You’re Basically Good — The Benefits of Contemplative Psychotherapy
Karen Kissel Wegela on therapy that starts with your basic sanity, not your neuroses.
Illustration by Nolan Pelletier.
Elliot knew from our first session together that I saw him as basically a good person. As he remembered it later, he had told me his personal saga of relationship and work failures, and he expected I would conclude, as he had, that he was pretty hopeless. Instead, I said something like, “Oh, you’re not so bad.” I don’t remember saying that, but, as he told me, he had understood that I really did believe in his goodness.
“That’s why I kept coming back,” he said.
I’m often asked by clients like Elliot what to expect from someone who describes herself as a “contemplative psychotherapist.” Here are some of the key principles of contemplative counseling and psychotherapy that I would outline for a potential client. As I have studied and practiced mostly in the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism, what I say here reflects that school’s approach.
Brilliant Sanity
Contemplative Psychotherapy is based on the view that all of us, no matter what our problems, are fundamentally awake and healthy. In some schools of Buddhism this is called our buddhanature, and in the Shambhala teachings it’s called our basic goodness. In the Contemplative Psychotherapy program here at Naropa University, it’s referred to as brilliant sanity.
The contemplative approach is an optimistic one, because it points to our capacity for clarity, compassion, mindfulness, and awareness.
The premise of Contemplative Psychotherapy is that we already have what we need to connect with our inherent wisdom and compassion. Therefore, a contemplative therapist is concerned primarily with helping clients reconnect with and develop confidence in their own inherent sanity. We are not, of course, always in touch with it—we have only to look around us to see there is much suffering, confusion, and violence in the world. Yet the contemplative approach is an optimistic one, because it points to our capacity for clarity, compassion, mindfulness, and awareness.
Catching a Glimpse
The experience of brilliant sanity cannot be completely captured in words. Instead, we tend to glimpse it in moments of clear-seeing and tender-heartedness. We might have a sense of being fully present when something surprises us. We might experience it in a time of unexpected joy, or in a period of intense grief or fear.
In such moments, we are simply right there with an open heart. Such glimpses have qualities of sharpness, tenderness, and letting go of thoughts. They might last just a few seconds, or they could last a lot longer...
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