How Mindfulness Meditation Can Support Depth Therapy

Many people choose depth-oriented psychotherapy over other approaches because it brings them into healing contact with the deepest, most misunderstood parts of themselves. But unlike these other approaches—including acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and similar cognitive and/or manualized modalities—depth therapy lacks an explicit mindfulness component. It is, however, highly compatible with mindfulness practice, and many practitioners do incorporate it into their work.

If you’re in depth-oriented therapy and not getting mindfulness training, you may want to consider meditation groups, workshops, or other resources. Meditation—mindfulness meditation in particular—can support you in going deeper, more quickly, in your healing process.

Tolerating Difficult Emotions

In order to really benefit from depth-oriented therapy, we have to be able to tolerate difficult emotions that arise as a consequence of seeing through our defenses. Usually these are emotions from our youth that got unconsciously repressed as a way to protect ourselves when we did not have the capacity to tolerate them. If we are doing real therapeutic work, these difficulties will undoubtedly arise. This is where meditation practice comes in.

When we train in mindfulness, we develop the capacity to be aware of our experience in an equanimous way. We develop a presence that can observe phenomena and not be enthralled by it. This capacity is an essential element when we are looking inward within the therapeutic relationship.

In mindfulness meditation we also train our brains to become more flexible, so that we’re able to concentrate on a single point of awareness and/or open into spacious inclusiveness. For example, at times we may need our minds to sharply focus and stay with a particular emotional defense as a way to loosen it up. Other times, we may need to open up our awareness to include the environment as a way to support being with an experience that may be too painful to tolerate directly. Both of these ways of focusing awareness can be a tremendous support in the therapy process.

The process of therapy will speed up and go deeper as we develop greater capacity to stay present with our experience.

A Fresh Experience of Self

Another important way meditation can support therapy is by providing a different way of experiencing ourselves. At times therapy can focus mainly on the content of our experience, and we can easily get caught up in the mental stories we tell ourselves. These deeply ingrained patterns will not change simply by talking about them or by having insight into their origins (although these are indeed necessary).

When we train in mindfulness, we develop the capacity to be aware of our experience in an equanimous way. We develop a presence that can observe phenomena and not be enthralled by it. This capacity is an essential element when we are looking inward within the therapeutic relationship.

In contrast, mindfulness meditation focuses on experience itself, regardless of content. This phenomenological approach can provide a direct awareness into the structure of our patterns. In other words, we can experience and see directly the actual patterning of our personality, independent of the psychological content. Having an experiential awareness of these phenomena (which meditation provides) while also tracking content (which therapy provides) can be a powerful way of allowing new perspectives to arise.

Another related but slightly different therapeutic benefit of mindfulness is that, in order to transform our ingrained personality patterns, we must simultaneously be in direct contact with them yet have enough space from them so that we are not totally identified with them. This process is a bit of a paradox; on the one hand, we need to separate from our patterns and observe them from afar, and on the other, we need to be with them, knowing them directly. Here, mindfulness gives us the capacity to tolerate this contradictory experience without splitting it into separate categories. By feeling into this dialectic, new awareness or perspectives can begin to arise.

Furthermore, mindfulness meditation helps us be in touch with our bodies in a direct way. Humans can be very mental, and talk therapy can fall into that trap as well. By cultivating a deeper awareness of our physicality, we develop yet another resource for understanding and regulating our experience.

No matter which type of therapy you’re engaged in, mindfulness meditation can bring great benefits to your process. If you’ve ever engaged in deep therapy, you know that you need as much support as possible to enter your unknown and mysterious inner realms. A therapist serves as a companion in this journey, but we certainly can benefit from more sources of support as we transverse this uncharted territory. A solid meditation practice can be one of your best resources on this journey.

© Copyright 2015 GoodTherapy.org. All rights reserved. Permission to publish granted by Manuel A. Manotas, PsyD, Mindfulness-Based Approaches/Contemplative Approaches Topic Expert Contributor

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