I conceptualize Buddhist psychology in a variety of ways. I think one helpful way of looking at Buddhist psychology is to see it as psychology of coping and addiction. In the Buddha’s philosophy of the Four Noble Truths we see that our reactions to the difficulties of life and the discomfort that they represent, lead us to cope in ways that cause us difficulty./
When we experience pain or uncertainty, rather than accepting it, we try to push it away, distract ourselves with something else that is pleasurable, or make our lives seem more solid by creating an identity for ourselves.
All of these reactions to difficulties and uncertainties are means of coping. Sometimes they can be helpful means of coping. However, it is important to be aware that different coping skills have different consequences. For example, if we cope with stress and confusion by drinking alcohol, this can work by making us feel good for a time. After that, it is clear that improperly used, this coping strategy will have long-term consequences and create a new problem on top of the discomfort that we were already experiencing. We begin to associate stress was a need to drink, we then need to drink more to relieve the same amount of stress, we experience interpersonal and health consequences that create more stress…… and on and on and on.
Less obviously, trying to protect ourselves from the big uncertainty of life by forming a hard identity can be just as damaging and have just as many detrimental effects. One of the best examples of this that I can think of is a street gang.
It has been my experience that one of the main reasons that young people join gangs is for the security that they find in having a sense of identity. Having an identity makes us feel more solid, it gives our life meaning, and that helps take away that empty floaty feeling that I think most of us fear.
These young men often do not have strong family or cultural systems to provide a grounding for their identity, and as a result, the gang supplements this natural human need. We've talked about it in great detail and they( often grudgingly) realize that gangs do not promote prosocial values which even they believe in. They realize that their involvement in gangs have encouraged activities that get them in jail and hurt their families. When we talk about all of this they become very uncomfortable. As we talk about this it becomes very apparent that the single biggest factor in their decision to remain in a gang is their sense that it is their identity, and their fear of losing the identity.
There is nothing wrong with having a healthy identity. The problem from a Buddhist perspective comes when we cling to that identity even when the consequences become harmful to ourselves and others, violate some of our values, or prevent us from growing and changing in ways that might be healthier for us. It is in this sense that identity becomes a form of addiction.
I think that in Buddhist psychology the very first line of coping is a deep and profound acceptance of life, including uncertainty and discomfort. By accepting the world the way it is, we can more clearly see it the way it is, and can make effective choices based on real experience as opposed to our reactions to real experience.
Buddhist psychology goes quite a bit further than standard Western counseling in that it seems to conceive of ego identity itself as something unreal and maybe unnecessary. As a person who tries to practice Buddhism effectively I am more concerned with the development of a healthy permeable ego that is flexible and tends towards qualities that are helpful rather than harmful.
For me, this kind of sums up my understanding of the first part of Buddhist philosophy which revolves around understanding the inherent difficulties of the human condition and developing a deep acceptance towards those difficulties. Most therapists hold to the idea that acceptance is the first stage of change and I think that if this is true in the small sense it is probably true in the larger sense as well.
The second part of Buddhist psychology is built around the cultivation of qualities and habits that support the main values Buddhism which I would roughly categorized as wisdom, Virtue (non-harming and loving kindness) and concentration or expanded awareness. It is important to note that Buddhism asserts itself in relation to the values that it prioritizes, rather than perceiving those values as absolute or natural law.
By this I mean, Buddhism values wisdom, non-harming, and loving kindness, and as a result it prescribes actions, habits, and methods that will specifically increase these, while reducing traits that Buddhist philosophy perceives as harmful, anger, fear, greed etc.
Basically Buddhist psychology says that actions and emotions have consequences. Rather than evaluating things as good or bad, Buddhism starts with a basis of what it values and moves to cultivate those qualities.
The central idea to the cultivation of these qualities revolves around effectiveness or skillfulness rather than rightness or wrongness. Effective or skillful means increase the qualities that are valued, and effective or unskillful means reduce the qualities that are valued and increase qualities that are not valued.
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