Psychotherapy, mindfulness, and Buddhism — natural complements to each other

To many modern therapists, psychotherapy, mindfulness, and Buddhist principles intuitively fit together. This sense of a natural integration can seem somewhat at odds with the goals of therapy and Buddhist practices. Isn’t psychotherapy about being more effective and at peace with your ego–literally growing your ego? Doesn’t Buddhism advocate for the cessation of ego? Doesn’t psychotherapy encourage people to identify who they are and what they want, and support manifesting more satisfying attachments to self, body, others, sex, money, purpose, love, children, etc? Doesn’t Buddhism advocate disidentification with self, nonattachment to desires, and ultimately liberation from the cycles of samsara?

Therapy, mindfulness, and disidentification actually fit together in an integrated harmony of the human experience. Mindfulness strengthens the Witness, who more and more can observe positive and negative attachments with interest and disidentification. Psychotherapy understands that happiness requires human drives, instincts, and social/emotional demands to be acknowledged and attended to in ways that provide adequate experiences of agency and communion. Modern psychotherapy has discovered that health and happiness are best served by cultivating the Witness to provide a platform to observe attachments with equanimity, while also honoring them as guides to satisfying living and loving.

Preferring love, success, and health is a central part being an embodied human, and so nonattachment can’t mean not preferring love, success, and health–cultivating denial of the drives and instincts creates huge problems–as much as organizing to be happy, healthy, and connected while fully accepting whatever comes.

Neuroresearch has determined that when the world meets our expectations we get pleasurable rushes of dopamine, and when the world doesn’t meet our expectations we can suffer from fight/flight reactions, increased cortisol, and decreased dopamine and oxytocin. One definition of happiness is, “Expect everything to be exactly as it is.” Mindfulness and Buddhism promote radical acceptance, and psychotherapy promotes daily commitment to living a healthy, meaningful, and communal life. Together they provide exquisite direction towards navigating the human experience.

—Dr. Keith Witt