Han de Wit 0101
Question: What is the story of contemplative psychology?de Wit: The term "contemplative psychology" came about in the following way: when I began studying psychology I soon realised that psychology, as it is taught at university, actually deals with human behaviour, both verbal and physical. But it tells us very little about the psyche, however. Having realized this, I started looking to see whether there might not be other traditions also dealing with the same subjects as what we now call psychology, things like experiencing, thinking, feeling, motivation, attitude to life, etc. My exploration brought me to the great spiritual traditions, where I soon found an abundance of approaches to the human psyche. The Buddhist traditions, in particular, seem to contain a lot of psychological notions, because Buddhism - as an non-theist tradition not dealing with restoring the relationship between man and god - deals purely and simply with how we act in the world, how we look at things, and how our mind works.
So Buddhism turns out to contains quite a bit of psychology, and not only Buddhism: Christianity too. If you look at the old texts about prayer, for instance, especially those of the desert fathers, you will find many psychological notions. So what I did was to make all these psychological notions visible: put them together on the table, so to speak; which is when you start seeing a kind of psychology emerging. Quite different to academic psychology, but just as adequate, dealing with the matters that as a psychologist you would expect psychology to be all about. And I called it "contemplative psychology", not least because contemplation, in the old meaning of the word – derived from contemplatio – means vision, view (contemplative prayer is an example of this), and it examines the human mind, how our mind influences our experience and how we approach life. And how we can consciously influence this. How we can not only investigate but also lead our mind in a certain direction, following the line of inquiry of the great religious and spiritual traditions, namely how to cultivate the clarity and humanity of our mind.
This is how contemplative psychology came about. I say came about, but actually, I have always felt a bit like a treasure hunter who unearthed something which was had always already been there. Contemplative psychology is in fact the oldest form of psychology known to mankind.
This is how contemplative psychology came about. I say came about, but actually, I have always felt a bit like a treasure hunter who unearthed something which was had always already been there. Contemplative psychology is in fact the oldest form of psychology known to mankind.
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