Learn more about Lynette’s course at BCBS this coming April 27-30 on Cultivating Ethics: Buddhist Teachings for Mindfulness Program Leaders. Learn more about Lynette’s daylong course at BCBS this April 27 on The Personal is Professional: Buddhist Ethics for Psychotherapy Practice. Insight Journal: You were born in Burma and came to Canada as a refugee when you were young. As a Burmese who has lived in North America most of her life, how do you relate to the conversation around … [Read more...]
The Convergence of Vedanā, Our Mammalian Physiology, and Awakening
Insight Journal: The title of your course at BCBS this coming August is “The Convergence of Vedanā, Our Mammalian Physiology, and Awakening.” What do you mean by our mammalian physiology? Brian Lesage: What I’m referring to, and what we’ll be talking about in this course, is our various physiological states. Stephen Porges talks about five states: social engagement, mobilization (fight-or-flight), play, immobilization (life-threat), and immobilization without fear. The state we’re in colors … [Read more...]
Buddhist Psychology: Classical Texts in Contemporary Perspective
In the first week of December last year the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies held a five-day residential course on Buddhist Psychology. The intention of the course was to introduce students to the classical models of mind and mental processing contained in the primary texts of the Pali Canon and other Buddhist texts, and then to review this material from the contemporary perspectives of modern psychology. The program was co-sponsored by the Cambridge Institute of Meditation and … [Read more...]
Resistance in Meditation
Bill Morgan, Psy.D., a Boston-area psychotherapist and Buddhist practitioner, is a member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy (IMP). These remarks are excerpted from a talk given at a joint BCBS/IMP program called "Buddhist Psychology in Contemporary Perspective" in Cambridge, MA in the fall of 2001. There is a saying in Buddhism, “Meditation is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end.” I don’t know how it is for any of you, but my experience has been … [Read more...]
Meditation and the Therapist
Paul Fullon Ed.D. is Director of Mental Health Programs for Tufts Health Plan, an Instructor of Psychology in the Dept, of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and is the president of the Boston-based Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. These comments are excerpted from a talk given at the bi-annual meditation retreat for psychologists and psychotherapists at BCBS in July 2003. When we look closely at some of the empirical studies conducted on the effectiveness of psychotherapy, … [Read more...]
What Is Mindfulness… And Why Is It Important to Therapists?
This article is excerpted from the first chapter of a new book, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. A collective effort of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, the book is edited by Christopher K. Germer, Ronald D. Siegel and Paul R. Fulton, and will be published by Guilford Press in the spring of 2005. Psychotherapists are in the business of alleviating emotional suffering. Suffering arrives in innumerable guises: stress, anxiety, depression, behavior problems, interpersonal conflict, … [Read more...]
Escaping the Karma of Addiction
This article is based on teachings given at BCBS in January, 2008 by Paul Simons & Gregory Bivens in a course called Working with Addiction: Spiritual Self-Schema Therapy. It might seem strange to talk about “spiritual self schema” as something to aspire to in a Buddhist context. In the psychological language of Self-Schema Therapy, it describes an alternative to the “addict self,” the type of mistaken identification with one’s negative thoughts and feelings that perpetuates a cycle of … [Read more...]
Mind Changing Brain Changing Mind: The Dharma and Neuroscience
The knowledge of neuroscience has doubled in the last twenty years. It will probably double again in the next twenty years. I think that neuropsychology is, broadly, about where biology was a hundred years after the invention of the microscope: around 1725. In contrast, Buddhism is a twenty-five-hundred-year-old tradition. You don't need an EEG or MRI to sit and observe your own mind, to open your heart and practice with sincerity. I don't think of neuropsychology as a replacement for … [Read more...]
A Discussion Among Psychologists
This material comes from a weekend program offered at BCBS in January that was specially intended for psychotherapists. The program consisted of continuous, silent practice of insight meditation, from Friday evening to Sunday morning, and then concluded with an open discussion. The program was meant as a gathering of peers and was led by Trudy Goodman and Chris Germer, both members of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. There are a number of different … [Read more...]
Insecurity, Self-Criticism, and Impermanence
Paul Fulton is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Newton, Massachusetts. A co-founder and member of the Board of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, he is also co-editor of the book Mindfulness & Psychotherapy. He received tokudo initiation as a Zen Buddhist in 1972. He is director of IMP’s nine month Certificate Program in Mindfulness & Psychotherapy, has taught at BCBS, and currently serves on the BCBS Board of Directors. Scratch the surface of the most … [Read more...]