Buddhist Psychotherapy

Buddhist psychotherapy is a therapeutic approach that integrates Buddhist principles with modern psychological practices. It draws from Buddhist teachings on mindfulness, compassion, impermanence, and non-attachment to help individuals cultivate self-awareness, emotional balance, and inner peace.

  1. Buddhist Psychotherapy is a system of treating mental patients which had been experimented
    with and developed by the author during the past 30 years. Various mental illnesses including
    Schizophrenia can be and have been cured by this therapeutical method.
  2. A student or Any people of this method will get the following benefits: –
             i) Mental illnesses can be cured by this method.
             ii) It will enable one to understand people – the working of their consciousness and
    unconscious minds.
           iii) A sound knowledge of this method of treatments will help one to maintain and develop
    one’s own mental health in our present stressful society – it will help one not to be
    mentally ill.
  3. It is now a well-established fact that mental illnesses can be caused both by physical and mental factors or by a combination of both. Mental illnesses caused predominantly by physical factors have to be treated medically using methods such as chemotherapy (medication), electroplexy and psych-surgery; illnesses caused by mental factors have to be treated psychotherapeutically.
    According to this system of Buddhist Psychotherapy, the mental factors that cause mental illnesses are identified as mental defilements – ‘the kleshas’, but in dealing with kleshas one has to understand – one has to see and know both one’s own body and mind. The mind, even in its
    normal state, is full of kleshas of defilements.
  4. From the days of Sigmond Freud – the father of modern western psychotherapeutical and analytic school – several schools of psychotherapeutical analysis have been developed. Buddhist Psychotherapy is a stage in this evolution.
  5. Buddhist Psychotherapy can be practiced as complementary to existing western psychotherapeutical methods. A practitioner of Buddhist Psychotherapy will have to seek the help of a psychiatrist on two occasions – 
      •  When a patient is extremely depressed.
      • When a patient is extremely violent unless such a patient is medically treated and restored the ability for communication, the system of Buddhist Psychotherapy can do very little.
  1. This method of treating mental patients is called Buddhist Psychotherapy because it is based on the teaching of the Buddha. The basic vision behind this method is to be found in following
    discourses by the Buddha:
      • Satipaṭṭhānā Suṭṭā – The Discourse on Mindfulness [ Mājjhimā Nikā yā no. 10]
      • Sābbāsāvā Suṭṭā – The Discourse on All Menṭāl Cānkers [ M.N. no.2]
      • Vāṭṭhupāmā Suṭṭā – The Discourse on ṭhe Simile of cloṭh [M.N. no. 17]
      • Meṭṭā bhā vānā – The Rādiāṭion of Loving-kindness [ Sām yuṭṭā Nikā yā ]
      • Kārān ī yā Meṭṭā Suṭṭā – Discourse on Lovingkindness [Sām yuṭṭā Nikā yā 1.8]
        Beside ṭhe ābove, ṭhe bāsic ṭeāchings on ‘āniccā’ (impermānency) ‘dukkā’ (dishārmony),
        ‘pāṭiccā sāmuppādā’ (five menṭāl hindrānces) ānd ‘dāsā sāmyojānā’ (ṭen feṭṭers) āre
        incorporāṭed inṭo ṭhis meṭhod of psychoṭherāpy. And rādiāṭion of loving kindness mind is
        cerṭāin ṭo gāin ṭrānquiliṭy of ṭhe mind.
  1. Buddhist Psychotherapy is universal in its scope; mental patients whether they are black or white, whether they are Christians or Muslims or Hindus, whether they are Marxists or atheists, can be treated by this new method because people all over the world are alike when it comes to causes of mental illnesses. All are with kleshas that may cause mental illnesses.
    This method can be applied without causing them to change their religious faiths. Definitely it is
    not a means of conversation.

    8. Six Steps: Buddhist Psychotherapy consists of six steps that a mental patient has to go through.
      • Development of communication between the therapist and the patient.
      • Development of body awareness by the patient.
      • Development of feeling awareness by the patient.
      • Probing into the patient’s conscious and unconscious mind and bringing to light materials
        (memories mingled with kleshas) buried particularly in the unconscious mind.
      • Analysis of the selected materials that are linked to the mental illness – the causes of the
        illness are made to be seen and known by the patient himself.
      • Rehabilitation and socialization of the mental patient who has successfully gone through
        the first five steps given above.
  1. An experienced Buddhist Psychotherapist can complete this psychotherapeutical effort within
    eight or ten sessions each running from one to one and a half hours per week. It may take five or six sessions more to treat a patient whose level of intelligence and perceptiveness is lower.
    Apart from the weekly sessions, the patient must follow daily the instructions given by the
    therapist under each of the above-mentioned six steps. All this cannot be successful if the patient is not motivated to achieve recovery. For daily practice of instructions, family support is necessary.
  2. Even after the initial recovery of mental health, there can be relapses of the mental illness. In such a case the patient must be taken back to the therapist for further guidance. In treating cases of relapse, the therapist must use his discretion and have a combination of two more steps at each session. Here, again, the importance of rehabilitation must be stressed.
  3. The final target of Buddhist Psychotherapy is to make a mental patient a normal human being who can manage his kleshas such as anger, suspicion, greed, malevolence, and jealousy. This system has both positive and negative approaches. In its positive approach a patient is guided to at least two of the seven factors leading to Enlightenment [ Satisambojjhanga Dhamma] namely (i) the practice of mindfulness (Satisambojjhanga ) as given in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the practice of ‘viriya’ which means striving ( viriyasambojjanga) to complete the six steps of Buddhist
    Psychotherapy and (ii) Control and reduction of kleshas that caused the mental illness.
  4. The Buddhist system of Psychotherapy is nothing but getting the patient to practice meditation; it deviates from the traditional form of meditation such as ‘Samatha’ (concentration) and Vipassana (analytical understanding). The Buddhist Psychotherapy uses both these forms of meditation, but they are modified and structured to suit the mental patients who have lost control of their bodies and minds. How this is done is described with illustrations (case reports) in the rest of this book – ‘The Buddhist Mental Psychotherapy.’
  5. Those who are practice the Radiation of Loving-kindness with following thoughts:
    “May I be well, happy, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous. May I be free from suffering, disease,
    grief, worries, and anger! Like me, may all beings of the world be well, happy, healthy, peaceful,
    and prosperous, and free from physical and mental sufferings”.
    Thinking thus again and again, Mettā Bhāvanā should be practiced.