Dennis Tirch - Buddhist Psychology and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide

Emotion Regulation in Psychotherapy:
A Practitioners Guide

Robert L. Leahy, Dennis Tirch, and Lisa A. Napolitano

Buddhist Psychology
and Cognitive-Behavioral
Therapy A Clinicians Guide

Dennis Tirch
Laura R. Silberstein
Russell L. Kolts

Foreword by Robert L. Leahy

T HE G UILFORD P RESS
New York London

Epub Edition ISBN: 9781462523269; Kindle Edition ISBN: 9781462523276

2016 The Guilford Press

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Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tirch, Dennis D., 1968

Buddhist psychology and cognitive-behavioral therapy : a clinicians guide / Dennis Tirch, Laura R. Silberstein, Russell L. Kolts.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4625-2324-5 (hardcover)

1. BuddhismPsychology. 2. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. I. Title.

BQ4570.P76 T57b2016

294.3'3615dc23

2015013307

To all of my clients, and to the Three Wise Men
John Tirch, Philip Inwood, and Jeff Peretz

D. T.

To two Bodhisattvas who happen to be my parents,
Kathy and Stuart Silberstein

L. R. S.

To Adrienne Isgrigg, whose courageous questions
started me on the path that led me here,
and to Lama Inga Sandvoss, who stewarded me
along the initial part of the journey

R. L. K.

Dennis Tirch, PhD, is Director of the Center for Compassion Focused Therapy in New York City and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science and president of the Compassionate Mind Foundation USA, which is committed to research and training in compassion-focused therapy (CFT). Dr. Tirch serves as president of the New York City Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Association and president emeritus of the New York City chapter of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), and is a Diplomate and Fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. He provides training internationally for clinicians and researchers and is the author of numerous books, chapters, and peer-reviewed articles on CBT, CFT, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and Buddhist psychology principles.

Laura R. Silberstein, PsyD, is Associate Director of the Center for Compassion Focused Therapy and a consulting psychologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She is also Adjunct Assistant Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Dr. Silberstein is a clinical supervisor and CFT trainer who presents internationally on mindfulness and compassion and is coauthor (with Dennis Tirch and Benjamin Schoendorff) of The ACT Practitioners Guide to the Science of Compassion. She is a founder and executive board member of the New York City chapter of the ACBS and the Compassionate Mind Foundation USA. Her research interests include psychological flexibility and emotions as well as CFT for anxiety and depression.

Russell L. Kolts, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington. Dr. Kolts has authored or coauthored numerous scholarly articles and books, including An Open-Hearted Life: Transformative Lessons for Compassionate Living from a Clinical Psychologist and a Buddhist Nun (with Thubten Chodron). He has pioneered the application of CFT to the treatment of problematic anger, regularly conducts trainings and workshops on CFT, and is a board member of the Compassionate Mind Foundation USA.

I n 2005 I was in Goteborg, Sweden, for the International Conference of Cognitive Psychotherapy, sponsored by the International Association for Cognitive Psychotherapy, of which I was the president. The day before the official program we had Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, and the Dalai Lama, the spokesperson for many Buddhists, engage in a dialogue in front of a packed audience. This was an extraordinary event, and the spirit and wisdom of that dialogue pervaded the rest of the conference. As it turned out, Beck had been a practitioner of mindfulness meditation for years, and the Dalai Lama had been an admirer of Becks cognitive therapy. Beck described how the cognitive therapist asks the client to stand back and observe his or her thoughts and to consider that a thought is not the same thing as reality. And, then, the cognitive therapist asks the client to examine the implications of that thought, the evidence for the thought, and the value of an alternative way of thinking. The Dalai Lama enthusiastically endorsed this as consistent with the Buddhist approach, and the two of them seemed to bond on an intellectual and personal level. In November 2014 a number of us in the cognitive therapy field (e.g., David Clark from the University of Oxford, Stefan Hofmann from Boston University, Judith Beck and Rob DeRubeis from the University of Pennsylvania, Steve Hollon from Vanderbilt University, and Christine Padesky from the Center for Cognitive Therapy) met with Beck in his apartment in Philadelphia. He shared with us the story of the lunch in his home where the Dalai Lama had visited him recently and where they shared their common interest.

This book by Dennis Tirch, Laura R. Silberstein, and Russell L. Kolts is consistent with that bridge between these two great traditions: Buddhist wisdom and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). What is really unique about this book is the scholarly and detailed description of how Buddhism views the important concepts of reality, impermanence, mindfulness, acceptance, compassion, self, and loving-kindness, and how to engage in the practices that help advance a more meaningful and more complete life. There is much here for the reader from which to learn, not only the historical references and parallels, but also the excellent examples of what to say and what to do with ones clients. There is also far-reaching coverage in this book of why these techniques would be of value.

Of course, within the CBT movement there are many different schools of thought: the Beckian approach, behavioral activation, acceptance and commitment therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, compassion-focused therapy, and others. Some of us disagree with the importance of certain techniques or the assumptions guiding the work that some scholars and clinicians do. That is a natural consequence of an active and open intellectual enterprise. I can tell you that I personally am happy to use anything that works. So I use all of thembut at different times, for different problems, with different clients. I guess I must be practicing flexibility.