Psychology & Buddhism.pdf

Responsibility in Daseinsanalysis and Buddhism 155
them. They are given the barest of attention. In this way, people develop the
ability to “stand back” and separate their experiences from their thoughts, feelings
and emotions. For both therapist and client, mindfulness enables them to
focus on what is experienced in a non-judgmental way and enhances the capacity
for quiet listening.
When meditation is practiced alongside phenomenological seeing, the result
is that you have a powerful and incisive therapetic “tool” for clients to use, to isolate
the core phenomena from their emotions and feelings, and for the therapists
to understand clients’ experiences free from theoretical explanations and assumptions.
In this way, Buddhist meditation can provide a practical hands-on-approach
for the phenomenological stance recommended by Boss.
While Buddhist meditation can strengthen daseinsanalytic therapeutic practices,
daseinsanalysis can also contribute to Buddhism. As I noted earlier,
Buddhism lacks the techniques for dealing with specific impairments that prevent
people from taking responsibility. Kornfield (1993) notes that certain developmental
issues and unhealthy psychological defenses may require the help of a
skilled therapist to uncover and resolved. The advantage of daseinsanalysis is that
it addresses specific impairments that often meditation alone cannot overcome.
For example, the daseinsanalytic practice of assisting clients to see the ontic ways
by which they have avoided taking responsibility, and how this refusal continues
to impede them is particularly useful in helping people to deal with blockages that
have arisen.
The other advantage of daseinsanalytic practices lies in their helping the
client to understand the meaningfulness and therapeutic significance of his or her
experiences in relation to the person’s whole existence. In the case of Regula discussed
earlier, Boss helped her to see that her dream experience of being stuck in
a railway boxcar, alone and naked, shows that she perceived the world as dark and
desolate, and herself as a forgotten piece of merchandise. He also helped her to
become aware that as a consequence of her attunement of anxiety and insecurity,
and her feelings of abandonment, she was unable to form healthy relationships
with people. Gaining insight in her restricted way of Being-in-the-world, Regula
was able to take responsibility for a different way of behaving. This approach
towards understanding and dealing with specific impairments is absent from
Buddhism.
Empowerment of Clients
According to Condrau (1995), the daseinsanalytic method of “analytical
self-recognition” (p. 347) is designed to take the patient to the point where he or
she is able to assume personal responsibility. However, without equipping clients
with the means to sustain phenomenological seeing, it could be difficult for them