A TEN WEEK ONLINE COURSE
With Caroline Brazier
This ten week programme was originally offered summer 2020 and repeated in the autumn. If you missed it on one of the previous runs, we are delighted to be offering this introductory course one last time this spring.
Delivered on Zoom, this course consists of ten weekly sessions of two hours plus a course pack and weekly emails of background materials. The zoom sessions include presentation of theory interspersed with breakout group discussion or exercises to consolidate learning. There are also opportunities for questions and feedback. Each session includes a short guided grounding exercise.
Suitable for beginners, but also of interest to qualified therapists looking for an understanding of Other-Centred Approach, this course offers 25 hours CPD and will give a good overview of the models taught on Tariki courses, presented live by the course leader.
Buddhist psychology provides an understanding of the ways in which mental processes develop. It focuses particularly on the way that, in the face of existential uncertainties, illusions of both personal and worldly permanence are created through our preoccupations or 'mental clinging'. Particular phenomena, views, associations, preferences and habits become the supports for identity. Our sense of security is created, based on the actions of the senses and distortions of perception, leading us to surround ourselves with things which are familiar and onto which we project our sense of self and ownership. In this way, we create a kind of psychological bubble in which the self-world and identity become mutually conditioning.
The illusion of permanence conveyed by the identity and its accompanying 'self-world', is basically a way that we protect ourselves from things which we fear - a response to life’s uncertainties. It is an attempt to create permanence and deny the fact that change and loss are inevitable parts of life. In this way, it is part of ordinary healthy psychology and can be functional, but it is also psychologically limiting. Buddhist approaches to therapy tend to invite a less fixed world view and a more open sense of self. They see mental health problems and psychological distress as commonly arising from aspects of this process, and particularly from the disconnection which it creates.
This ten week programme will offer an introduction to Buddhist psychology, explaining the basic processes by which the sense of self and the self-world are created and maintained. We will look at ways in which this process may underlie psychological problems. It will then present the core principles of other-centred approach, a therapeutic model based in Buddhist psychology which focuses particularly on these processes and on the way that the conditions which support the self-bubble can be worked with. We will draw on a number of early Buddhist texts and look at their relevance for those working therapeutically today.
Students will learn:
- Core principles of Buddhist psychology: the creation and maintenance of the sense of self and its accompanying world-view
- How these processes create psychological limitations and may form the basis for psychological problems
- How mental states are ‘conditioned’ and psychological rigidity arises, based on the fear of impermanence
- Basic methods of other-centred approach including accompaniment, triangular relationship, working with role, exploration of the object world and conditioned view, truth questions and encounter
- Grounding and presence as foundational qualities in therapy
- Methods for addressing the disconnection created by over-rigid self-processes and enabling re-connection to the world of ‘others’
- Mindfulness and its relationship to other-centred working
Dates: Wednesdays 2.00-4.00pm starting March 3rd for ten weeks (last session May 5th)
Cost: £150 (enrolled Tariki ecotherapy students £100)
Applications: Please submit this application form to courses@tarikitrust.org
Course tutor: Caroline Brazier: Course Leader of the Tariki training programmes in counselling and psychotherapy and author of seven books on Buddhism, psychotherapy and ecotherapy.
Delivery: This programme will be delivered through live seminars which will include:
- Presentation of basic theory of Buddhist psychology
- Presentation of methodology with practical examples
- Exercises to demonstrate aspects of theory in practice
- Small group discussion and exercises
- Pairs exercises
- Questions and answer and sessions
- Feedback and discussion
- Guided meditations and grounding exercises
- A course pack and other written materials