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Click on the picture for a preview video of Dr. Silverberg discussing this topic:
The most profound aspect of conducting psychotherapy is the genesis of
a compassionate relation to our patients. In this brief video, Dr.
Silverberg illuminates the empathic treatment component of an
empathy-based contemplative psychotherapy known as Taopsychotherapy.
The use of Taopsychotherapy's cultivated compassion, or jen, is explained in a manner digestible for Western psychotherapists.
In his writings, Dr. Silverberg, a supervising psychoanalyst and the
first Western student of Korean Taopsychotherapy founder Rhee Dongshick
(Rhee, 1991), elucidates Neo-Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist
philosophies in discussing the "thing in itself" of the psychotherapy
process -- a sense of co-humanity and sharing the patient's burden
(Silverberg, 2008, p. 245).
Exemplifying the very meaning of humanism, Silverberg identifies jen
as the path for psychotherapists and other helping professionals to
access greater interconnectedness with their patients. He illustrates
that the experiential fruits of such interconnectedness can be infused
into the delivery of any psychotherapy intervention -- regardless of
the therapist's school of thought (Silverberg, 2008, p. 255).
Moving to the next level beyond integrating "mindfulness" (Germer,
Siegel & Fulton, 2005), or the "intersubjective" (Stolorow &
Atwood,1992, p. 18), Taopsychotherapy's compassionate relation brings
us into vivid "resonance" (Silverberg, 1988, p. 25) with the patient's
experience. In contrast to something "Wild" (Freud, 1957, p. 221), jen
can be judiciously applied in a manner that keeps patients safe from
countertransference and therapists safe from empathic burnout.
Clinicians can discover that this capacity has always been close by
during their practice of treatment. Silverberg posits that the benefit
of intentionally cultivating such jen moves our therapy into the flow of a secular and transcendent form interconnecting -- sometimes called the Tao.
References:
Freud, (1957). Observations on 'wild' psychoanalysis. In J. Strachey
(Ed. and Trans.), Standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund
Freud (Vol. 11) (pp.221-227). London: Hogarth Press. (original work
published in 1910)
Germer, C.K., Siegel, R.D., & Fulton, P.R. (Eds.). (2005). Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. New York: The Guilford Press.
Rhee, D. S. (1991). The integration of East and West psychotherapy.
In T. J. Choi (Ed.), The tao of psychotherapy: a festschrift in honor
of Dr. Dong Shik Rhee on the occasion of his 70th birthday (pp.
375-380). Tae Gu, South Korean: Lee Moon Publishing Company.
Silverberg, F. (1988). Therapeutic resonance. Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy, 5, 25-42.
Silverberg, F. (2008). Resonance and exchange in Contemplative
Psychotherapy In F. J. Kaklauskas, S. Nimanheminda, L. Hoffman & M.
S. Jack (Eds.), Brilliant Sanity: Buddhist Approaches to Psychotherapy
(239-249). Colorado Springs, CO: University of the Rockies Press.
Other information can be found at: http://www.pbs.org/thebuddha/further-reading-viewing/
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