Buddhist counselling and mainstream psychotherapies: important note
Please be aware that the kind of Buddhist counselling and mentoring on offer here is not related to any form of traditional psychotherapy, psychology, or psychoanalysis. Mainstream psychotherapies have only one goal: to return you, hale and hearty, to the world you came from, where you are expected to continue living your life along with the rest of us. Medically based therapies have no conception whatsoever about the profounder aspirations and higher goals of life, and everything is viewed from the point of view of a technical efficacy in achieving ‘mental health.’ Of course mental health is not to be disparaged, but it is a very basic achievement, and can only ever represent the starting point for a greater fulfilment. From the Buddhist point of view, mental health is only a beginning, an initial context, and not an end in itself. So although I am well versed in the techniques and practices of all the traditional mainstream psychotherapies of the medical model – I have an Honours degree in Psychology and a Masters in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of London – I do not offer any form of traditional psychotherapy or psychology, nor do I have the specific qualifications required to do so. I am not a member or associate of any particular organisation, governing body, or regulatory society. My expertise is entirely in the Buddhist quest, and all that this quest involves, and not in the provision of mental health, or in medical propriety. I have been working with Buddhist spirituality, counselling and mentoring for over 35 years. Please read carefully all the sections on Buddhist counselling available on this website and make up your own mind as to whether this type of counselling is exactly what you want, and appropriate to your needs: it may not be, if your only concerns are mental health and feeling good and achieving worldly success.
Traditional psychotherapy is only distantly related to Buddhist quest, and if you feel that you would be better served by one of the techniques of traditional psychotherapy, then a therapist of the kind to be found here – Counselling Directory– would be the answer. Buddhist counselling does not involve any psychotherapeutic techniques, or any quasi-medical procedures – Buddhist counselling is all about using your mental, intellectual and emotional resources to achieve a certain clarity and stability with regard to your life as it is, so that you can move forward on the path to genuine spiritual fulfillment. No psychiatrist, psychotherapist or traditional psychologist is ever going to be qualified to guide you spiritually, as this is a skill and understanding which cannot be validated by an institution, or achieved by taking some specialised courses.