Keeping Meditation Religious and Psychotherapy Secular

2019 ◽  
pp. 147-178
Author(s):  
Ira Helderman
Keyword(s):  
Erich Fromm ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychotherapeutic Practice ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
Clear Differentiation ◽  
Therapy Sessions ◽  
Person Of The Therapist ◽  
Explicit Discussion

This chapter examines psychotherapists personalizing religion approaches to Buddhist teachings and practices. Here clinicians can be dramatically influenced by Buddhist teachings, but, intent on maintaining a clear differentiation between Buddhist and psychotherapeutic practice, are loath to “mix” the two. Deep believing Buddhist clinicians betray no sign of Buddhist influence in actual therapy sessions eschewing embodied practices or explicit discussion of Buddhist concepts. They instead hold their Buddhist identities silently internal within “the person of the therapist,” thus “personalized.” The work of one of the most famous therapists to investigate Buddhist traditions, Erich Fromm, is detailed. Fromm’s innovative reconstructions of the terms “religion” and “secular” remain highly influential today. The chapter then describes contemporary therapists who keep their therapy offices clear of visible signs of Buddhist practice during their work day while, in the evenings, publicly speak on “Zen psychoanalysis” or even lead Buddhist communities. These therapists view their work to be fundamentally Buddhist in nature and their patients will sometimes seek them out precisely for their Buddhist association. Personalizing religion approaches thus blur boundaries between the religious and not-religious based on distinctions between the private and the public, the personal and the professional.

Mongolian Buddhism in the Democratic Period

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
New Religious Movements ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Strong Ties ◽  
Public Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Buddhist Practice ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Democratic Revolution

During the socialist period in Mongolia (1921–1990), the public practice of Buddhism, along with other religious practices, was restricted. Since the Democratic Revolution of 1989–1990, the practice of Buddhism has been permitted in public. Today Buddhism is the main religion of Mongolia, following the Vajrayāna tradition of Buddhism. As well as having strong ties to international Buddhist lineages and organizations, Buddhism in Mongolia has unique characteristics. In the early 1990s old lamas from the presocialist period reinhabited old temples, built new temples, and took on students. They reinvigorated old practices and rituals that they had practiced in secret during the socialist period, or those they had remembered from the presocialist era as young lamas. In addition to this local reinvigoration of Buddhist practice, in the 1990s translocal Buddhist organizations came to Mongolia with the hope of helping to rebuild Buddhism. They brought with them their own expectations about education, religious practice, and monastic discipline. Along with these transnational Buddhist ideas and practices, other local religious practices, such as shamanism, and translocal religious practices, such as Christianity and new religious movements, established themselves in the country. These local and translocal forms of religion generated the proliferation of a wide range of unique ideas and practices that have characterized Mongolian Buddhism since 1990. As Buddhism in the democratic period is the main religion in Mongolia, it has become a source of geopolitical significance. The strong ties between Mongolian Buddhist institutions and Tibetan Buddhist organizations in diaspora have been a cause of diplomatic friction between Mongolia and China. These ties with Tibetans in diaspora have also affected power dynamics internally within Mongolian Buddhist organizations. Mongolian Buddhism in the democratic era is an important local religious practice, a source of translocal connections and transformations, and has geopolitical significance.

scholarly journals Music Psychotherapy and Community Music Therapy: Questions and Considerations

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Turry
Keyword(s):  
Music Therapy ◽  
Community Music ◽  
The Public ◽  
Music Psychotherapy ◽  
Public Sharing ◽  
New Form ◽  
Therapy Sessions

In his article on community music therapy, Aigen (2004) recognizes the challenges that can emerge when a new form of practice develops and he emphatically states that when these changes take place, "new ethical, self-reflexive, and conceptual signposts" (p 216) are needed. My purpose in writing this paper is to contribute to the development of these signposts by sharing a course of therapy that has stimulated relevant questions in this newly emerging area of work. This paper does not present definitive guidelines, but attempts to identify important considerations when a course of individual music therapy includes the public sharing of the content of therapy sessions in the community in a variety of forms.

scholarly journals The Construction of the Neoliberal Self in Belgrade Psychotherapeutic Practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogdan Vukomanović
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychotherapeutic Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Relationship

The processes of neoliberalization and European integration in Serbia have been underway for some time, and in addition to their effect on certain elements of the social structure such as the family, the economy, political life etc., their impact is also evident in the way that Serbian citizens perceive themselves and their position in this environment. Due to reduced social protection, the withdrawal of the state from the public sphere, and increasing financial and employment insecurity, individuals are obliged to assume responsibility for their lives and to engage in self-improvement with the aim of personal development and the finding of new survival strategies. Through interviews with psychotherapists and persons who have used the services of private psychotherapy, this paper looks at the relationship between private psychotherapeutic practice in Belgrade as a technique for self-improvement and the construction of the self in its clients, and then relates it to the broader socio-economic context in which the respondents live and work. The findings suggest that with regard to its clients, private psychotherapeutic practice mirrors the emphasis on independence, autonomy and responsibility for one's life and life decisions, which are typical features of the entrepreneurial self characteristic of the period of post-socialist neoliberalization.

At the heart of cognition, communication, and language

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Tay
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Psychotherapeutic Practice ◽  
Metaphor Use ◽  
Therapy Sessions

Cognitive, communicative, and linguistic forces have been theorized to inhere in all metaphor use in real world contexts, with Steen (2011) describing these forces as constitutive and interacting ‘dimensions’ of metaphor. This paper proposes that cognition, communication, and language should be seen not just as crucial dimensions of individual metaphoric utterances, but also of their circumstances and contexts of use. In other words, purposive real world discourse activities impose various demands of a cognitive, communicative, and linguistic nature on speakers, and these shape the characteristics of metaphors used in definitive ways. I characterize the discourse activity of psychotherapy along the three dimensions, and show how the strategic use and management of metaphors in psychotherapy is, and ought to be, determined by interacting cognitive, communicative, and linguistic considerations. From this, I suggest that the effectiveness of therapeutic metaphors can be evaluated in terms of their “discourse career” (Steen, 2011, p. 54) over a series of therapy sessions. I conclude by highlighting the value of psychotherapy to metaphor study, and of metaphor study to psychotherapeutic practice.

Replications can cause distorted belief in scientific progress

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michał Białek
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
The Public ◽  
Psychological Science

AbstractIf we want psychological science to have a meaningful real-world impact, it has to be trusted by the public. Scientific progress is noisy; accordingly, replications sometimes fail even for true findings. We need to communicate the acceptability of uncertainty to the public and our peers, to prevent psychology from being perceived as having nothing to say about reality.

Hospitals: N.Y. Appellate Court Denies Move to Privatize Public Hospital

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-203
Author(s):  
Robert Chatham
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
Municipal Hospital ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
The City

The Court of Appeals of New York held, in Council of the City of New York u. Giuliani, slip op. 02634, 1999 WL 179257 (N.Y. Mar. 30, 1999), that New York City may not privatize a public city hospital without state statutory authorization. The court found invalid a sublease of a municipal hospital operated by a public benefit corporation to a private, for-profit entity. The court reasoned that the controlling statute prescribed the operation of a municipal hospital as a government function that must be fulfilled by the public benefit corporation as long as it exists, and nothing short of legislative action could put an end to the corporation's existence.In 1969, the New York State legislature enacted the Health and Hospitals Corporation Act (HHCA), establishing the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) as an attempt to improve the New York City public health system. Thirty years later, on a renewed perception that the public health system was once again lacking, the city administration approved a sublease of Coney Island Hospital from HHC to PHS New York, Inc. (PHS), a private, for-profit entity.

Democrazy—Dem Go Craze, O: Monitoring the 1999 Nigerian Elections

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Darren Kew
Keyword(s):  
Transition Program ◽  
The Political ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Soccer Match ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Military

In many respects, the least important part of the 1999 elections were the elections themselves. From the beginning of General Abdusalam Abubakar’s transition program in mid-1998, most Nigerians who were not part of the wealthy “political class” of elites—which is to say, most Nigerians— adopted their usual politically savvy perspective of siddon look (sit and look). They waited with cautious optimism to see what sort of new arrangement the military would allow the civilian politicians to struggle over, and what in turn the civilians would offer the public. No one had any illusions that anything but high-stakes bargaining within the military and the political class would determine the structures of power in the civilian government. Elections would influence this process to the extent that the crowd influences a soccer match.

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