Psychotherapistsâ interest in Buddhist traditions, once described as a new popular trend, should today be considered an established feature of the mental health field in the United States. Recognizing their religio-cultural import, religious studies scholars increasingly attend to cliniciansâ approaches to Buddhist teachings and practices. However, existing literature on this topic frequently overlooks therapistsâ own reportage about their activities. As a consequence, the variety of approaches that clinicians have taken to Buddhist traditions are often lost in the sweep of totalizing interpretations. Scholars declare these phenomena to be cases of either secularization or religious transmission. Commentators who herald a âspread of the Dharmaâ do not sufficiently acknowledge those who believe they are successful in secularizing Buddhist practices for audiences unaware of their origins. Meanwhile, those who describe the âsecularization of Buddhismâ brush over therapists who advance a Buddhist qua religious path as superior source of psychological healing. Moreover, such analyses do not account for recent scholarship demonstrating that categories like âreligionâ and âsecularâ have been socially co-constructed by particular communities for particular purpose. I conduct textual analysis, personal interviews with formative published clinicians, and ethnographic observation at continuing education conferences where therapists receive training on aspects of these approaches. I show that psychotherapists are molded by their own understandings of what defines âreligionâ and âsecular.â Therapistsâ relative levels of investment in preserving psychotherapyâs qualification as a secular biomedical discipline produce a multiplicity of treatments of Buddhist traditions. I delineate six overlapping sets of approaches that therapists take to Buddhist teachings and practices. Clinicians have (1) therapized, (2) filtered, (3) translated, (4) personalized, (5) adopted, and (6) integrated those elements of Buddhist traditions they view as religious. My study offers a more accurate description of these phenomena. It also clarifies how the ongoing re-construction of categories like âreligionâ and âsecularâ function âon-the-ground.â I demonstrate that these concepts are not only abstract categories for scholarly classification but concrete determinants of behavior for contemporary communities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07262016-201838 |
| Date | 29 July 2016 |
| Creators | Helderman, Ira Philip |
| Contributors | David L. McMahan, Volney P. Gay, Robert Ford Campany, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Ruth Rogaski |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07262016-201838/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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