Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion

Interest in the psychotherapeutic capacity of Buddhist teachings and practices is widely evident in the popular imagination. News media routinely report on the neuropsychological study of Buddhist meditation and applications of mindfulness practices in settings including corporate offices, the U.S. military, and university health centers. However, as Ira Helderman shows, curious investigators have studied the psychological dimensions of Buddhist doctrine for well over a century, stretching back to William James and Carl Jung. These activities have shaped both the mental health field and Buddhist practice throughout the United States. This is the first comprehensive study of the surprisingly diverse ways that psychotherapists have related to Buddhist traditions. Through extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews with clinicians, many of whom have been formative to the therapeutic use of Buddhist practices, Helderman gives voice to the psychotherapists themselves. He focuses on how they understand key categories such as religion and science. Some are invested in maintaining a hard border between religion and psychotherapy as a biomedical discipline. Others speak of a religious-secular binary that they mean to disrupt. Helderman finds that psychotherapists' approaches to Buddhist traditions are molded by how they define what is and is not religious, demonstrating how central these concepts are in contemporary American culture.

About the Author :
Ira Helderman is a psychotherapist in private practice and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Human Development Counseling at Vanderbilt University.

Review :
"[Helderman] raises questions of what are the ramifications of defining religion and how should this inform the process of defining. . . . [A]n outstanding work."--Religious Studies Review "A sensitive, careful, and detailed description of what psychotherapists think about the relationship between Buddhism and clinical practice."--Tricycle "A valuable contribution to understanding both psychotherapy and Buddhism in America. It should be read by scholars in these fields as well as by anyone who wants a ground-up perspective on how people interpret what counts as 'religion' and what difference this makes for how they present themselves and interact with others.'."--Journal of the American Academy of Religion "Helderman is comprehensive and insightful in his study of Buddhism and psychotherapy, and this book, likely to be viewed as authoritative for years, is a must-read for anyone with interest in the interdisciplinary topic."--Nova Religio "Helderman's book is the most accurate, complete, and in-depth exploration of how Western psychotherapists therapize, filter, translate, personalize, adopt, and integrate Buddhism into their theories, lives, and practices yet written, and is likely to remain a classic for years to come."--H-Net Reviews "Important and fascinating. . . . This book insightfully shows how the religious and the secular intertwine and articulate in new ways and how this intertwining carries weight and significance in people's lives and in our institutional and societal fabric."--Journal of Buddhist Ethics