Do you think if there any common ground between Buddhism and Psychiatry?

Dhammaduta

Hello friends, currently I m doing a research study as A CRITICAL STUDY OF PSYCHIATRIC ASPECTS IN EARLY BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY... if you have any idea, please, share with me than

Jeffrey

I am curious what questions at root lead you to investigate. What longings? Curiosity? Wish to expand knowledge? It would direct the discussion further to know this and that is my take on it. But I don't know much about what the definition of psychiatric is. I think it is modern mojo, like leaches in the dark ages, but it maybe a little well thought out since there are more luxaries to research and cross ideas (printing press to internet)...

aHappyNihilist

Jeffery a little new years eve drinking?

buddhism is essentially founded around psychiatric principles.
descriptive and therapeutic.
the descriptive principles come down to this:
1. human beings attach to things causing them pleasure
2. human beings feel aversion towards things causing them pain
3. human beings have an essential illusion that they are separate from the rest of reality, a sort of solipsism.
4. the five aggregates
the therapeutic principles come down to this:
1. craving/aversion are the primary causes of suffering
2. these phenomena are attachment to preferred outcomes
3. these phenomena can be transcended with a non-dualistic view of happiness/pain and not having a concept of self

buddhism is greatly superior to psychiatric philosophies of its era and probably to most even now.

Vangelis

Hi Dhammaduta,

As you would be aware, Buddhism focuses on the mind, more specifically, "perfecting" the mind so it would make sense that if what the Buddha taught and put into practice were in fact correct, it would be validated and useful to modern science. This is indeed the case.

There are a number of recently developed clinical psychological techniques that use meditation techniques developed by the Buddha, including samatha (calmness) and mindfulness techniques. Here are 3 that I am aware of:

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_cognitive_therapy

Hope this helps you get started in your studies of this interesting area.

Metta,

Vangelis

MindGate

Just on another note: Meditation, which Buddhism is quite fond of, helps relieve stress, calms and tames the mind, and even helps boost the immune system.

I'd be willing to cite my sources if you need them.

waking

At the risk of making some overly sweeping generalizations...mental health professionals usually frame issues in terms of diagnoses (depression, anxiety) and seek to address them with medications and or therapy. This is in keeping with the broader medical model. Buddhists tend to see these problems as more universal issues that we all have to varying degrees at different times. Of course, both perspectives have their place and many people need both.

Vangelis's note does a nice job of summarizing some of the current psychological therapies that seek to incorporate Buddhist principles. Mark Epstein is a psychiatrist who has written about how to blend Buddhism and western psychiatry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Epstein. A number of Buddhist leaders such as Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield are also licensed psychologists.

Dhammaduta

Hello my friends in Dhamma,

I’m grateful to all of you, and I m so inspired.
Firstly, I should admit that my English not that good, as English is not even my grandmother’s tongue. But I survive well, as practical living in Australia helping me a lot.

I will try to response to each of you by name-

Jeffrey-

You are correct, there is no pure and correct definition of Psychiatry. It’s a kind modern and a tool to materialistic societies, fashion, job markets, to work like machine, human defined as bio-machine.

However, the Dhamma is always fresh, new, here and now, yatha yatha tatha tatha, so Dhamma can be related to psychiatry, as they both to help and solve the contemporary human conflicts.

aHappyNihilist-
You sounded like a Buddhist Psychiatrist..

Your lines are absolutely take to the common ground between PSY and Buddhism, and that gives me hopes.

Vangelis-

You really know that facts, you like the physicial and the medicine same time. Every Buddhist teaching or say this way every single word of the Buddha is like psychiatric medicine. Problem is some where else. All the therapeutic approaches you mentioned they are the ones, but every one is missing the point, the mindfulness we practicing now missing an essential quality which is WISDOM, so to say the real reality, paramattha Dhamma. that’s why we may be some time cured but never ever prevented from the problem. Well, we are human.

MIndgate-,

above lines for you too…thank you/…



Waking

Thank you so much. You are right, people in this materialized civilization we need both, Buddhist and rest, but remember that Buddhist teaching has no commercial value and Buddha didn’t have any copy right for his teaching, the Dhamma,


Thank you so much,
Please help me with keeping updated.

Metta

dhammasoul

Dhammaduta

I found 1 acute common ground between PSYchaitry and Buddhism which the recognition of "mental illness". There is mental illness, there is cause for the mental illness, that can be cured, and there is a menthod, can be applied.

Once the Buddha mentioned that, there are two kinds of disease, physical (Kayaroga) and mental (cetasika roga). and those illnesses are not only curable but also preventable.

thanks

Vangelis

Dhammaduta, you are quite right. Psychiatry only treats small "problems" of the mind whereas Buddha-dhamma goes "all the way". That's why one of the Buddha's epithets is the "Great Physician".

Jeffrey

No I have been 23 days without drinking

Dhammaduta

Jeffrey i think at least 23 days were greatest days in your life, keep it up.. hehehe,, i m happy for that

Dhammaduta

Vangelis,

Thanks, not only the Buddha was the great physician but also a super psychiatrist. He also well known as the ANUTTARO-PURISAADAMMA-SARATHI, means, A UNIQUE PERSONALITY TRAINER., in modern words you can name is SUPER PSYCHIATRIST..

twilly

Hi Dhammaduta,

As you would be aware, Buddhism focuses on the mind, more specifically, "perfecting" the mind so it would make sense that if what the Buddha taught and put into practice were in fact correct, it would be validated and useful to modern science. This is indeed the case.

There are a number of recently developed clinical psychological techniques that use meditation techniques developed by the Buddha, including samatha (calmness) and mindfulness techniques. Here are 3 that I am aware of:

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_and_commitment_therapy
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_cognitive_therapy

Hope this helps you get started in your studies of this interesting area.

Metta,

Vangelis

Yeah. Unfortunately in practice, these are used as no more than feel-better gimmicks especially for people in crisis. Without the whole Buddhist philosophy, it can be nothing more.

For me, the part of psychiatric practice that most resembles Buddhism is the search for why we have certain feelings. Buddhism teaches us to try to understand the cause of the arising of suffering in ourselves. However, as I understand it, this should be a quick assessment; it should take years.

[DeletedUser]

Buddha achieved enlightenment free from mental and physical suffering under a fig tree known as Bodhi tree now. Buddha renounced his throne to seek for the answer of psychiatric aspects on the suffering of birth, age, sick, death of mankind, that why mankind still wanted to go through this processes of unanswered suffering, and is there a way to end this processes in a more meaningful and everlasting bliss. He learned from the many renown ascetics practitioners in India on their way of ascetic practice together with them, sought answer from the professional and scholars then as well, but was not answered satisfactorily. Buddha way of life was the evidence of a perfect living example. Psychiatric is helpful to a certain extent but it could not completely liberate patients with suffering. Moreoever, psychiatrist also did not have a thorough awareness of themselves, and they also could not handle the psychiatric aspect faced by animals

Vincenzi

schizofrenia : mind divided. so what?

drugs, torture, this are method's used by psychiatry.

the Dharma precedes psichiatry by ~2450 years. pschiatry should vow to the Dharma, and not the other way around.

to everyone in the samgha reading this: ricordati ke ho detto che sono un anågami... non dico queste cose "lightly".

Vincenzi

"my god" (which one? heh)

1 of 5 precepts : don't take pollutants of the mind :: psychiatry's drugs - aka narcoleptics, pollute the brain, which desynchronizes the mind/matter continum...

is this too basic? too advanced? are ppl in "kali" (this) yuga so f* blind?

Dhammaduta

"my god" (which one? heh)

1 of 5 precepts : don't take pollutants of the mind :: psychiatry's drugs - aka narcoleptics, pollute the brain, which desynchronizes the mind/matter continum...

is this too basic? too advanced? are ppl in "kali" (this) yuga so f* blind?

Its clear that the Buddha allowed medicine, not drug. its our job now how to put it, definitely drug can not be helpful for mental illness, thats totally wrong, and harmful, fruitless. there we need to work on
drug or medicine? natural medicine or any alternative!

Dhammaduta

Buddha achieved enlightenment free from mental and physical suffering under a fig tree known as Bodhi tree now. Buddha renounced his throne to seek for the answer of psychiatric aspects on the suffering of birth, age, sick, death of mankind, that why mankind still wanted to go through this processes of unanswered suffering, and is there a way to end this processes in a more meaningful and everlasting bliss. He learned from the many renown ascetics practitioners in India on their way of ascetic practice together with them, sought answer from the professional and scholars then as well, but was not answered satisfactorily. Buddha way of life was the evidence of a perfect living example. Psychiatric is helpful to a certain extent but it could not completely liberate patients with suffering. Moreoever, psychiatrist also did not have a thorough awareness of themselves, and they also could not handle the psychiatric aspect faced by animals

i think there is no other alternative to get rid from the human conflicts rather than Dhamma practice! Buddha sasanam digham titthatu long live the Buddha's teaching

aHappyNihilist

Doubtless Buddha's teachings are great, but they can not cope with many things. did Buddha have brain scans? did he know anything about the human brain? For people with acute mental illness no philosophy in the world can help them, they need medicine.

predating 99% of scientific discovery Buddha was at a distinct disadvantage in some fields. but his teachings are great once your acute illness is dealt with.

Dhammaduta

Doubtless Buddha's teachings are great, but they can not cope with many things. did Buddha have brain scans? did he know anything about the human brain? For people with acute mental illness no philosophy in the world can help them, they need medicine.

predating 99% of scientific discovery Buddha was at a distinct disadvantage in some fields. but his teachings are great once your acute illness is dealt with.

scanning the brains is important for you? for us, for all of humans?

aHappyNihilist

I'm talking generally about advances in psychiatric science. much of the knowledge comes from scientific fields which the Buddha had no access to. This knowledge is necessary for certain fields of psychiatry.

Dhammaduta

the knowledge come from scientific fields without wisdom, to live a life we don't need to be scientific, i guess, u know marslaw's theory, we can live without sex but not without food! which one we should take first?

Dhammaduta

I'm talking generally about advances in psychiatric science. much of the knowledge comes from scientific fields which the Buddha had no access to. This knowledge is necessary for certain fields of psychiatry.

the knowledge come from scientific fields without wisdom, to live a life we don't need to be scientific, i guess, u know marslaw's theory, we can live without sex but not without food! which one we should take first?

aHappyNihilist

I'm talking generally about advances in psychiatric science. much of the knowledge comes from scientific fields which the Buddha had no access to. This knowledge is necessary for certain fields of psychiatry.

the knowledge come from scientific fields without wisdom, to live a life we don't need to be scientific, i guess, u know marslaw's theory, we can live without sex but not without food! which one we should take first?

erm, I'm honestly not quite sure what your point is, I was merely saying that the Buddha didn't know everything we know today about science, and that Buddhism is ill-equipped to deal with mental disorders, it is perfect for the cessation of suffering in a mentally healthy (by normal standards) person.

Dhammaduta

sorry i have missed the point, but i have humor of what you wanted to say. the Buddha new about everything, any thing, he is called lokavidhu, the knower of every thing, the universe, he knew the numbers of the planets, but it was not necessary to say to some one for this teaching.

do u think the world is more safer than the Buddha;s time? nope, science is not perfect, the world is now in more danger, H Clinton said few days ago that the amount of nuclear warheads they have they can destroy the world in a second!!!!!!!!

once Buddha said... the Dhamma or righteousness will disappear when materialism take place in human, in this world. this is what happening,,, at the moment it not a the normal world any more we have changed it

so it is not quite right to say that the buddha didn't know, some issues are contemporary but they are not just mere issue, they are result of human unwise behaviors
thanks

aHappyNihilist

English isn't your first language right? I think you are misunderstanding me a bit. Buddha was great, but his philosophy can not stand alone as all of psychiatry, perhaps for a healthy person it could, but people with mental illness need medical help first.

Buddha did not know everything, he was not a god. he was an incredibly wise and intelligent man. within the field of ending human suffering he is the greatest of all men.

Dhammaduta

English isn't your first language right? I think you are misunderstanding me a bit. Buddha was great, but his philosophy can not stand alone as all of psychiatry, perhaps for a healthy person it could, but people with mental illness need medical help first.

Buddha did not know everything, he was not a god. he was an incredibly wise and intelligent man. within the field of ending human suffering he is the greatest of all men.

English not my first language but i believe in dhamma, trying to be non-dual then i can be more focused and happy

aHappyNihilist

i believe in those things too, wholeheartedly. i'm just stating a simple fact.
Buddha didn't have the same knowledge of science. his psychiatry was good for healthy people. his psychiatry would not help people with mental illness as much as modern psychiatry.

because of this buddhism is a great combination with modern science and psychiatry.

Vincenzi

aromatherapy is superior... but depends on practitioner... operation (surgery for western weak mind) including bones is possible, advenced use of nadi's and dhama dhatu "seeing" of chakra's required.

"my god" (which one? heh)

1 of 5 precepts : don't take pollutants of the mind :: psychiatry's drugs - aka narcoleptics, pollute the brain, which desynchronizes the mind/matter continum...

is this too basic? too advanced? are ppl in "kali" (this) yuga so f* blind?

Its clear that the Buddha allowed medicine, not drug. its our job now how to put it, definitely drug can not be helpful for mental illness, thats totally wrong, and harmful, fruitless. there we need to work on
drug or medicine? natural medicine or any alternative!

Vincenzi

Doubtless Buddha's teachings are great, but they can not cope with many things. did Buddha have brain scans? did he know anything about the human brain? For people with acute mental illness no philosophy in the world can help them, they need medicine.

predating 99% of scientific discovery Buddha was at a distinct disadvantage in some fields. but his teachings are great once your acute illness is dealt with.

scanning the brains is important for you? for us, for all of humans?

it is as relevant as seeing LED lights in a server farm... useless for healing dukkha.

TheJourney

there is no "law." Just pursue happiness. Happiness is here. It is now.

Jeffrey

Vincenzi,

Schizophrenia means split from reality. For example they might think that they are really a diseased cat and aliens are plotting against them. Controlling their family. And that the telephone poles because they are having crosses in their structure are radiating mental telepathy from Jesus who was also an alien. And they hear voices of this telepathy telling them secret information.

federica

All extraneous, off topic puerile comments and posts removed.
Please stick to topic, and use English terminology unless it's completely unavoidable not to.
Thank you.

Vincenzi

if "Schizophrenia means split from reality", then what about arupa jhåna samådhi (inmaterial absorption meditation)? 'oopsie, (weak western) mind is materialistic, while trying to be eternalistic and feeling superior when nihilistic (all 3, wrong view).

federica

I haven't a clue, you tell us.

As far as I know, one is a medically-diagnosed condition which has prescriptive treatments and recommendations, the other one is just personal ignorance.

Dhammaduta

Schizophrenia is a Spiritual illness! or not even a illness, or there is nothing to worry about it!
what you say?

aHappyNihilist

.......... please...............
things are wrong with their brains in a very physical way, they need medicine there is a difference between materialism, eternalism, or nihilism and a mental illness.

Vincenzi

b*s*t, search about neuroleptics. buddhists talking about brain instead of mind...

psychiatry follows too many wrong views to write down.

federica

Vincenzi,
There is a difference between Brain and Mind.
I'm sure you understand that. Buddhists refer to Mind, Psychiatrists refer to mind and brain.

Psychiatry may not fall in with your 'views' but it is a medical science.
When you qualify as a psychiatrist, I'm sure you will be prepared to substantiate your opinions with medical fact.
Until then, I'd keep your inaccurate and prejudiced opinions to yourself.

Vincenzi

federica, what makes you certain that i don't have first hand experience with psychiatry?

and, psychiatry is not a science not part of medicine. the methods used don't follow the hipocratic oath.

{
According to the UK Guardian newspaper: "At the heart of years of dissent against psychiatry through the ages has been its use of drugs, particularly antipsychotics, to treat distress. Do such drugs actually target any "psychiatric condition"? Or are they chemical control—a socially-useful reduction of the paranoid, deluded, distressed, bizarre and odd into semi-vegetative zombies?"
}

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptics#Controversy

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Consumer/Survivor/Ex-Patient_Movement?qsrc=3044

"no one shuts me up" from "deviantArt.it"

Jeffrey

Antipsychotics are better than straight jackets. A schizophrenic without meds? The suffering is immense. Psychiatrists are M.D.s and they do take the hippocratic oath.

aHappyNihilist

Vincenzi, sure, there are a few examples of psychiatry being bad, SO what? if we didn't have psychiatry then people with mental disorders would just have to be murdered because they would try to kill you before you got one word out about attachment and craving.

the mind and the brain are the same thing. But buddhism is not equipped to deal with acute mental disease. Science gets better and medicine gets better as we learn about one of the most incredibly complex areas of the body, the brain. Hundreds of years ago there wasn't anesthesia and we would cut people's limbs off without sanitizing wounds. Does this mean we shouldn't offer amputations today? Does it mean that back a few hundred years ago pasteur shouldn't have created his germ theory of disease? Science isn't perfect, but Buddhism has no capability to handle certain disorders. If you don't admit that then you are just deluding yourself to raise your sense of Buddha's omniscient grandeur.

What would you do with someone with Schizophrenia? Bipolar mania?

Vincenzi

"if we didn't have psychiatry then people with mental disorders would just have to be murdered because they would try to kill you before you got one word out about attachment and craving." unwise words of a samsåraputra

then, psychiatry teaches that ppl can be incarcerated (chemical or not) before committing crimes. and you, someone that is supposedly against suffering is... ok with it.

"the mind and the brain are the same thing. But buddhism is not equipped to deal with acute mental disease."

on the contrairie, the mind (citta) and the brain (rupa, anatta, and trilaksana) are not the same; and the Dharma (buddhism) has being the most efficient way to deal with "acute mental disease" (dukkha) for... millenia.

"What would you do with someone with Schizophrenia? Bipolar mania?"

leave 'em alone... or, if i know 'em... talk... just, talk.

aHappyNihilist

Your argument is so incoherent i hardly know where to begin. oh and by the way, again, using sanskrit doesn't make you any better than someone calling someone else an idiot in english.

1. "then, psychiatry teaches that ppl can be incarcerated (chemical or not) before committing crimes. and you, someone that is supposedly against suffering is... ok with it. "
I guess you didn't get my point again, this is getting difficult. My point is that there are mental disorders which can not be cured by talking to someone. If you tried to sit down and talk with someone who was an untreated schizophrenic you would have basically no effect. We have a schizophrenic on these forums, ask him what's worse, taking medicine or being debilitated by his disorder.

2. on the "contrairie," the Dharma (buddhism) has being the most efficient way to deal with "acute mental disease" (dukkha) for... millenia.
Ha, i love how you put acute mental disease in quotes as if it were something I made up. Guess what, acute mental disease is not Dukkha. Dukkha is suffering, impermanence all that stuff. Acute mental disease can be caused by disability By having part of your brain functioning incorrectly.

3. leave 'em alone... or, if i know 'em... talk... just, talk.
Wow, so leave people with disease alone. Leave people who are suffering alone. Leave people who have a dysfunctional brain alone. That's disgusting of you to even think. Oh and try talking to an untreated schizophrenic, again you will make no progress your attempt will be useless.

This is a terrible argument. You have no knowledge of psychiatry and apparently medicine in general. A philosophy can not help someone with a mental disability. You have obviously no experience with mental disorder, nor do you even understand what it is. You said that mental disorder is dukkha? Impermanence and suffering? Dukkha describes a property of life, mental disorder describes a specific issue with the human brain, they are completely and totally separate things. I'm done arguing with you until you try to gain some slight understanding of what a mental disorder is. This is degenerating into a medical lecture from me with you repeatedly telling me I'm wrong without any knowledge of the subject.

TheJourney

With some mental illnesses you literally lose touch with reality. To deny the need for psychiatric drugs(not saying they may not be over-prescribed some of the time) is ridiculous.

aHappyNihilist

Jeffrey

Yes its like giving someone with an infection a dharma talk instead of an antibiotic!

robot

Vincenzi is completely out to lunch on this. There is no argument about it. My experience includes plenty of psychiatric treatment and medication for myself, my family and my close friends and their families. Most people know that it is skillful to obtain whatever help is available when you or your loved ones are sick physically or mentally. When my daughter was hospitalized for anorexia, talking about the dharma was pretty far down on the list of treatments. Later on however part of her therapy included basic meditation and mindfulness practice.

federica

federica, what makes you certain that i don't have first hand experience with psychiatry?

What makes me think you don't? (What makes you think I don't?)Your total and absolute complete ignorance on the subject. As the above posters have confirmed.
Are you a qualified psychiatrist? Do you have any medical experience involving the study of psychiatry?

and, psychiatry is not a science not part of medicine. the methods used don't follow the hipocratic oath.

neither does Chiropractic or Homeopathy (both recognised forms of treatment in the IK) so what's your point?

"no one shuts me up" from "deviantArt.it"

I think you'll find I can. So I'd advise you to reconsider your posirtion.
You keep posting aggressively and trolling, and I'm personally giving you final warning.

Vincenzi

@aHappyNihilist, i was unwilling to do this; but given so much ignorance and anger in your last post i will write it.

i was diagnosed with many "mental disorders" (will not name 'em) and am happy without neuroleptics (Amnistía Internacional/Internazionale, with the weight of the Dharma... will fall down on many... samsåraputra'm / already translated this / that "kindly advice" ppl to be treated against their will or without 'em knowing nothing about... neuroleptics).

btw, Neurobiology (although looking "in the wrong places") and Psychology (although weak) are on the right path... Psychiatry is not, the DSM is one of the most misguided producers of Dukkha in the world; as it is currently.

Vincenzi

With some mental illnesses you literally lose touch with reality. To deny the need for psychiatric drugs(not saying they may not be over-prescribed some of the time) is ridiculous.

so, an advanced meditor that has access at-will to arupa-jhåna's is "losing touch with reality"? be careful what you think, be careful of what you say, and of what you do... you may be producing dukkha (in "yourself or others").