Convinced that a Buddhist-informed psychotherapy is implicit in the way the
therapist works rather than in the application of techniques, some therapists claim
that there is no need for clients to be aware of the Buddhist inspiration behind the
psychotherapy or for clients or therapists to embrace Buddhist beliefs (Watson 1996).
Other therapists argue that, in order to benefit from them, clients do not need to
know they are practicing meditation-derived techniques introduced by the therapist,
and advocate adapting and even disguising meditation techniques before prescribing
them to clients as part of their treatment (Deatherage 1975). This raises serious ethical
questions about the client’s right to know what his or her treatment is. Some clients
may be wary of practices that are not derived from their own cultural traditions (Kelly
1996), although there seems to be some awareness about introducing only those
practices the client feels are compatible with their own belief systems (Muzika 1990;
Urbanowski and Miller 1996).
A recent, intense debate has sprouted over the fact that some (usually white, Elite,
or Euro-American) Buddhist psychotherapists who are also teachers of meditation
engage in dual relationships with their client-students (Simpkinson 2000). Right or
wrong, perhaps this recent state of affairs reflects the welding of the meditation teacher
to the therapist-as-archetype in Western, and especially American culture (Tart 1990).
Whether therapists decide for or against teaching their clients meditation
techniques, psychotherapists whose lifestyle encompasses a long-standing practice of
meditation and decide to introduce it into the therapy setting will have sufficient
personal experience of its benefits and pitfalls and will be in a better position to
determine which clients may or may not benefit from meditation than those therapists
who at best have obtained meditation instruction from a weekend seminar and who
rarely practice it themselves (Deatherage 1975; Urbanowski and Miller 1996).
Technique or tradition?Should the client wish to engage in Zen meditation, and should the therapist decide
to introduce meditation techniques as part of the therapy process, instruction would
best be limited to the basic form of zazen, which is counting the breaths. Zen Buddhist
teachers strongly emphasize that more advanced forms of Zen practice such as
working on a koan should be undertaken only under the guidance and supervision
of a qualified Zen teacher (Kapleau 1989). Nevertheless, there are therapists who are
in favor of reading contemporary literary adaptations of koans as a cognitive adjunct
to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Kwee and Ellis 1998). This falls short of an
aberration of Zen practice and is an instance of carrying the reductionist model too
far by divorcing meditation practices from their naturalistic, spiritual context (Shapiro
1994; Walsh 1982).
It is far easier to isolate Zen meditation from its Buddhist context and consider it
a technique rather than a component of an integrated practice (Dubs 1987; Preston
1988). Reintroducing the spiritual context of meditation with knowledge of its rich
tradition may provide a healthy challenge to the generally unexamined belief systems,
values, and cultural assumptions of the scientific community and larger society
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