“This very earth is the Lotus Land of purity, and this very body the Body of Buddha.”

This phrase originates with the Zen master Hakuin, cited by Alan Watts (1961, p.173). It has been paraphrased by many other spiritual masters to explain that what keeps us from our true nature, also known as the buddha nature, is the inability to live in the present moment. In the Western tradition Sigmund Freud has defined “evenly hovering attention” as the optimal state of mind for the psychoanalyst (as cited by Rubin, 1996, p.24) Taken together these two phrases sum up the essential thesis of this essay, that the efficacy of counselling and psychotherapy lies in its ability to bring us into the here and now.
Meditation has been defined in different ways, and in this essay it is being defined as the ability to rest in the here and now. Many psychotherapists have said that meditation when understood in this way has been of great help in their professional practice (Welwood, 1983; Kelly, 1996; Rubin, 1996). In considering the validity of this opinion we shall be looking at awareness and how it is understood in psychotherapy, at the role of meditation in bringing about awareness and at its usefulness in practice.

One of the essential questions facing any counsellor or psychotherapist is to discover what makes the client counsellor relationship work. In the many different models of practice more often than not one of the most significant factors under consideration when looking at the efficacy of therapy is awareness. Fritz Perls (1973, p.65 ) says, “We know that the more he (the patient) becomes aware of himself, the more he will learn about what his self is.” Carl Rogers (as cited by Corey, 2001) says that the therapist needs to be present to the client. He also states that both client and therapist need to be focussed on the here-and-now for real growth to occur, so it is not only the client who needs to be in the present moment.

What does this mean, to be aware of the present moment? Most of the time the client is coming to counselling because he or she is unhappy or in crisis, and presents with a story. The choice is whether to delve into this story which usually means going into the past, or to look at what is happening here and now. This is the only moment actually available to be worked with, and in dealing with the sensations which are occurring here and now the client is in a stronger position to go back into the world and to deal with the actual problems (Perls, 1973). On the other hand, more attention to the story may lead to a great depth of apparent understanding, but will this understanding be of any practical use? This question is emphasised by William Glasser (as cited by Corey, 2001), who says that the role of therapy is not to understand the presenting problems but to enable clients to make more effective choices in their lives It is rare for people to focus their attention fully in the present (Kelly, 1996), and a recurring theme among all the therapists who consider awareness to be of importance is that when the client fixes his or her attention on the moment it has a tremendous healing effect (Corey, 2001).

Supposing we accept the usefulness of a state of awareness in counselling, how does the therapist go about achieving this and sharing it with the client? Chandler and Holden (1992) trace the tradition of using spiritual practice in psychotherapy from Jung onwards, and continue to say that the practice of meditation will lead to increased awareness. Welwood (1983, p.xiii) says that “Meditation provide(s) a concrete operational method for developing just those ingredients of acceptance and unconditional friendliness that are most essential for successful therapy.” This means that when the client enters the room he or she has the whole attention of the counsellor, who is not thinking about what to have for dinner or the argument he just had with his wife. This state of presence is not such an easy thing to achieve, and the client is going to notice the difference when it happens. For most of us in ordinary conversation we are lucky if we have someone’s undivided attention for five minutes, and the counselling session will last for sixty minutes. Welwood says that he was taught that he should be able to offer his undivided attention to anyone who walked into his office, but it was not until he began to use meditation that he found himself able to enter into the empty space necessary for this to be possible. Kelly (1996) also points out that it is one thing to understand that it is a good idea for the therapist to give his full attention to the experience of being with the client, and another matter to be able to put this into practice. He explains that in meditative practice this ability to rest in the here and now is known as witness consciousness. This is relatively new to us in the West, while in the East it has always been understood that meditation and awareness go hand in hand. Alan Watts (1961) has said that when we explore such ways of life as Buddhism and Taoism, Vedanta and Yoga, we find something more nearly resembling psychotherapy than either philosophy or religion as they are understood in the West.

It seems that we find most psychotherapists are willing to acknowledge the importance of awareness, and many do link awareness to meditation, so does meditation actually improve the practice of psychotherapy? Seymour Boorstein (2000) presents four case histories from his own work to show that meditation has been helpful for his clients, and concludes that in general mindfulness meditation or vipassana lowers or dissolves their psychological defences, resulting in the exposure of what lies beneath. In vipassana meditation the practitioner sits silently watching the breath as it moves in and out, and also watches what is going on in the mind without judging or interfering, allowing the content of the mind to flow as easily as the breath. This, at least, is the intention; in practice the mind loves to interfere. The individual is freed from the need to be constantly judging and busy with the contents of the mind, and so becomes more available to the intuitive insights which may arise (Kelly, 1996). Meditation frees one to enter a state of relaxation and increased awareness (Chandler and Holden, 1992) which may resolve those problems that are bringing a client to therapy. Most clients come because of a situation which is causing them anxiety or stress, and often one of the major difficulties is that this experience of stress and worry keeps them from coming to grips with what is going on in their lives. Being able to relax is then the first step to feeling what is happening, and in feeling without judgement there is a possibility for insights to arise. Once there is an insight into what to do, there is of course often a need to act, but from this relaxed space it becomes easier to gather the courage necessary to take action which could otherwise be blocked by an excess of anxiety over outcomes (Perls, 1973; Kelly 1996). Some clients are coming with the need to sort out a particular problem, as outlined above, and for them the relaxing depths of a meditative experience within the counselling session give an opportunity to take a longer perspective and to come to a resolution. Others have a problem with the very meaning of their lives, and they may be encouraged to take up meditation as a regular practice. According to Wilber (as cited by Rubin 1996, p.45) such people may come to the realisation that our “innermost consciousness is identical to the absolute and ultimate reality of the universe”. For them it is only when they come to such a transformed understanding of what their lives are about that they feel they have received what they were looking for in the counselling experience.

Awareness in the practice of psychotherapy can be of help on many levels. For some as we have seen there is a need to focus on a particular issue, to be able to look at it without distraction and then to move on with their lives. Others are coming with more fundamental issues and may be encouraged to take meditation into their everyday lives. What seems clear is that awareness is often demanded in the theory of counselling and psychotherapy without any concrete suggestion as to how either client or counsellor are to go about achieving it (Welwood, 1983; Rubin, 1996). Meditation is a readily available tool, which has been used in the eastern tradition for thousands of years. Although it is still on the fringe as far as our current understanding of psychotherapy is concerned, there are many counsellors who find it so useful that it becomes a core aspect of their practice.

References

Boorstein, S., (2000). Transpersonal Psychotherapy. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 54(3), 408-24. Retrieved March 1, 2001 from Academic Search Elite EBSCOhost (AN: 3585573).

Chandler, C. & Holden, J. (1992). Counseling for spiritual wellness: theory and practice. Journal of Counseling & Development, 71(2), 168-176.

Corey G., (2001). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. (6th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks-Cole/Wadsworth.

Kelly, G. F., (1996). Using meditative techniques in Psychotherapy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 36(3), 49-67.

Retrieved March 1, 2001 from Academic Search Elite EBSCOhost (AN: 9607101352).

Perls, Fritz. (1976). The gestalt approach and eye witness to therapy. California: Science and Behavior Books.

Rubin, J. (1996). Psychotherapy and buddhism: Toward an integration. New York: Plenum Press.

Watts, Alan. (1961). Psychotherapy east and west. New York: Pantheon.

Welwood, J. (1985). Awakening the heart: East/west approaches to psychotherapy and the healing relationship. Boston: Shambhala Publications.