Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion. By Ira Helderman. University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 328 pages. $90.00 (cloth), $29.95 (paper), $22.95 (e-book).
摘要
Ira Helderman tracks the close relationship between psychotherapy and Buddhism from the late nineteenth century to the present. The author approaches his subject from the vantage of a practicing psychotherapist and Buddhist sympathizer with a PhD in religious studies. He invites readers to empathize with the dilemma of therapists who are trying to help people who are desperately hurting amidst social pressures while keeping psychotherapy separate from religion. Helderman argues that “clinicians prioritize the care of those who come to them for therapy and, to that end, will seek means to subvert economic and political structures against offering religious treatment” (243). The question of how therapists understand and act on their understandings of "religion," "Buddhism," "science," "psychotherapy," and "spirituality" drives the narrative. The stakes are, however, less theoretical than practical: clinicians struggle day-to-day to respond to actual suffering people. Helderman argues that specific interpretations of "Buddhism," primarily from non-Asian converts or sympathizers, have shaped modern psychotherapy in the United States and that psychotherapists have, in turn, significantly influenced these interpretations of Buddhism. Thus, the book’s title refers both to prescribing therapies inspired by Buddhist traditions and to prescribing what counts as Buddhism. Drawing on fifteen interviews, participant observation at three conferences, and close analysis of published writings, the book develops a typology of six ways that psychotherapists make use of Buddhist concepts and practices. Helderman names these approaches: therapizing, filtering, translating, personalizing, adopting, and integrating.
