This Path program will explore the complex nature and role of love as it is presented in Buddhist psychology and Western psychotherapeutic theory and practice. From the inception of both traditions, there has been ample commentary on the function of love. In Buddhist traditions, it is addressed in the Brahmaviharas, a foundational practice that encourages curiosity about how and who we love. In the psychotherapeutic tradition, it has been suggested that a primary developmental need is to both give and receive love from our earliest experience of relationship. And yet, the nature of love can easily hide behind an array of other feelings and needs akin to, but distinct from, love as it’s understood in these healing traditions.
For clinicians, this course will provide opportunities to explore the therapeutic nature of love and the importance of consciously working with it in clinical treatment. Themes will include the therapist’s experience of love for the patient, and the patient’s longing to feel and be loved by the therapist. The role of needed boundaries alongside the need for human affective arisings that include the tenderness of love, affection, and protectiveness, will be addressed. For meditators, this course will offer a deepening understanding of the spiritual challenges posed by authentic love and efforts to cultivate it with fewer unconscious conditions. Primary themes will include the relationship between equanimity and love; the nature of love when explored through the lens of the wisdom teachings; and healing interventions in both traditions that restore this most generative and essential part of the human condition.
Retreat I: The Role of Love I: The Buddhist Psychology of Lovingkindness
In the foundational teachings of the Buddhist tradition, there are nuanced explorations of heart-centered states, from the Brahmaviharas and the Paramitas. In this module, we will explore the teachings of lovingkindness and equanimity, the wisdom teachings of the Heart Sutra, and the paramitas of generosity and patience, as a way in to this tradition’s understanding of our capacity for love, even in the face of interpersonal difficulties and strife. We will also explore the Tibetan Buddhist practice of imaginative mentor-bonding as a psychologically illuminating practice for giving and receiving love and affection.
Retreat II: The Role of Love II: Love in the Clinical Space
Beginning with the inception of the psychotherapeutic tradition, theorists from Fairbairn to Ferenczi and Balint, all made efforts to map out the role of love in human development. It took generations of clinicians to bring us to our contemporary appreciation for the importance of love in clinical work, to consciously risk feeling love for those seeking therapeutic support, and to appropriately and therapeutically receive the love experienced by the client. In this module, we will explore the insights of Dan Shaw, Stephen Mitchell, and Jessica Benjamin as we think through the therapeutic nature of love and how to skillfully feel and express love for patients and clients.
Retreat III: The Role of Love III: Restoring Love in Buddhism & Psychotherapy
In this last module, we will examine the healing methods offered in both traditions for psychological and spiritual suffering due to loss of primary relationships, early interpersonal thwarting, and trauma. Together, we will reflect on the nature of the healing dyad as it is offered in psychotherapy and Buddhism, contrasting the dynamics, both beneficial and dangerous, of the clinical dyad and the spiritual mentor/disciple dyad. We will also explore love as it arises in relationships between parents and children, partners, and friends. Together, we will practice the various methods provided in each tradition, including mutual recognition, exploration of transference and countertransference, mindfulness of feelings, the Brahmaviharas, and healing visualization.
Program Format: Retreat days will include silent and guided meditation, presentations, and small and large group discussions.
