by Barbara Van Zoeren LICSW

Janet Surrey, PhD is a clinical psychologist and founding scholar of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women. She is on the faculty and board of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. In 2008 she completed a two and a half year Community Dharma Leader training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and is a faculty member of the Relational Insight Meditation program. Jan lives and practices in Newton, Massachusetts.

Barbara spoke to Janet about her personal path with meditation and psychotherapy and her current interest in Insight Dialogue. She will be presenting core concepts of Insight Dialogue at the Buddhist Psychology Lecture series April 7.

Barbara: What drew you to  meditation? To psychotherapy? And to the intersection of them both?

Jan: The same thing that drew me to both is a basic truth of my life. So much of my own experience of suffering has been in relationship and also that the potential for healing, liberation and the end of suffering can be through relationship.

Barbara: That's the basis of your life's work.

Jan: Yes. Early on, I saw that clinical practice was relational but the theories and language we had were intra-psychic, analytical, self -centered. 

I had lived through the women's movement and I was critical of the theories I was receiving in graduate school in the 70's. 

In the Stone Center work we started to look at the relational and cultural factors that were part of understanding any kind of suffering.

Barbara: So did you start as a meditator or a psychologist?

Jan: I started as a psychologist. I was always interested in investigating suffering and the end of suffering.

I did an internship and a post -doc at McLean Hospital and soon after began to meditate with Larry Rosenberg.

I remember the very moment of trying to decide whether to continue analytic training and deciding that the cushion would be the way to go.

I didn't understand all the ramifications at that moment but I knew what was right for me at the time.

Barbara: You knew your truth then.

Jan: Yes. The relational practice that we were beginning to write about, the movement to a more contextual relational perspective, a more experiential, moment to moment, present moment practice in therapy was at the core and could be called relational mindfulness.

Barbara: Who were your teachers, your influences in this work?

Jan:  I had many teachers. One major influence for me was Vimala Thakar.

Vimala's message was that living is the movement of relationship. She taught that the way of being with another is a reflection of one's state of being and also a practice in itself.

In the 90's I began to understand that Buddhist psychology and meditation were the underlying foundations that were being drawn on in relational practice in psychotherapy but weren't being named.

Barbara: Today, where would you say the most exciting work is happening in the intersection between meditation and psychotherapy?

Jan: I see relationality as a huge new field. Harnessing the power of relationship for liberation and awakening.  I am in the teacher-training program in Insight Dialogue with Gregory Kramer at the Metta Foundation. Insight Dialogue is directly relevant to the relational aspect of psychotherapy.

Barbara: You will be teaching this in the Buddhist Psychology Lecture next month.

Jan: Yes, it's a way of bringing the tranquil, calm insightful moments of meditation into your interactions with others. By co-meditating, including speaking and listening mindfully, deep insights can arise that are useful in therapy and in all of life.

Barbara: Thank you Jan and I look forward to your teaching in April.

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by Laura Fisher, Psy.D.

Mindfulness for Prolonged Grief: A guide to healing after loss when depression, anxiety, and anger won't go away.  

by Sameet Kumar, PhD

Recently, I had a client enter my office for her regularly scheduled session and announce that a family member had died suddenly and tragically over the weekend.  She was clearly devastated by the magnitude of the loss. As her therapist, I quickly became a sounding board for her intense expression of grief.  After she left my office, I started to wonder about how one could implement mindfulness into the grieving process more completely.  After all, most of us will experience profound grief at some point in our lives.  A quick internet search led me to a book written by Sameet Kumar, PhD, called Mindfulness for Prolonged Grief: A guide to healing after loss when depression, anxiety, and anger won't go away.  

This book is geared for people that are actually currently wading through the process of grief.  It is set up as an instructive guide that provides both psycho-education about the process of "normal" grieving and mindfulness activities one can use systematically and methodically as grief dissipates. Dr. Kumar breaks this information down into manageable and digestible parts for people who have recently experienced the death of a loved one so that it is easy to read and even easier to implement.  He covers core aspects of daily living affected by the grieving process such as sleeping difficulties, eating concerns, physical activity, and daily chores- something he calls the "4 pillars of wellbeing"- and offers mindfulness exercises to help improve these pillars.  Some of these techniques could be pulled from any mindfulness book and are not unique to the grieving process (e.g. he shares the "raisin" activity in the eating section; there are body scans offered as a way to help with sleeping). And, although these are useful, they were not necessarily innovative.  

However, Dr. Kumar also focuses on more grief-specific activities such as how and when to let go of personal items of individuals, how to decide what to keep as mementos, and how to say good bye to a loved one.  He also has chapters dedicated to awakening compassion (especially important if a loved one was killed or died tragically) and building resilience for life after the death of a loved one.  He couches all of this through the lens of mindfulness.  This is where the content of the book really shines and blossoms into a creative healing process instead of a cookie-cutter approach to meditation and wellness.  

Overall, this instructional guide offers solid techniques and suggestions for how to mindfully and methodically work through the process of grieving.  Chapters are short and instructions are clear and concise- things I think would be very useful for someone who has limited energy due to grief.  Dr. Kumar  also does a wonderful job describing the myriad forms of grieving and allows the reader to understand that grieving is not confined to a one-week mourning  period, as our society sometimes implies.   I plan on giving a copy to my client next week.

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This practical guide helps therapists from virtually any specialty or theoretical orientation choose and adapt mindfulness practices most likely to be effective with particular patients, while avoiding those that are contraindicated. The authors provide a wide range of meditations that build the core skills of focused attention, mindfulness, and compassionate acceptance. Vivid clinical examples show how to weave the practices into therapy, tailor them to each patient's needs, and overcome obstacles. Therapists also learn how developing their own mindfulness practice can enhance therapeutic relationships and personal well-being. The Appendix offers recommendations for working with specific clinical problems. Free audio downloads (narrated by the authors) and accompanying patient handouts for selected meditations from the book are available at www.sittingtogether.com.

The next issue of Couch and Cushion will feature a review of this book.

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