Buddhist Psychology

As part of my personal growth journey, I'm taking this class on Buddhist psychology. The text book, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology is amazing. I recommend it for everyone.

Sexual Health and Covey’s 7 Habits

My approach to sexual health integrates other helpful tools. Sometimes these tools are implicit such as the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. You can read more at Wikipedia, but a super-brief summary is here with an application to sexual health.

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Your choices are the primary determining factor for effectiveness in your life. Take responsibility for your choices and the subsequent consequences that follow. In the sexual health workbooks, I highlight this concept as assertiveness, integrity, and responsibility. You are where you are at because of choices you’ve made. It is no accident.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Clarify your values and life goals. I ask you to think about how a sexually healthy life would look, and help you put in place the values that reflect the sexual health.

Habit 3: Put First Things First
Review and assess if your behaviors reflect your values, and move you toward your goals. This is an ongoing task. Simply working through the workbook is the first part; reviewing the progress in response in the workbook is an ongoing task.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Valuing and respecting people by understanding a "win" for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution. Your work in the workbook is done in the community of your support group including your partner. Sexual health isn’t a free-for-all, but sexual health may require difficult choices.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
Talking about sexual health leads to a deeper understanding of yourself and others. Engaging in respectful conversations can create amazing intimacy, and profound transformation. Your primary source of information occurs when you understand other’s journeys are a reflection of your journey.

Habit 6: Synergize
Long-term recovery in sexual health can only be done in a network. One of the first and one of the last assignments both address developing and confirming your support network. It is often the task people avoid.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
I concur with Covey’s importance of maintaining a balanced program in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. I obviously add a fifth area of sexuality.

Habit 8: Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.
In a later book, Covey adds an 8th Habit. This habit isn’t too different from the 12th step. By finding your truth in sexual health, you attract and promote sexual health in others. Simply standing in your truth allows others to seek their truth.


To your good sexual health!

Deception, Sexual Health, and Spirituality.

Those who live by self-deception will perish by self-deception.
Children of Dune, Frank Herbert

Having an abundance of time sitting on an airplane returning from an extended vacation, I ran across the above quote. When it comes to sexuality, I experience a lot of individuals struggling with self-deception. It might be self-deception related to the quality of their relationship, or the level of compulsivity, or simply deception about their inner desires. What strikes me about the quote is that those living in self-deception are in a type of spiritual death.




The show I was watching. OK, so I'm a bit of a sci-fi geek!

Are you a counselor or a minister? -My 100th post

A student of mine recently referred to homosexuality as abomination quoting the traditional scriptural references. Given the context, I sternly but respectfully challenged the student to address the cultural bias in his statement. The fact that it occurs in a graduate level course on multiculturalism is a “small problem” (tongue in cheek!). The fact that the program is a Mental Health Counseling program is also a “small problem” (tongue in cheek, again!).

What I would love to say to my students is that they have a choice. You can choose to be a counselor or you can choose to be a minister. If your choice is to be a counselor, you must base your practice on the science of psychology. Being a counselor means that your theology may inform your psychology, but it does not dictate your psychology.

If, in any way, your theology dictates your psychology, you are a minister. Stop the illusion of being a counselor. While I may disagree with your theology, I respect your right to choose a life as a minister. But don’t use the guise of psychology to push your theology. That is malpractice and unethical in my opinion.

The area of human sexuality is where the most damage occurs when theology is confused as psychology. The science of psychology is relatively settled when the issue of abstinence based safer-sex approaches are evaluated. They programs don’t work. In some cases, they create MORE harm.

The question of homosexuality is another area. Despite the research, too many counselors continue to subscribe to the abomination theory of homosexuality; a theory that is simply not supported. You can extend the conversation into areas of masturbation and fantasy.

Are you a counselor or a minister? Choose.

Examples of Values for Creating your future

In reviewing the assignments in the workbook, I was asked to update and provide examples of certain values that could be used to shape your future behaviors. The original assignment was posted on Tuesday, August 5, 2008. The following examples are descriptive values.

Justice is often thought of as holding people accountable, sort of like a punishment. This is a start, but justice is also about restoring a sense of harmony and connectedness. Justice is more that just fairness, but also about the common good for all.

Peace is the absence of conflict, but it also includes the ideas of harmony, connectedness and common purpose. Peace also refers to a sense of internal purpose, groundedness, and a sense of internal acceptance. Within the concept of peace is a connection to justice.

Generosity is often seen as giving toward others on a monetary level. Beyond money, generosity can include giving of talent and time. Generosity also includes the concept of focusing on others and the common good. Generosity is giving someone the benefit of the doubt by interpreting comments and statements from a view toward growth versus failures.

Love often focuses on a strong emotional attachment. The English understanding of Love is based on the term “charity” which can include a sense of unconditional acceptance of another person. Much of current Christianity uses the concept of Love without fully understanding the history.

Wisdom is more than intelligence, but the application of experience with knowledge. Within the concept is a sense of integrity and groundedness. Applying wisdom creates justice. Justice can also include leading by experience.

Spirituality and the Sex Offender

This is the second topic I presented at at the MNATSA Annual Conference. While the file is too large to post online, if you are interested in this topic, please contact me. I'm willing to share the material.

Spirituality and Sexual Health

One of the approaches to treating sexual compulsivity is the use of the 12-steps. In my work, I don’t use this method. Nevertheless, I do recognize the importance of spirituality. In many ways, I think spirituality can shape and focus our values, goals and behaviors. The goal for this section is to help you clarify “How consistent with my spiritual values is this behavior?”

It is important to start out the conversation about spirituality by introducing a distinction between spirituality and religiosity. The distinction reflects the different between the individual and the community. Spirituality reflects my faith, values, and experiences of the holy. Religion/religiosity reflects our community’s experience of faith, values and the experiences of the holy. The two are different, but yet related. It is through my experience of spirituality that I connect with a community of faith.

This distinction helps us address a number of religious barriers to spiritual health. The two issues I raise are fundamentalism and lack of education. Fundamentalism occurs in two primary ways: scriptural fundamentalism and dogmatic fundamentalism. This entry isn’t designed to go into great detail of fundamentalism. Essentially, fundamentalism sets up a thinking error that one particular view of scripture or one particular belief is the only right belief. What this creates is a series of judgments about who qualifies as a person of faith, or the one-way that faith can be expressed. In other words, this is the one and only way. In an attempt to help people, the fundamentalist approach usually results in excluding others.

I also think a lack of education is a barrier to spiritual health. Too many people simply have too little education in their faith tradition to begin the process of uncovering the richness of their tradition. In my own experience, not many people can explain many of the dogmas and doctrines. Some of these religious beliefs can provide a rich resource for future growth. From a personal point of view, my religious faith affirms the power of forgiveness, redemption and value of the individual. As a person moves toward increased spiritual health, it might be helpful to increase your education within your tradition. This might be helpful in affirming your sexual health.

The process of developing a sense of spirituality is to recognize the importance of story. Spirituality starts and ends with a theology of story. This is a process where we identify experiences of God (and by “God”, I mean higher power, goddess, spirit, wisdom, the absolute, the “all,” etc. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to use “God.”) A theology of story helps us recognize that scripture is simply a collection of stories of people’s experiences of God. Typically, these oral stories were written down, collected and “canonized” across time. In other words, a person had an experience of God, shared it with another person who was so inspired that they shared it with others. The application of the theology of story to our daily living is important. A theology of story asks “What experiences of God in my life have I encountered?” Experiences of God are not limited to scripture. They happen all the time. It is recognizing the experiences that we begin the process of seeing how God is present in our life.

The difficulty with story is that we have lost the ability to share and add new stories. Many people deny or minimize their experiences of the holy. Furthermore, because of fundamentalism, scriptures have unfortunately become a basis to condemn people instead of being a collection of people’s experience of God. The use of scriptures as a weapon has led to a difficulty sharing our personal stories within the religious traditions. For me, part of the process of developing spirituality is to understand how we experience God in various ways.

To do this, I want to set up a positive position on sexuality by establishing a goal-orientated spirituality. I want to highlight three similar approaches to understanding spirituality. These approaches are positive spirituality, generativity, and creative mythology. Positive Spirituality emphasizes a process of uncovering the values by which I choose to live my life. It is future oriented. It is the process by which we make decisions and express our values as a reflection of our experience of God. Positive Spirituality focuses on goals or values such as wholeness, integrity, fidelity, growth, etc. that a person seeks to express. For those with a religious tradition, these values which we choose to live by can come from our community experience. There is a lot in of values or beliefs identified in the scriptures and various traditions that can be positive. Examples can include love, integrity and responsibility. In the development of a positive spirituality, the individual identifies new ways to express the presence of God’s action in their life. These values are then used to shape their life. A typical example of this is the “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do) bumper sticker. A person with a WWJD has declared “As a Christian, who believes in Jesus, I use his life to shape my behavior as an expression of by beliefs.”

Whereas positive spirituality is future focused, generativity focuses on the “now.” Generativity is the question/value of how a person involved is being made whole, generated or regenerated in his/her life. Generativity asks the question: “How am I being made whole in the now?” In other words, in this behavior (or with this thought) am I brought to a sense of wholeness/fullness, or am I left distracted and broken. In the realm of sexual health, is this behavior helpful or a hindrance to my well being.

A third approach to developing a person’s spirituality is the concept of Creative Mythology based on research by Joseph Campbell. For him, Creative Mythology focuses on how meaning is created and conveyed in people’s lives. He defines Creative Mythology as “present when an individual has an experience of order, horror, beauty, exhilaration, which seeks to be communicated through signs, images, and words. If this realization has a certain depth and import, touching the heart, his communication will have the value and force of a living myth.”

The part that I like is the experience of something amazing, either good or bad, that shifts your understanding of reality. It is in this experience that you have a connection to God. This experience is then shared with other people. Creative mythology is an attempt to express meaning in a person’s life of something greater. Mythology is a way my heart speaks to your heart. (Notice the similarity between creative mythology and the concept of intimacy as discussed in the intimacy section.)

Integration

It may be helpful to review your understanding of scripture and tradition to create a positive approach to morality and higher power: scripture and tradition are not always an enemy to spirituality. Within a tradition, a sense of wholeness and acceptance is possible. A community is created through tradition, whether it be a long-term tradition such as the Catholic tradition or the short-term tradition of fellowship after a 12-step group.

Spirituality also requires a person to make a commitment to take responsibility for his/her life. You need to step forward to identify and claim values toward which you will work in your life. What works for me won’t necessarily work from you. While we may learn from each other, our path is uniquely our own.

Such an approach is not easy, particularly in an American society in which the media emphasizes to get by with the least possible.

For some people, it may not be possible to use scripture or tradition as a way to shape their spirituality. I also recommend a number of other resources. There are some very good authors and/or experiences available. Three examples of these are provided here. I highlight them simply as examples, rather than instructions on activities to complete.

• Landmark Education or similar programs focus on creating possibility
• Course in Miracles
• Power of Intention (Dwyer)
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey)

Finally, another strategy is to start from your personal experience. The following exercise may be helpful.

• First, name three people who inspire you. These people may be real/fictional, living/dead, someone you know, or simply someone you read about. For each individual, highlight why this person is an inspiration to you. Examine the values that they expressed in their life. As you think about each individual, you may start to identify themes that are important to you.
• Second, name three times when you’ve experience a sense of timelessness. In this sense, timelessness is the experience of time passing without awareness. Think of a young child playing outside all day. You yell to the child “Come, in for bed.” To the child, the day passed with a sense of timelessness. They simply were completely in the moment. As an example, some individual sessions with clients pass so quickly, I simply didn’t realize the time was gone. Other, as you could guess, drag on. In the moments that they passed quickly, I look for the themes that made the time pass quickly. (I also use the other moments for self-reflection; I can learn from them as well!)
• Third, as you examine the individuals and experiences in your life that are important, highlight common themes, values, and experiences. These common themes, in my opinion, are expressions of your experience of God in your daily living. In more formal theology, you have experienced the immanence of God in your life connecting you to the transcendence of God.

Final word

It is important to emphasize that spirituality is not an end product. Each of us, as we’ve come to understand our experiences of God in our experiences of a Higher Power, of the holy, of the sacred, have developed images, stories, and ideas that we communicate to other people through our stories. It’s an ongoing process and we take our history with us.

Final-Final Word

He who knows, knows not.
He who knows not, knows.

Joseph Campbell
Power of Myth