Han de Wit 0204
(continued)
So personally, I’m not so inclined to ask whether there is a middle way between Buddhism and psychotherapy. I wouldn’t put it like that, but I can say: if psychotherapy is performed with this spiritual understanding of the great and difficult reality of human existence in the background, then this will of course come through in the therapy session in one way or another. But if somebody with agoraphobia sees a psychotherapist with this different background, that does not mean that he will be treated in a different way because of it. The therapist will deal with the problem using all the techniques – behavioral techniques, or whatever – that are usually used for liberating people from these kinds of problems. And after successful therapy you will end up with two people, the therapist and the client, who are both free from neurotic patterns, and who can talk with each other about the great existential problems of life such as sickness, old age and death, and who can say: “Do you also have difficulties dealing with these? Yes, so do I!”. This is on an equal level. What the Buddha did, and what the great spiritual traditions do, is to look at these difficulties to see whether we can do anything about it. This is how I see the relationship.