Mindfulness and psychotherapy Tara Bennet Goleman

Mindfulness has its roots in an ancient system of Buddhist psychology, little known in the West, one that even today offers a sophisticated understanding of the painful emotions that sabotage our happiness. This psychology offers a scientific approach to inner work, a theory of mind that anyone, Buddhist or not, can draw insights and benefit from. When we apply this approach, the emphasis is not so much on the problems in our lives as on connecting with the clarity and health of mind itself. If we can do this, our problems become more workable. They become opportunities to learn rather than threats to avoid.

Buddhist psychology holds a refreshingly positive view of human nature: our emotional problems are seen as temporary and superficial. The emphasis is on what is right with us, an antidote to the fixation of Western psychology on what’s wrong with us. Buddhist psychology acknowledges our disturbing emotions but sees them as covering our essential goodness like clouds covering the sun. In this sense, our darker moments and most upsetting feelings are an opportunity for uncovering our natural wisdom, if we choose to use them that way.

Becoming aware of these emotional habits is the first step, because unless we can catch and challenge them as they are triggered by the events of our lives, they will dictate how we perceive and react. And the more they take us over, the more they’ll keep coming back, complicating our relationships, our work, and the most basic ways in which we see ourselves.

Schema therapy was developed by Dr. Jeffrey Young, the founder of the Cognitive Therapy Center of New York. It focuses on healing maladaptive patterns, or schemas, like the sense of emotional deprivation, or relentless perfectionism. In working with my own clients, I have found that mindfulness meditation and schema therapy work together naturally and powerfully.

Schema therapy gives us a clear map to destructive habits. It details the emotional contours of, say, the fear of abandonment, with its constant apprehension that a partner will leave us; or of feelings of vulnerability, such as the irrational fear that a minor setback at work means you will end up jobless and homeless.

There are ten such major schemas (and countless variations); most of us have one or two principal ones, though many of us have several others to some extent. Other common schemas include unlovability, the fear that people would reject us if they truly knew us; mistrust, the constant suspicion that those close to us will betray us; social exclusion, the feeling that we don’t belong; failure, the sense that we cannot succeed at what we do; subjugation, always giving in to other people’s wants and demands; and entitlement, the sense that one is somehow special, and so beyond ordinary rules and limits.

Through working with my clients, it has become clear to me that adding mindfulness to psychotherapy greatly enhances its effectiveness, helping clients see the otherwise invisible emotional patterns at the root of their suffering. I have been struck by how much the therapy process was accelerated when a client practiced mindfulness. I have found that combining a mindful awareness with psychological investigation forges a powerful tool for cultivating emotional wisdom on a practical, day-to-day level.

Mindfulness is synergistic with virtually any psychotherapy approach, not just schema therapy. If you are in psychotherapy, mindfulness offers a way to cultivate a capacity for self-observation that you can bring to whatever confronts you during the day. Combining mindfulness with psychotherapy may help you use more fully the opportunity for inner exploration that your therapy offers.