#my childhood psychiatrist seemed to live by the philosophy of ‘if it worked before and isn’t enough now just take even more’

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I’ll make myself tea, drink half of it, forget it, and then be less sure what i want to do when I find it again three hours later

[aboycalledeverything]

An In-depth Response to JK Rowling from a Transman

**CW: transphobia, suicide, surgery, discrimination, assault**

Let me first say that we should not allow this conversation to derail the progress and momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement. Though race and sexuality intersect in many fascinating and important ways, it is important to allow the voices of our BlPOC to be heard and amplified for as long as it takes for meaningful, sweeping changes to be made in our society. That being said, I would be remiss if I did not take the time to process and respond to the conversation you have chosen to bring to the table. 

TLDR: To JK’s assertion that trans women threaten the political and biological class of ‘women’,  Acknowledging that trans women are women is not the erosion of a political and biological class. It is strengthening those classes by accepting the women who, despite all threats of assault or death, stand by their identity and celebrate womanhood.

Let me also begin by saying thank you. For surviving, for persisting, for blessing the world with the gift of magic. The books-which-need-not-be-named were and are pillars of my childhood, identity, and life philosophy. I will never stop finding solace in the pages of those books. 

Before we can continue the conversation, I need to introduce myself. I am a (relatively) young white transman and former D1 softball player. I chose to defer physical transition but came out socially as a transman in my sophomore year and was one of the few openly trans NCAA athletes at the time. I was also a student, and spent a large portion of my collegiate career studying LGBTQ+ issues and how they connect to human psychology. My senior capstone was a paper titled “Transmen and Suicide: Unique Contributors to a Disproportionately High Suicide Attempt Rate.” This involved both an in-depth literature review of trans research and theory as well as an independent collection and analysis of transman testimonies. The year after graduation was spent as a Lab Coordinator for the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: Health and Human Rights Lab at the University of Texas at Austin which does phenomenal sociological and psychological research on queer youth in particular. This is not to say that I am an expert, but rather to make it clear that I, too, have spent years researching the fraught topics of gender and sexuality.

Thank you for referring to my trans brothers as “notably sensitive and clever people.” We do try to use the unique empathy granted by being seen and treated as both women and men. Most of us grew up as girls and have been targeted by the misogyny and sexism that you reference; we try to use those experiences to inform our responses and opinions to societal issues. I, specifically, am going to use my lived experiences to respond to your essay. There are some points with which I agree and appreciate your recognition - freedom of speech, the importance of nuanced conversation, and the fact that both women and trans people are at disproportionate risk of violence and must be safeguarded. There are other points with which I take umbrage and will address one by one.

JKR: “It’s been clear to me for a while that the new trans activism is having (or is likely to have, if all its demands are met) a significant impact on many of the causes I support, because it’s pushing to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.”

Response:  Let’s be clear: trans activists - at least the majority of us - are not trying to erase sex as a definition. Instead, we are asking that the parameters be reconsidered to make space for intersex people and who have biologically transitioned. Your points about the biological differences in treatments for MS are well taken. Ignoring intersex people and focusing on only the binary sexes male and female, you’re right. There are often sex differences in diseases and health disorders. But the problem is that we don’t always know what drives those differences; if they’re based on hormones, physical bodies, or something else entirely. Intersex and trans people, if they choose, now have the medical capability to change their hormones and physical bodies to the extent that they can be classified as male or female.

I’m not going to give you a full explanation on sex as an expression of levels of hormones, chromosomes, and physical organs. I’m sure you already know that both biological men and women have varying amounts of the same hormones, and that hormone replacement therapy can and does give trans men and women the hormonal levels that correspond to each definition. I have been taking testosterone for just under 2 years and, for all intents and purposes, have the chemistry of a biological man. In the same way, surgeries can and do affect physical biology and organ makeup, from removal or reconstruction of a penis or vagina to the removal of ovaries and uterus entirely. 

This creates a gray area as to how to medically treat diseases like MS in trans people. We’re still learning, and I’ll be the first to admit that. What I can say is that there are many binary trans people who are not trying to replace legal definitions of sex with gender, but rather are trying to expand the legal definitions of sex to those who, for all intents and purposes, are biologically male or female.

JKR: “I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility. Some say they decided to transition after realising they were same-sex attracted, and that transitioning was partly driven by homophobia, either in society or in their families.”

Response:  I would very much like to see the studies that you are referencing in this “huge explosion” of detransitioning individuals. If you’re referencing the article by Lisa Littman, it is definitely worth noting that her study was a) descriptive rather than empirical and b) based on the testimonials of parents and not the actual trans youth.

According to a different and arguably more experienced researcher, Dr. Johanna Olsen, regret and detransitioning as you talk about it are extremely rare. I encourage you to watch her video below and read over some of the other research she is and has been doing.

Even if we were to listen to descriptive research such as Littman’s and assume that there are people who wish to detransition, the lack of fertility you’re talking about is not universal and, as with people assigned female at birth, varies. According to recent studies, trans men who wish to reproduce biologically can take a break from testosterone while carrying their children and resume afterwards. So far, there are no negative side effects for the children of transmen.

What should also be considered, especially in youth, is that hormone blockers are entirely reversible. But puberty is not. When trans children are put on hormone blockers, they are essentially delaying permanent puberty and taking time to examine whether it’s right for them. Access to medical care such as hormone blockers are essential to trans youth because it does give them time to figure out their identity before going through the male or female puberty that affects them.

I have not seen any cases of transition driven by homophobia, but would like to note that working to make parents less homophobic and transphobic seems to be a better use of time than arguing against the right of many trans youth who do need access to medical intervention.

JKR: “The argument of many current trans activists is that if you don’t let a gender dysphoric teenager transition, they will kill themselves. In an article explaining why he resigned from the Tavistock (an NHS gender clinic in England) psychiatrist Marcus Evans stated that claims that children will kill themselves if not permitted to transition do not ‘align substantially with any robust data or studies in this area. Nor do they align with the cases I have encountered over decades as a psychotherapist.’”

Response: This point is one of the more frustrating parts of your article because it is using one medical professional’s opinion to ignore a horrifying truth. Trans adults and youths experience suicidality and depression at staggering rates. While I cannot comment on studies in the UK, here in the US the lifetime suicide ideation rates for trans adults is 81.7%. The attempt rate is 40.4%, almost 10x the national average of 4.6%. 

And those are just the statistics of the people who survived long enough to participate in the study. Denying the real threat of suicidality in trans youth is not only saddening - it is actively harmful.

JKR: “The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. I struggled with severe OCD as a teenager. If I’d found community and sympathy online that I couldn’t find in my immediate environment, I believe I could have been persuaded to turn myself into the son my father had openly said he’d have preferred.”

Response: This is one of the most frequent arguments I see for people denying trans men their identity. My own mother has suggested that I transitioned to escape sexism. To this, I respond that choosing to transition does not provide an escape to discrimination and harrassment. I was well aware, when choosing to come out and transition, of the statistics of discrimination I was entering. I was well aware that it might mean the loss of my athletic scholarship, the dismissal of the team of sisters that I played on, It was not a matter of escaping sexism, but rather a matter of being my most authentic self. Even if you dismiss my own personal experience, I would point to the trans women who actively transition and give up their male privilege in exchange for the trials and tribulations of womanhood. Either way, I can assure you that the suicidality trans people experience makes the “choice” to transition no more of a choice than raising your hands because a gun is pointed at your head. 

JKR:  “ I want to be very clear here: I know transition will be a solution for some gender dysphoric people, although I’m also aware through extensive research that studies have consistently shown that between 60-90% of gender dysphoric teens will grow out of their dysphoria”

Response:  I appreciate your recognition of our reality! I would love to see the studies that present a 30% difference. In my experience, those of us that lived long enough to see adulthood have not grown out of dysphoria, even if we’ve learned coping strategies to make it bearable. And again, hormone blockers for teens allow the opportunity for them to grow however they need to without permanent changes being made.

JKR:  “So I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe. When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman – and, as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones – then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside.”

Response:  Once again I cannot speak to the politics or legislation of the UK. What I can say is that “bathroom bans” on trans people that require us to use the fitting room/bathroom/locker room of the sex we were assigned at birth lead to significant sexual and physical assault on trans people, which already face a disproportionate risk (as you mentioned). I personally have been fortunate enough to have not been physically assaulted when I was trying to go to the bathroom, but have been harassed in both mens and womens bathrooms (which I varied between during my transition, depending on how well I thought I was passing). Many of my friends are not as lucky.

JKR:  “But, as many women have said before me, ‘woman’ is not a costume. ‘Woman’ is not an idea in a man’s head. ‘Woman’ is not a pink brain, a liking for Jimmy Choos or any of the other sexist ideas now somehow touted as progressive.”

Response:  The implication that trans women - who are literally dying to be acknowledged as women - putting on a “costume” is flagrantly offensive. I am choosing to believe that you did not intend this implication and instead are confusing sex and gender. In which case,would refer you to the seminal work Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler. According to her, gender is literally a performance that one chooses to express. Transwomen define their gender and femininity as individuals, and do not choose to go through the grueling process of changing their biological sex because they like Jimmy Choos. The gender ‘woman’ is not a “pink brain” but rather an identity that can be inwardly cultivated and outwardly expressed. The sex ‘woman’ or female is an amalgamation of complex physiological systems that, as we’ve already discussed, can be altered. 

JKR: “I refuse to bow down to a movement...” 

Response: There is undeniably a movement, a “cancel culture” that dismisses nuanced conversation. I, like you, am concerned about the erosion of free speech and the expression of alternative points of view in nuanced discussions such as this one. But this movement is not specific to trans people and should not be described as such. Most trans activists and researchers that I know are not asking you to “bow down.” We’re asking you to come to the table and have an open mind. We’re asking you to use your huge platform to help trans people (as you clearly want to) without harming them (as you clearly have).

JKR: “...that I believe is doing demonstrable harm in seeking to erode ‘woman’ as a political and biological class and offering cover to predators like few before it.”

Response: This is the crux of the “TERF wars”. The refusal to accept trans women as women. To this, I would simply say: Acknowledging that trans women are women is not the erosion of a political and biological class. It is strengthening those classes by accepting the women who, despite all threats of assault or death, stand by their identity and celebrate womanhood.

[specialchan]

PLEASE READ - Struggling with Islam - ADHD via /r/islam

PLEASE READ - Struggling with Islam - ADHD

Salaam brothers/ sisters,

This post is about Islam specifically but the issues I describe below were present in almost every aspect of my life since childhood. No TL;DR on this post unfortunately as the full story is important. This will be really long so I don't expect everyone to get through it. Just for context, I'm from the UK so views may differ by location. I'm the middle child of 5 siblings, mainly grew up with the 2 older ones as there is a big gap between us 3 and the younger 2 siblings.

Note: The way my parents/ Madrassa teachers treated me as a child is no reflection on Islam. Islam doesn't teach parents to abuse anyone let alone kids. I do indeed love Islam more than anything despite past struggles. Also, this isn't a post to shit on my parents, they've given up everything for me and my siblings and raised us with love and affection. May they be granted into the highest heavens.

From a young age my parents, may Allah be please with them, always tried to instill Islamic teachings to my siblings and I. We were taught about Salah, Hijab, the Prophets lives etc. and always had an abundance of hadith books in the house which we would read. We were also sent to Madrassa to learn Quran and Islam in more depth.

However, it seemed when compared to my siblings I was the troublesome child. If we couldn't go to the mosque, my dad would lead prayers at home for the family. I would move and look around, make noises and try to distract my siblings. During madrassa lessons I would try to read Quran but always struggled. My Tajweed would often be incorrect and found reading Arabic difficult despite being exposed to it at a young age. The Quran classes were set by age group and compared to the rest of my peers I was falling behind. I was still reading the Juz Amma, they made us read before the rest of the Quran, whilst everyone else was reading other Surahs which dropped me behind.

My parents are from Bangladesh so have a very "traditional" method of parenting. They thought my disobedience and lack of focus during madrassa and prayers were because of Shaytan. I was often beaten as they attempted to "get rid of the devil". This of course never solved my issues and I would continue slacking in Islamic class and acting out during prayers so it was a constant cycle. I also, until about the age of 12, regularly wet the bed so this reinforced their idea of me being possessed. All of this, along with the fact that the Mosque teachers would always shame me for struggling with Quran and point to younger students who surpassed me, unfortunately caused me to resent Islam more and more. My older siblings completed the Quran whilst I was still there trying to finish one juz, the whole experience was humiliating.

Despite all this, I still had an intense fascination with Islam and religion in general. During the classes I was often the first to answer questions regarding Islam, these ranged from those about the Prophets to those regarding Islamic law etc. I would even debate in school with Non-Muslims about religion and consciousness with no hesitation in defending my beliefs. One of the Madrassa teachers was very receptive to my ideas and was the only one who didn't shame me, he would often comment on how he was impressed with my broad Islamic knowledge and this was despite my struggles with Arabic. Unfortunately he left and the hostility I faced from other teachers continued, I started bunking classes and taking walks around the park or anything to kill time. Classes were only 2 hours Mon-Fri so I was never waiting around too long before I could go home.

My parents finally ended my classes when I was 16 as I had to study for school exams. However, as time went by, the negative feelings towards religion grew. My parents would non-stop curse me and compare me to my siblings, even the younger ones could read / pray better than me. I then stopped praying completely, I was too old for my parents to physically beat anymore so there parenting methods stopped working. It's been many years now but Islam remains dear to me and I will practice again properly Inshallah.

Now 21 I was diagnosed with ADHD a few weeks ago, I was overwhelmed with emotion when the psychiatrist gave me his finding. I tried many things before the diagnosis to help me, I changed my diet, exercised, used noortropic supplements but nothing seemed to work. He explained that people with ADHD often struggle with focus, impulsiveness, hyperactivity etc. The frontal lobes in our brain don't work as well as they do in "normal" people, this part of the brain is responsible for things like language, attention, motivation, impulse control etc. We also produce lower levels of norepinephrine which works to increase attention and arousal, lack of this neurotransmitter can lapse in focus. All of this seemed to explain my struggles.

The psychiatrist also mentioned that children who tend to be "more intelligent" (I put quotations as I believe intelligence can't be measured), are often not diagnosed when they are young, they often get diagnosed as adults once they've done their own research. Not to rub my ego too much but this explains my case. Just as with Islamic studies, I also had a broad set of knowledge in normal academic classes. I was always in top set during school and did well in most exams, I took part in philosophy discussions and my teachers would comment positively on my understanding. I would however still get into trouble a lot, I was on report for a couple years and detention was standard after school. But y brain was creative and always though outside the box, this explains why ADHD patients are 6 times likely to start their own business and why so many famous/ successful entrepreneurs have ADHD.

The official diagnosis was bitter sweet, despite finally knowing what caused all my issues, I was angry that everything could've been dealt with better if I was taken to a doctor instead of my parents following backwards parenting techniques. I don't entirely blame them as they are not exactly educated on this topic, as an adult it's up to me to fix everything now.

I've been prescribed some drugs to promote dopamine production in my brain, this helps me focus and reduces restlessness and various other symptoms. It's been 3 weeks and I feel completely different, I now want to try read Quran again. I'll have to re-learn everything as it's been years and I've forgotten tajweed entirely but it would be good to see if it's any easier than my early days.

Please if you have children who are having problems, try to help them instead if beating as I know this is a problem in some of our Muslim communities. Mental health issues are almost entirely dismissed and put down to Shaytan misleading us. Don't push people away from Islam, treat the kids right and get them medical help if needed.

Thank you for taking time to read. All the best!

Submitted August 09, 2020 at 10:32AM by Farhan1900 via reddit https://ift.tt/2PJFqEd

[nancygduarteus]

How Buddhism Became Therapy

Dressed in flowing gold robes, the bald female meditation teacher told us to do nothing. We were to sit silently in our plastic chairs, close our eyes, and focus on our breath. I had never meditated, but I’d gone to church, so I instinctively bowed my head. Then I realized that, since this would last for 15 minutes, I should probably find a more comfortable long-term neck position.

This was the first of two meditation sessions of the Kadampa Buddhism class I attended this week near my house in Northern Virginia, and I did not reach nirvana. Since we were in a major city, occasional sirens outside blasted through the quiet, and since this was a church basement, people were laughing and talking in the hallways. One guy wandered in to ask if this was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The more we focused on our breath, the teacher assured us, the more these distractions would fade away.

After we had meditated for 15 minutes, the teacher shifted focus to the topic of the class: Letting go of resentments. This was the real reason I had come to this meditation class, rather than simply meditating on my own at home with an app. I wanted to learn more about Buddhism and how its teachings might be able to improve my mental health—and that of the myriads of other Americans who have flocked to some form of the religion in recent years. These newcomers aren’t necessarily seeking spiritual enlightenment or a faith community, but rather a quick boost of cognitive healing.

The people I spoke with were young and old, but rarely Buddhist by birth. Perhaps some have just run out of options: Mental-health disorders are up in Western societies, and the answer doesn’t seem to be church attendance, which is down. There’s always therapy, but it’s so expensive. My meditation class was $12.

As she opened a book on Buddhist teachings, the teacher told the class it’s harmful to hold grudges. Resentment feels like holding on to a burning stick and complaining that it’s burning us. And yet, being harmed by someone also hurts. So, the teacher said, the question was this: “What do I do with my mind if I feel like I’ve been harmed by someone?”

Americans everywhere seem to be asking themselves variations on this very question: What do we do with our minds?

The forty-something dad in Los Angeles was plateauing. He had achieved most of his career goals, rising to the level of senior manager at a large company. But the competitive nature of the work had taken its toll on his marriage, and he was in the process of getting a divorce. He rarely saw his grown children. “In short, I am going through a midlife crisis,” the dad told me via email, a few days before I attended the meditation class. (He asked to remain anonymous because his divorce and other struggles aren’t public.)

Last year, this dad turned to traditional psychotherapy for a few months, but he didn’t see as much of a benefit from it as he had hoped. He felt like he was mostly being taught to justify destructive emotions and behaviors. His therapist did, however, recommend two books that were helpful: How to Be an Adult in Relationships, by David Richo, and The Wise Heart by Jack Kornfield. Both authors work in Buddhist themes and ideas, and earlier this year they introduced him to the practice of meditation.

Hungry for more, the dad recently attended a Buddhist meditation class in Hollywood, where he learned ways to deepen his own meditation practice and to change his approach to relationships. Now, he feels more open and is willing to be more vulnerable around his family and friends. “As a Catholic, I struggle with some of the religious concepts,” he says, “But it doesn’t prevent me from adopting the Buddhist techniques and philosophies.” Besides, he told me, it really does seem like the universe is putting Buddhism in front of him now.

Though precise numbers on its popularity are hard to come by, Buddhism does seem to be emerging in the Western, type-A universe. The journalist Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism is True became a bestseller in 2017. Buddhist meditation centers have recently popped up in places like Knoxville, Tennessee, and Lakewood, Ohio. There are now dozens of Buddhist podcasts, which doesn’t include all the apps and playlists that are geared specifically toward personal, non-Buddhist meditation. Four in 10 American adults now say they meditate at least weekly.

Hugh Byrne, the director of the Center for Mindful Living meditation center in Washington, D.C., says the local meditation community has “blossomed in the past few years.” As I stress-Ubered from meeting to meeting in D.C. recently, I noticed a few “meditation spaces” have opened up where far more consumerist establishments used to be. Academic research on mindfulness meditation has also exploded, making what in the West was once an esoteric practice for hippies more akin to a life-hack for all.

Buddhism has been popular in various forms among certain celebrities and tech elites, but the religion’s primary draw for many Americans now appears to be mental health. The ancient religion, some find, helps them manage the slings and arrows and subtweets of modern life. Many people are stressed out by the constant drama of the current administration, and work hours have overwhelmed the day. There’s something newly appealing about a practice that instructs you to just sit, be aware, and realize nothing lasts forever. Perhaps it’s simply comforting to know that the problems that bedevil humans have been around since long before Gmail.

A few themes and ideas seem to unite the disparate experiences of the people I interviewed. The Buddha’s first “Noble Truth” is that “life is suffering,” and many of Buddhism’s newly minted Western practitioners have interpreted this to mean that accepting emotional pain might be preferable to trying to alleviate it. “Buddhism admits that suffering is inevitable,” says Daniel Sanchez, a 24-year-old in New Jersey. “I shouldn’t focus on avoiding suffering, but learn how to deal with suffering.”

In addition to meditating every morning and night, Sanchez reads the Diamond Sutra and Heart Sutra, texts from the early Middle Ages, and listens to zen talks. The sutras are quite a departure from the normal content of psychotherapy, in which one might ponder what truly makes one happy. Buddhist thought suggests that one should not compulsively crave comfort and avoid discomfort, which some see as permission to hop off the hedonic treadmill.

A Colorado life coach named Galen Bernard told me that Comfortable with Uncertainty, by the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, has influenced his well-being more than anything, except perhaps his very first experience on Prozac. He says the book and its teachings have helped him avoid labeling certain experiences as negative by default. For example, transitioning to a friendship with an ex-girlfriend after a breakup was painful for him at first, but Chodron’s and others’ writings helped him see that “it might seem like too much pain,” he says, “but actually it’s just an experience I’m having that … can actually be a portal to joy on the other side.”

For decades, people have been attempting self-improvement through classes and seminars, many of which incorporated elements of Eastern religions. The Human Potential Movement of the 1960s influenced the work of the foundational psychologist Abraham Maslow and, perhaps less positively, the Rajneesh movement documented in the Netflix show Wild Wild Country. In the 1970s, the organization Erhard Seminars Training, or EST, offered courses on how to “take responsibility for your life” and “get it.”

What’s different—and perhaps comforting—about Buddhism is that it’s an existing religion practiced by half a billion people. Because relatively few caucasian Americans grew up Buddhist, they generally don’t associate any familial baggage with it like some do with, say, the Christianity or Judaism of their childhoods. While liberating, this also means that the practice of secular Buddhism often differs dramatically from the religion itself. All of the secular practitioners I spoke with for this piece are reading different books, listening to different podcasts, and following different teachers and traditions. Their interpretations of Buddhist teachings aren’t necessarily consistent with one another or with traditional texts.

I ran some of their insights by an expert in Buddhism, David McMahan at Franklin and Marshall College, who said some of these Western interpretations are slightly morphed from Buddhism’s original cultures and contexts. Buddhism carries with it a set of values and morals that white Americans don’t always live by. Much like “Cafeteria Catholics” ignore parts of the religion that don’t resonate with them, some Westerners focus on only certain elements of Buddhist philosophy and don’t endorse, say, Buddhism’s view of reincarnation or worship of the Buddha. Call them Buffet Buddhists.

Taken out of their Buddhist context, practices like meditation “become like a dry sponge,” McMahan said, “soaking up whatever values are around.” Traditional monks don’t “meditate for business.”

This so-called “secular Buddhism,” says Autry Johnson, a Colorado bartender and tourism worker who meditates regularly, “is a little more accessible to people that wouldn’t primarily identify as Buddhists, or already identify with another religion or philosophy but want to adopt aspects of Buddhist practice to supplement their current worldview.” (Indeed, many meditation centers emphasize that you don’t have to be Buddhist to attend sessions.)

Buffet Buddhism may not be traditional, but its flexibility does allow its adherents to more easily employ the philosophy for an anti-depressive jolt. Some people practice Buddhism and meditation as an alternative to psychotherapy or psychiatric medication, given mental health care’s cost and scarcity: Sixty percent of counties in the U.S. don’t have a single psychiatrist. “I have pretty good health insurance,” Bernard says, “but if I want support, it’s a month and a half to see someone new. Having a resource that I can pop open is invaluable.”

Some people turn to both Buddhism and psychotherapy. “There’s an overlap between the reason people will come to therapy and the reason they come to meditation,” says Byrne, the director of the Center for Mindful Living. Some therapists are even starting to incorporate Buddhist concepts into their practices. Tara Brach, a psychologist and the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C., offers meditations and talks with titles like “From Human Doing to Human Being” on her website. In Texas, the psychologist Molly Layton encourages clients to mindfully “sit with their thoughts,” rather than to “jump into the cycle of their thinking.”

Mary Liz Austin, who practices psychotherapy at the Center for Mindful Living, similarly helps clients see that “it’s the attachment to the outcome that really causes suffering.” Another favorite teaching of hers is Chodron’s aphorism that “everything is workable.” This means, essentially, that something good might come out of even the worst moments. “I’m having an experience right now with my father in law. He’s dying of cancer. It’s a shitty situation,” Austin says. “But what I’m seeing is that the fruits of this cancer diagnosis is everyone is by his bedside, everyone is showing amazing love to him, and that allows the people in your life to show up in a way that you see so much what matters.”

At times, it’s the meditation teachers who sound more like psychotherapists, offering practical tips for dealing with existential quandaries. Byrne, a meditation teacher, wrote a book about the power of mindfulness for habit change. He uses mindfulness meditation to help people understand impermanence, another Buddhist teaching. The idea is to see your emotions and experiences—including anxiety or pain—as constantly changing, “like a weather system coming through,” Byrne says. Everything, eventually, ends.

Cecilia Saad found this to be an especially attractive element of Buddhism. A close friend of hers was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, and Saad was impressed by how calm she remained throughout her diagnosis and treatment. “We’ve talked a lot about her outlook, and she always goes back to her Buddhism,” she says. Now, when Saad is stressed about something, the concept of impermanence helps her to imagine that she’s already survived the event she’s dreading.

At my meditation class, the teacher read from her book in her even, perfectly unaccented voice. The book told us to consider that there are two reasons someone might cause us harm: It’s their nature to be harmful, or a temporary circumstance caused them to act in a harmful way. Either way, the teacher said, it doesn’t make sense to be angry at the person. The nature of water is wet, so you wouldn’t rage at the rain for getting you wet. And you wouldn’t curse the clouds for temporarily having a weather system that causes a downpour.

“When are we compelled to hurt people?” she asked, rhetorically. “When we’re in pain. It’s easy, if you see the fear, to have some compassion.”

She asked us to close our eyes and meditate again, this time while thinking about letting go of resentment toward someone who had harmed us.​ I shifted awkwardly and wondered how the burly guy sitting in front of me wearing a “Lift Life” t-shirt felt. I was having trouble focusing on resentment, and my eyes flickered open involuntarily. It was 30 degrees outside, yet most of the seats were taken. The fullness was uplifting. Still,  it was remarkable that so many of us were willing to stumble through the freezing dark just to take in some basic wisdom about how to be less sad.

In Sunday school, when you opened your eyes during prayer, other kids would tell on you, thereby implicating themselves as having opened their eyes, too. That’s how people are sometimes, I thought: They’ll burn themselves for the chance to harm someone else. I took a deep breath and tried to have compassion for them anyway.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/03/buddhism-meditation-anxiety-therapy/584308/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

How Buddhism Became Therapy

Dressed in flowing gold robes, the bald female meditation teacher told us to do nothing. We were to sit silently in our plastic chairs, close our eyes, and focus on our breath. I had never meditated, but I’d gone to church, so I instinctively bowed my head. Then I realized that, since this would last for 15 minutes, I should probably find a more comfortable long-term neck position.

This was the first of two meditation sessions of the Kadampa Buddhism class I attended this week near my house in Northern Virginia, and I did not reach nirvana. Since we were in a major city, occasional sirens outside blasted through the quiet, and since this was a church basement, people were laughing and talking in the hallways. One guy wandered in to ask if this was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The more we focused on our breath, the teacher assured us, the more these distractions would fade away.

After we had meditated for 15 minutes, the teacher shifted focus to the topic of the class: Letting go of resentments. This was the real reason I had come to this meditation class, rather than simply meditating on my own at home with an app. I wanted to learn more about Buddhism and how its teachings might be able to improve my mental health—and that of the myriads of other Americans who have flocked to some form of the religion in recent years. These newcomers aren’t necessarily seeking spiritual enlightenment or a faith community, but rather a quick boost of cognitive healing.

The people I spoke with were young and old, but rarely Buddhist by birth. Perhaps some have just run out of options: Mental-health disorders are up in Western societies, and the answer doesn’t seem to be church attendance, which is down. There’s always therapy, but it’s so expensive. My meditation class was $12.

As she opened a book on Buddhist teachings, the teacher told the class it’s harmful to hold grudges. Resentment feels like holding on to a burning stick and complaining that it’s burning us. And yet, being harmed by someone also hurts. So, the teacher said, the question was this: “What do I do with my mind if I feel like I’ve been harmed by someone?”

Americans everywhere seem to be asking themselves variations on this very question: What do we do with our minds?

The forty-something dad in Los Angeles was plateauing. He had achieved most of his career goals, rising to the level of senior manager at a large company. But the competitive nature of the work had taken its toll on his marriage, and he was in the process of getting a divorce. He rarely saw his grown children. “In short, I am going through a midlife crisis,” the dad told me via email, a few days before I attended the meditation class. (He asked to remain anonymous because his divorce and other struggles aren’t public.)

Last year, this dad turned to traditional psychotherapy for a few months, but he didn’t see as much of a benefit from it as he had hoped. He felt like he was mostly being taught to justify destructive emotions and behaviors. His therapist did, however, recommend two books that were helpful: How to Be an Adult in Relationships, by David Richo, and The Wise Heart by Jack Kornfield. Both authors work in Buddhist themes and ideas, and earlier this year they introduced him to the practice of meditation.

Hungry for more, the dad recently attended a Buddhist meditation class in Hollywood, where he learned ways to deepen his own meditation practice and to change his approach to relationships. Now, he feels more open and is willing to be more vulnerable around his family and friends. “As a Catholic, I struggle with some of the religious concepts,” he says, “But it doesn’t prevent me from adopting the Buddhist techniques and philosophies.” Besides, he told me, it really does seem like the universe is putting Buddhism in front of him now.

Though precise numbers on its popularity are hard to come by, Buddhism does seem to be emerging in the Western, type-A universe. The journalist Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism is True became a bestseller in 2017. Buddhist meditation centers have recently popped up in places like Knoxville, Tennessee, and Lakewood, Ohio. There are now dozens of Buddhist podcasts, which doesn’t include all the apps and playlists that are geared specifically toward personal, non-Buddhist meditation. Four in 10 American adults now say they meditate at least weekly.

Hugh Byrne, the director of the Center for Mindful Living meditation center in Washington, D.C., says the local meditation community has “blossomed in the past few years.” As I stress-Ubered from meeting to meeting in D.C. recently, I noticed a few “meditation spaces” have opened up where far more consumerist establishments used to be. Academic research on mindfulness meditation has also exploded, making what in the West was once an esoteric practice for hippies more akin to a life-hack for all.

Buddhism has been popular in various forms among certain celebrities and tech elites, but the religion’s primary draw for many Americans now appears to be mental health. The ancient religion, some find, helps them manage the slings and arrows and subtweets of modern life. Many people are stressed out by the constant drama of the current administration, and work hours have overwhelmed the day. There’s something newly appealing about a practice that instructs you to just sit, be aware, and realize nothing lasts forever. Perhaps it’s simply comforting to know that the problems that bedevil humans have been around since long before Gmail.

A few themes and ideas seem to unite the disparate experiences of the people I interviewed. The Buddha’s first “Noble Truth” is that “life is suffering,” and many of Buddhism’s newly minted Western practitioners have interpreted this to mean that accepting emotional pain might be preferable to trying to alleviate it. “Buddhism admits that suffering is inevitable,” says Daniel Sanchez, a 24-year-old in New Jersey. “I shouldn’t focus on avoiding suffering, but learn how to deal with suffering.”

In addition to meditating every morning and night, Sanchez reads the Diamond Sutra and Heart Sutra, texts from the early Middle Ages, and listens to zen talks. The sutras are quite a departure from the normal content of psychotherapy, in which one might ponder what truly makes one happy. Buddhist thought suggests that one should not compulsively crave comfort and avoid discomfort, which some see as permission to hop off the hedonic treadmill.

A Colorado life coach named Galen Bernard told me that Comfortable with Uncertainty, by the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, has influenced his well-being more than anything, except perhaps his very first experience on Prozac. He says the book and its teachings have helped him avoid labeling certain experiences as negative by default. For example, transitioning to a friendship with an ex-girlfriend after a breakup was painful for him at first, but Chodron’s and others’ writings helped him see that “it might seem like too much pain,” he says, “but actually it’s just an experience I’m having that … can actually be a portal to joy on the other side.”

For decades, people have been attempting self-improvement through classes and seminars, many of which incorporated elements of Eastern religions. The Human Potential Movement of the 1960s influenced the work of the foundational psychologist Abraham Maslow and, perhaps less positively, the Rajneesh movement documented in the Netflix show Wild Wild Country. In the 1970s, the organization Erhard Seminars Training, or EST, offered courses on how to “take responsibility for your life” and “get it.”

What’s different—and perhaps comforting—about Buddhism is that it’s an existing religion practiced by half a billion people. Because relatively few caucasian Americans grew up Buddhist, they generally don’t associate any familial baggage with it like some do with, say, the Christianity or Judaism of their childhoods. While liberating, this also means that the practice of secular Buddhism often differs dramatically from the religion itself. All of the secular practitioners I spoke with for this piece are reading different books, listening to different podcasts, and following different teachers and traditions. Their interpretations of Buddhist teachings aren’t necessarily consistent with one another or with traditional texts.

I ran some of their insights by an expert in Buddhism, David McMahan at Franklin and Marshall College, who said some of these Western interpretations are slightly morphed from Buddhism’s original cultures and contexts. Buddhism carries with it a set of values and morals that white Americans don’t always live by. Much like “Cafeteria Catholics” ignore parts of the religion that don’t resonate with them, some Westerners focus on only certain elements of Buddhist philosophy and don’t endorse, say, Buddhism’s view of reincarnation or worship of the Buddha. Call them Buffet Buddhists.

Taken out of their Buddhist context, practices like meditation “become like a dry sponge,” McMahan said, “soaking up whatever values are around.” Traditional monks don’t “meditate for business.”

This so-called “secular Buddhism,” says Autry Johnson, a Colorado bartender and tourism worker who meditates regularly, “is a little more accessible to people that wouldn’t primarily identify as Buddhists, or already identify with another religion or philosophy but want to adopt aspects of Buddhist practice to supplement their current worldview.” (Indeed, many meditation centers emphasize that you don’t have to be Buddhist to attend sessions.)

Buffet Buddhism may not be traditional, but its flexibility does allow its adherents to more easily employ the philosophy for an anti-depressive jolt. Some people practice Buddhism and meditation as an alternative to psychotherapy or psychiatric medication, given mental health care’s cost and scarcity: Sixty percent of counties in the U.S. don’t have a single psychiatrist. “I have pretty good health insurance,” Bernard says, “but if I want support, it’s a month and a half to see someone new. Having a resource that I can pop open is invaluable.”

Some people turn to both Buddhism and psychotherapy. “There’s an overlap between the reason people will come to therapy and the reason they come to meditation,” says Byrne, the director of the Center for Mindful Living. Some therapists are even starting to incorporate Buddhist concepts into their practices. Tara Brach, a psychologist and the founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C., offers meditations and talks with titles like “From Human Doing to Human Being” on her website. In Texas, the psychologist Molly Layton encourages clients to mindfully “sit with their thoughts,” rather than to “jump into the cycle of their thinking.”

Mary Liz Austin, who practices psychotherapy at the Center for Mindful Living, similarly helps clients see that “it’s the attachment to the outcome that really causes suffering.” Another favorite teaching of hers is Chodron’s aphorism that “everything is workable.” This means, essentially, that something good might come out of even the worst moments. “I’m having an experience right now with my father in law. He’s dying of cancer. It’s a shitty situation,” Austin says. “But what I’m seeing is that the fruits of this cancer diagnosis is everyone is by his bedside, everyone is showing amazing love to him, and that allows the people in your life to show up in a way that you see so much what matters.”

At times, it’s the meditation teachers who sound more like psychotherapists, offering practical tips for dealing with existential quandaries. Byrne, a meditation teacher, wrote a book about the power of mindfulness for habit change. He uses mindfulness meditation to help people understand impermanence, another Buddhist teaching. The idea is to see your emotions and experiences—including anxiety or pain—as constantly changing, “like a weather system coming through,” Byrne says. Everything, eventually, ends.

Cecilia Saad found this to be an especially attractive element of Buddhism. A close friend of hers was diagnosed with cancer three years ago, and Saad was impressed by how calm she remained throughout her diagnosis and treatment. “We’ve talked a lot about her outlook, and she always goes back to her Buddhism,” she says. Now, when Saad is stressed about something, the concept of impermanence helps her to imagine that she’s already survived the event she’s dreading.

At my meditation class, the teacher read from her book in her even, perfectly unaccented voice. The book told us to consider that there are two reasons someone might cause us harm: It’s their nature to be harmful, or a temporary circumstance caused them to act in a harmful way. Either way, the teacher said, it doesn’t make sense to be angry at the person. The nature of water is wet, so you wouldn’t rage at the rain for getting you wet. And you wouldn’t curse the clouds for temporarily having a weather system that causes a downpour.

“When are we compelled to hurt people?” she asked, rhetorically. “When we’re in pain. It’s easy, if you see the fear, to have some compassion.”

She asked us to close our eyes and meditate again, this time while thinking about letting go of resentment toward someone who had harmed us.​ I shifted awkwardly and wondered how the burly guy sitting in front of me wearing a “Lift Life” t-shirt felt. I was having trouble focusing on resentment, and my eyes flickered open involuntarily. It was 30 degrees outside, yet most of the seats were taken. The fullness was uplifting. Still,  it was remarkable that so many of us were willing to stumble through the freezing dark just to take in some basic wisdom about how to be less sad.

In Sunday school, when you opened your eyes during prayer, other kids would tell on you, thereby implicating themselves as having opened their eyes, too. That’s how people are sometimes, I thought: They’ll burn themselves for the chance to harm someone else. I took a deep breath and tried to have compassion for them anyway.

Article source here:The Atlantic