Alexander Simpkins

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781118829158
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Core Principles of Meditation for Therapy: Improving the Outcome of Psychotherapeutic Treatment provides the multi-modal strategies and tools therapists need to guide their clients' adaptations of meditation into their lives. Complete with text, audio, and video content, this package introduces a variety of meditation routines and explains how, when, and why each technique should be used to reach specific goals. The availability of audio and video, as well as print, allows the therapist to customize each presentation to the client and the presenting problem.

Meditation simultaneously engenders both relaxation and alertness, and regular practice can change brain function to permanently improve internal sensing. The three major meditation methods—focus (Yoga meditations and postures), open-focus (Mindfulness), and no-focus (clearing the mind Zen and Taoist flow)—are best suited to different kinds of problems. Core Principles of Meditation for Therapy explains them all, and details the most practical applications of each. This guide matches the meditation type to a therapeutic goal.

Consistent with the positive psychology movement, meditative practice puts people on a positive path and offers distinctive techniques to actualize change. This package's multi-sensory approach makes it adaptable to the needs of therapists and clients, supports their initiation, practice, and mastery of meditation for improved mental health. For clinicians seeking to integrate meditation and therapy, Core Principles of Meditation for Therapy is a complete guide to both theory and practice.

Part I

Theoretical Foundations

Chapter 1
Return to Emptiness
Core Principle 1: Learn from What Is and What Is Not

Wisdom alone is a science of other sciences, and of itself.

—Plato, The Dialogues of Plato

It is the readiness of the mind that is wisdom.

—Shunryu Suzuki, Soto Zen master

INTRODUCTION

The search for wisdom has motivated human beings to learn about the external world and the inner self. It lies at the root of Western science and Eastern mysticism. And yet each perspective is based on very different foundations, taken for granted, about the nature of reality. Psychotherapists gain much by considering both East and West.

Through scientific inquiry in the West, many great discoveries and understandings about the world have led to amazing technologies, improving people's quality of life. We can now relate person to person across the globe with just a few keystrokes. Healing has been improved as well, with medications that can stimulate and rebalance neurotransmitters, so vital to health. And psychotherapy has advanced with cognitive-behavioral and dynamic therapies, which harness the power of reason for regulating emotions and directing behavior. We use scientific efficacy to help guide us to use the best treatments we can. The assumptions we take in the West lead us in certain directions, defining our options and bringing expected results. The foundations go all the way back to ancient times in Greece, where first principles of science were just beginning to be uncovered.

But now we know that the wisdom of the East also has valuable tools for psychotherapy and for deepening our understanding of the nature of reality itself. Eastern wisdom is based on different foundations from Western ones. Formulated by ancient gurus and spiritual leaders, these foundations led to unique mental and physical disciplines of meditation, quite distinct from the rigors of science. And yet, similar to the science of the West, meditation provides a way to investigate the outer world and know the inner self. Meditation includes varied and highly refined practices, developed over thousands of years. Through engagement with these practices, problems clear away for a healthy flow of mental and physical energy. These Eastern practices lead to improved health, both mental and physical, opening new perspectives that are helpful for therapy. By combining the wisdom from both East and West, creative therapeutic alternatives emerge.

This chapter weaves the science from the West with the wisdom from East to form a new integration. A healing network of new potentials unfolds when there is an understanding of both types of wisdom.

FOUNDATIONS OF WESTERN SCIENCE

The object of knowledge is what exists and its function to know about reality.

—Plato

The ancients of the West looked up into the heavens, and they saw material substance—planets, stars, sun, and moon. And when they looked down, they saw earth, water, and trees. They wondered how to know about the things that can be observed and use them to enhance the quality of their lives. Their curiosity led to science as a way to understand the composition and nature of this material substance they observed all around them. They used the scientific method to explore their world and enhance the quality of life.

First Principles

Science revealed that this world of material things has a rational order. The ancients of the West sought to uncover this order by thoughtful inquiry. They believed that the order must have come from first principles and sought to discover these principles by using reasoning.

Early pre-Socratics proposed various first principles. Thales (625–545 BCE) thought that water was the first principle and that the earth could be stable because it rested in water. Anaximander (610–540 BCE) saw four elements as the fundamental building blocks for all that exists in the world, which he and other Greeks identified as earth, air, fire, and water.

Others proposed that the exact material of the universe was not the key to understanding the principles. First they sought to understand the ways by which material substance undergoes change. Heraclitus (d. 500 BCE) believed that everything is in a continual state of flux. You don't step into the same river twice, because the water always flows. Everything is continually undergoing change. Therefore, change is the very essence of material substance.

By contrast, Parmenides (540–515 BCE) postulated that everything is one and nothing changes. His reason was that if everything changes, some things come into being and exist while others go out of being and are not. But how can we talk about something that is not? We can't; it is impossible to know something that doesn't exist. Therefore, change is unreal.

Democritus (460–370 BCE) believed that change could be explained in a different way, by the interaction among tiny, indivisible particles he called atoms. These atoms exist in space, the void, and make up the material substances we see around us. Our senses can't detect these tiny particles, but through the varied combinations of atoms, we get our rich and diverse, ever-changing world. Modern science builds on this original insight, developing sophisticated understandings through advances in technology that allow us to explore more deeply. We now know that there are smaller particles than atoms. Particle physics researchers today are still searching for the smallest unit, from which everything else derives.

Progress of the Scientific Method

As science became more sophisticated, the ancients of the West noticed how much their senses misled them. The essence of material substance that appears to us is hidden. The deeper, true nature of substance is not directly accessible to our senses. The great philosopher Plato (428–348 BCE) believed that the use of reason, not the senses, was the better way to understand the deeper nature of reality. He developed a dialectical method, expressed through the words of his teacher Socrates (470–360 BCE), that used careful questioning through hypothesis. These methods of reasoning led to the scientific methods used today. Many modern forms of therapy still use Socratic questioning as a means to guiding clients to deeper truth about themselves.

Aristotle (384–322 BCE) developed this form of reasoning further. Since something is definitely there, we must understand its causes. Aristotle introduced a theory of causality itself with his famous four causes (2008, ii 3, 8), which forms the bedrock for Western science. The material cause accounts for what things are made of. The efficient cause is the force or agent that brings them about. The formal cause is the ordered state that the change produces, and the final cause is the goal toward which the change is directed. He applied this theory of causality to things in the world. For example, think of a beautifully crafted box. The material cause is the wood it is made of. The efficient cause is the craftsperson who created it. The formal cause is the sketch or plan the artisan used to help direct the box's design, and the final cause is the reason for creating the box, perhaps as a gift for someone.

This way of thinking influences the approach to psychotherapeutic treatments today. We think about the material causes when we look at the underlying biological condition. We analyze the conditions that may have led to the disorder, the formal causes in the behaviors and actions involved, and the final cause as underlying motivations. Fundamental is the assumption that something is there—a disorder, a problem—and through the use of objective, scientific methods, we can uncover its causes to help cure it.

Since there is a real world, psychological problems should be viewed as tangible entities. We must identify the problem, define its fundamental elements, and analyze its causes. Only then can we devise ways to treat the problem. Thus, we have diagnoses to identify psychological problems and protocols for curing them. Through the years of research and practice, these methods have grown more sensitive and helpful.

FOUNDATIONS OF EASTERN WISDOM

When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void.

—Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

The ancients of the East looked up into the heavens, and they saw a vast emptiness. Although they could point to planets and stars in the sky, they noticed that the heavenly bodies moved and disappeared. They observed that all living things on earth were transitory, coming into being and then passing away. Everything changed in cycles. They saw that the seasons rotated around every year, and day continually turned into night and back to day. They studied the nature of different kinds of change and recorded their understandings in the now-famous book, the I Ching, The Book of Changes. They came to recognize that what was most fundamental and true about the universe was that in its deeper nature, it is empty.

The Unreality of Appearances

According to Eastern wisdom, the conditions of the physical world and the senses may give an appearance of an apparent object, but no object actually is present. Reality is like a mirage of water on an expanse of sunny highway. No water is there, merely its realistic appearance, due to light bending on the hot road. Similarly, the world that we experience is a function of perceptual conditions. Consciousness makes it seem to exist.

Perceptions of the world are relative because they rely on external criteria, standards that are limited by our perspective. For example, the perception of distance in space is relative to our own capacities and size. The tiny ant cannot imagine crawling to a distant mountain. To an eagle, the same mountain peak may be close, a place for home.

The mushroom of a morning does not know (what takes place between) the beginning and end of a month; the short-lived cicada does not know (what takes place between) spring and a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Part I: Theoretical Foundations
• Part II: Neuroscience
• Part III: Tools of Meditation
• Part IV: Meditation Instructions
• Part V: Applications
• References
• About the Authors
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• End User License Agreement