1
Practise what you preach: Counsellors’ experience of practising
Buddhist Counselling in Thailand
This qualitative study considers Thai counsellors’ experience of practising Thai
Buddhist Counselling, exploring how Buddhist philosophy is integrated into the
counsellors’ personal lives and then brought into their therapeutic practice. The
study involved a focus group and in-depth semi-structured interviews with five
practising Buddhist counsellors, with their accounts being analysed using
interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Findings indicated that the
participants considered their personal qualities as being key in generating
therapeutic effectiveness within their Buddhist counselling, and they believed
that they fostered these personal qualities by internalising Buddhist ideas into
their personal lives and by observing Buddhist practices. Implications for
practice, training, and research are discussed.
Keywords:
Buddhist
Counselling;
Thailand;
counsellors’
experience;
Interpretative phenomenological analysis
Introduction
In Thailand, Buddhist Counselling is a form of Buddhist-informed psychotherapy. It
incorporates Buddhist teachings into therapeutic practice, and for approximately a decade this
approach has been taught to a number of Thai postgraduate counselling students at numerous
Thai universities, and has been offered as an approach to Thai people.
2
As Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist country - 94.6 % of Thais are Buddhist
(Central Intelligence Agency 2013) - Buddhist philosophy profoundly influences Thai culture
and its core social values. Buddhist temples have long functioned as health care centres, and
monks still have a special status in Thai society, enjoying a kind of therapeutic role (Bhikkhu
2007; Hathirat 1983). In Thailand, many Thais who suffer from emotional distress turn to the
temple for Buddhist advice and practice. Professional counselling, on the other hand, is new to
Thailand. It was not until 1985 that the first counselling programme was offered in Thailand,
at Chulalongkorn University. Such counselling typically is founded on Western approaches,
with most counselling trainers in Thailand being educated and trained in Western countries,
especially in the United States (Tuicomepee et al. 2012).
However, in recent years, the counselling curriculum in Thai universities has undergone
significant changes and it now offers Buddhist Counselling as an additional counselling
approach. Such training was first introduced in the Department of Psychology at
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand’s oldest University, in 2002, and has been now extended
to many Thai universities (Tuicomepee et al. 2012). The course offers a basic model of the
Buddhist Counselling process, and aims to provide a fundamental understanding of human
drives (i.e., desires or cravings), and human suffering (i.e., the discrepancy between desires
and actual experience) informed by the core Buddhist concepts of the Four Noble Truths, which
conceptualise the symptoms and meanings of suffering and propose the means to eliminate
suffering and achieve optimal mental health and well-being through the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Four Noble Truths are discussed further in the next section. As part of this counselling
training, students are encouraged to integrate the Four Noble Truths into their daily lives, and
to follow Buddhist practices (Pokeao 2010).
3
This movement towards adopting Buddhist teachings grounded in Thai culture, mirrors
the current trend in non-Western cultures of indigenising counselling practices (Church and
Katigbak 2002; Leung and Chen 2009; Mohatt 2010). Given the fact that Western and Eastern
cultures display significant cultural differences, directly adopting Western models of
counselling and psychotherapy for counselling practice in non-Western cultures has been seen
as inappropriate (Bojuwoye and Sodi 2010; Cheung 2000; Duan et al. 2011; Laungani 1997;
Pedersen 2003; Yip 2003). For example, research by Duan et al. (2011) considering Southeast
Asian counsellors’ views on the internationalisation of counselling psychology to Asian
cultures suggests that there are limitations in the transferability of Western counselling models
to Southeast Asian cultures. The authors argue that counselling needs to be indigenised in order
to serve local clients more effectively. Such recognition has led many non-Western
practitioners to develop counselling interventions that are culturally relevant to their local
clients (cf., Chong and Liu 2002; Lee 2002; Hoogasian and Lijtmaer 2010; Vicary and
Andrews 2000). For example, Lee (2002) describes how he worked with his Chinese clients in
Singapore by integrating three indigenous concepts and techniques – namely, Chinese
medicine, dang-ki (Chinese shamanism), and feng-shui (Chinese geomancy) - into his
therapeutic practice. Similarly, Buddhist Counselling in Thailand typically uses ‘local
knowledge’ to inform existing therapeutic practice in order to develop a culturally relevant
counselling approach, with a Buddhist conceptualisation of suffering as a foundation.
The Four Noble Truths as the theoretical framework for Buddhist Counselling
At the core of Buddhism are the Buddha’s ‘Four Noble Truths’, which provide an explanation
of how humans respond to suffering, and also offer a framework for understanding and dealing
with suffering in our own lives. The first Noble Truth outlines the symptoms of suffering; the
second offers a diagnosis of suffering; the third identifies the state of optimal mental health;
4
and the fourth provides the Noble Eightfold Path as a way to eliminate suffering (i.e., proper
understanding, proper thought, proper speech, proper action, proper livelihood, proper effort,
proper mindfulness, and proper concentration) (Phra Prayudh Payutto, 1995). In the practice
of Buddhist Counselling, the counsellors’ understanding of the Four Noble Truths provides
them with a theoretical framework to understand, identify and work with the clients’ suffering.
This understanding of the Four Noble Truths is initially gained simply through growing up as
Buddhists in Thailand, and is subsequently developed through Buddhist Counselling training,
and through the counsellors’ direct experience of investigating their own suffering according
to the Four Noble Truths. The fact that Buddhist Counselling draws on the Four Noble Truths,
which are deeply embedded in Thai society and which are learnt from living in that society,
differentiates Thai Buddhist Counselling from other counselling approaches where the
theoretical framework is acquired mainly through specific counselling training.
TIR as a basic model of the Buddhist Counselling process
Soree Pokeao, a pioneer of Buddhist Counselling in Thailand, has proposed a basic model of
the Buddhist Counselling process. It consists of three main features: tuning in (T), identify split
(I), and realisation (R) (Pokeao 2010).
It is important to point out at the outset that Buddhist Counselling in both theory and
practice shares significant similarities with other counselling approaches, particularly those
located within the person-centred and humanistic/existential approaches. As with these
approaches, Buddhist Counselling emphasises creating a therapeutic relationship through
empathic attunement to the client’s implicit and explicit feelings, emotions and thoughts in
order to understand and empathise with the client from his or her internal frame of reference.
Likewise, the Buddhist Counselling understanding of suffering as being caused by a
discrepancy between desire and reality, can be compared with the person-centred notion of
5
incongruence between constructed and real self (Rogers 1951). This conceptualisation may
also be compared with the idea of intrapsychic conflict in psychodynamic counselling ((Leiper
and Maltby 2004). There is also an overlap in therapeutic intervention between Buddhist
Counselling and that of other approaches, in that they aim to facilitate the clients’ insight into
the causes of their psychological problems and to provide them with new understanding. What
may be regarded as distinctive to Buddhist Counselling is that practitioners offer clients
particular perspectives on suffering and its acceptance, grounded in core Buddhist philosophy
and practice, and what is particular to the current study is that our research on the practice of
Buddhist Counselling was conducted in contemporary Thailand, where counsellors and clients
are embedded within a predominantly Buddhist culture. Further details of the TIR model of the
Buddhist Counselling process is given below.
In Buddhist Counselling, ‘tuning in’ (T) is when a counsellor makes a profound engagement
with a client, by listening to him or her attentively, in order to clearly and deeply understand
the client’s experience from his or her point of view, and then by conveying this understanding
back to the client in language attuned to his or her experience and feelings. ‘Tuning in’ is
regarded as a starting point in establishing and maintaining the therapeutic relationship, and a
key turning point in generating therapeutic change. The counsellor’s profound engagement
with a client will make it possible for the counsellor to understand and identify the client’s
suffering. In Buddhist Counselling, the cause of suffering is viewed in terms of a discrepancy
between desires and actual experience, called identity split (I). This concept of suffering is
informed by the second Noble Truth. Buddhist counsellors believe that underneath the various
problems the client brings to therapy, the root of those problems essentially is the same;
namely, ‘unfulfilled expectations’. The role of the counsellor is to identify this discrepancy in
the client, and to facilitate the client’s realisation (R) of it. This realisation, Buddhist
6
counsellors believe, can facilitate the client’s movement from a state of attachment to one of
an acceptance of circumstances. This acceptance can ultimately help lessen the client’s
suffering.
Buddhist-informed psychotherapies
Although Buddhist Counselling in Thailand has only recently been established, attempts to
integrate Buddhism and psychotherapy are not new, and the compatibility of Buddhist
philosophy within the realm of counselling and psychotherapy has been widely acknowledged
(Bowman and Baylen 1994; McWilliams 2010). Numerous authors have sought to explore how
tenets of Buddhist psychology can be used to enrich the practice of various therapeutic
approaches (cf., Daya 2000; Gehart and Paré 2008; Kumar 2002; Nissanka 1993; Wada and
Park 2009). For example, Gehart and Paré (2008) suggest ways in which Buddhist ideas may
be integrated into family-based therapies; Kumar (2002) provides a concise summary of the
key Buddhist concepts that can be applied by the Cognitive-Behavioural therapist. In addition,
Buddhist practices, especially mindfulness, have received a surge of interest from a number of
researchers and therapeutic practitioners, especially those working within a cognitivebehavioural orientation. Four well-known interventions applying Buddhist practices are:
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) (Kabat-Zinn 1990, 1982); Mindfulness-Based
Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) (Segal et al. 2002); Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
(Linehan 1993); and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) (Hayes et al. 1999).
While there has been substantial interest in integrating Buddhist ideas and practices into
therapies, most of these Buddhist-informed therapies were developed for non-Buddhist
populations in Western countries, rather than for Buddhist populations in Buddhist countries.
This paper aims to explore the views and experiences of counsellors practising Buddhist
Counselling in a Buddhist context and mainly for Buddhist clients.
7
Additionally, most of the existing studies on Buddhist-informed psychotherapies have
employed quantitative research methods to measure their effectiveness. While the results of
such studies generally support the effectiveness of the approaches in improving a wide range
of both physical and mental health problems (cf., Hahrinth and Rungreangkulkij 2008; Marlatt
2002; Rungreangkulkij et al. 2011; Ushiroyama 2006), they do not provide a clear
understanding of the process of the various Buddhist-informed therapies. Hoshmand and
Polkinghorne (1992) argue that the knowledge base of psychology, counselling and
psychotherapy should not be limited to positivistic inquiry, but should include “the knowledge
of practice”. They emphasise the need for research that “allow(s) practitioners to contribute to
the knowledge base of the profession” (Hoshmand and Polkingkorne 1992, p. 56).
The present paper, based on the first author’s doctoral research supervised by the second
author, qualitatively explores how Thai counsellors and clients make sense of their experiences
of Buddhist Counselling. It focuses on one of the emergent themes from the doctoral study –
i.e., how the Buddhist counselor participants regarded their personal internalisation of Buddhist
thinking and practices as integral to their professional practice.
Method
This study involved a focus group and in-depth semi-structured interviews of a small group of
Buddhist counsellors, with the data examined using interpretative phenomenological analysis
(IPA). IPA is a qualitative approach underpinned by phenomenology, hermeneutics and
idiography (Smith et al. 2009). Its phenomenological dimension enhances capturing of
people’s lived experiences of particular phenomena from their subjective points of view. Its
hermeneutic dimension enables the researcher to develop a more explicitly interpretative
analysis of participants’ accounts in order to throw light on the deeper meanings contained
within them. Its idiographic dimension highlights the importance of individual cases in seeking
8
to understand shared experiences, thus potentially providing greater understanding of the topic
being studied.
Participants
Prospective participants were recruited mainly through personal contacts (n = 4) and one
participant was referred by another (n = 1). A total of five Buddhist counsellors participated in
this study, and all took part in both the focus group and individual interviews. There were three
female and two male participants, aged between 30 and 45 years (mean 35.8 years). All
participants were Asian/Thai and identified themselves as Buddhists. Four participants had
been trained to masters, and one participant to doctoral level in Buddhist Counselling from the
same university, and all knew each other. All of the participants described themselves as
Buddhist counsellors, and had practised Buddhist Counselling for an average of 8.4 years
(range 2-10 years) in different settings: private practice, a university, and a medical setting. All
the participants, except one, knew the first researcher personally.
Ethical Considerations
This research received ethical approval from the University of Edinburgh Ethics Committee
prior to the commencement of the study. Due to the existing relationship between the first
author and the participants, it was felt that the participants might feel obliged to take part in the
study, or volunteer because they would like to help the researcher as a personal favour, rather
than truly wish to contribute to the research. With these concerns in mind, great care was taken
when recruiting the counsellors by making clear the voluntary nature of the research. In
addition, as the first author had been trained in Buddhist counselling, the counsellors might
have assumed that the first author had prior knowledge of Buddhist Counselling practice and
theory, and so may not clearly or fully explain their own experiences of Buddhist Counselling.
9
To deal with this issue, the first author informed the counsellors clearly at the beginning of the
focus group and interviews about her role as a researcher interested in understanding the
participants’ own experiences from their points of view, and asked the participants to give their
own stories in as much detail as possible. The first author also made an attempt to be vigilant
regarding her previous knowledge about Buddhist Counselling and took a naive position
towards the Buddhist Counselling language used by the participants. Adopting this position led
to the participants needing to clarify what they meant when talking about some Buddhist
Counselling terms or concepts. For example, the researcher asked ‘You mentioned “tuning in”
- can you tell me what you mean by that term?’. This type of question encouraged clarification
of the participants’ meanings and understandings, thus obviating the potential reliance on
assumed shared understandings. A pseudonym was assigned to each participant, and all
identifiable information was altered to preserve anonymity.
Methods of Data Gathering
Two different methods of data collection were employed in this study: a focus group and semistructured interviews. A combination of the focus group and individual interviews was planned
to provide complementary data - that is, individual interviews were used to elicit detailed
personal accounts of the participants’ experiences of Buddhist Counselling, whereas the focus
group was interactively oriented aiming at generating dialogue among the participants about
their personal experience of Buddhist Counselling. In practice, the individual interviews and
the group discussion generated similar accounts.
Data Gathering
The focus group was conducted in a private room in a university setting. The meeting was
digitally recorded and lasted 2 hours 36 minutes. The researcher’s main role in the focus group
10
was to make the participants feel at ease, to open and facilitate discussion with minimal input,
and to make sure that all the participants had equal opportunity to talk. The focus of the
discussion in the focus group was the Buddhist counsellors’ shared or divergent experiences
of practising Buddhist Counselling.
All five focus group participants also took part in individual interviews. The interviews
took place after the focus group either at the participant’s home or workplace. Each interview
was digitally recorded and lasted from 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes. The major
role of the interviewer was to encourage the participants to tell their stories in their own ways,
and to prompt for further elaboration to gain more detailed information of the topic under
discussion. The focus of the interviews was the participant’s personal experience of practising
Buddhist Counselling.
Analysis
The analysis of the transcribed interviews followed IPA recommendations (Smith et al. 2009).
It began by looking at the cases individually and then went on to make comparisons across
cases. The first stage involved re-reading each transcript, and notes were made in the left-hand
margin. From this stage, emergent themes were developed by turning the initial notes into more
concise phrases that reflected the essence of the content and meanings found. The next stage
involved looking for patterns and connections between those themes. Once each table of
themes from the five participants had been completed, connections across cases were made.
Recurring themes across cases that captured the most powerful and interesting aspects of the
participants’ experiential accounts were identified. Several emergent themes appeared within
the individual transcripts, and when the same themes were found in more than half of the total
number of cases (i.e., at least 3), they were identified as recurring, and were incorporated into
the master table of analysis.
11
Following the recommendations of Tomkins and Eatough (2010), in order to balance
the individual and the group levels of analysis, the focus group data were analysed by following
the conventional process of IPA (i.e., the process used to analyse individual interviews) to
create a table of themes for the group as a whole. Following the completion of this table of
group-level themes, the accounts from each participant were examined to assess whether the
table of group-level themes did justice to the experiential accounts of the individuals. Two
main steps were involved in this: the first step was a top-down process, which involved going
through each group member’s account as a whole, and the second step was a bottom-up
process, which involved identifying how the individual account reflected the group-level
themes. The analyses of the two sets of interview and focus group data were then combined.
While this analysing process foregrounded the meaning of the phenomena from the
participants’ points of view, this process inevitably involved the researchers’ interpretative
engagement with the data also (Smith 1996). Eatough and Smith (2008) note that there are
different levels of analysis within IPA: an empathic-descriptive level, where the analysis is
grounded in the participant’s own account and sense-making; and a more critical-hermeneutic
level, where the analysis goes further than meaning restoration and which may be different
from what the participants might offer. In other words, an empathic-descriptive interpretation
is required to capture and ‘give voice’ to participants’ claims and concerns, whilst a more
critical-hermeneutic interpretation is required to contextualise and ‘make sense’ of the meaning
of such claims and concerns (Larkin, Watts and Clifton, 2006, p. 102). For each theme
presented in the following section, descriptive interpretations of the extracts are given, and
these are then followed by more hermeneutic interpretations. Although we provide these two
levels of interpretation in presenting the findings, we do not rely too heavily on the hermeneutic
interpretation. This is our attempt to avoid taking anything away from the rich and authentic
voices of the participants. Hermeneutic interpretation is thus given where appropriate to clarify
12
the meaning underlying the participants’ accounts, and when this happens it is presented in
more tentative tones.
The focus group and individual interviews were conducted in Thai, and the data
transcriptions were transcribed verbatim in Thai by the first author. In order to stay close to the
original data, the analysis was conducted using these original transcriptions. The extracts were
then translated into English. The main goal of the translation was to stay as close as possible
to the original text and to convey as accurately as possible the meanings of the participants’
experiences. The first author translated the extracts from Thai to English. Attempts were made
to maintain a literal translation of the text in terms of the participants’ original vocabulary,
sentence structures and styles as much as possible. However, changes were made when the
literal translation appeared less comprehensible. Nevertheless, a meaning equivalence was
sought and generally sustained. These translated extracts then were checked with a
monolingual native English speaker. This involved discussions in English about the meaning
of words and grammar structures from the original text and negotiations about suitable English
words, meanings, styles and tenses. This was to ensure the readability of the translated data.
Five super-ordinate themes were identified from the analysis: (1) Taking up Buddhist
Counselling; (2) Conceptualising Buddhist Counselling; (3) The personal qualities of the
counsellor as key; (4) The impact of practising Buddhist Counselling; and (5) Evaluating
Buddhist Counselling. This paper reports on the third super-ordinate theme, entitled “The
personal qualities of the counsellor as key”. It explores the ways in which the participants tried
to develop themselves through integrating Buddhist ideas and practices into their personal
lives, and details the role the participants’ personal development played in their therapeutic
practice. This theme was chosen because it was the one theme that emerged unsolicitedly and
spontaneously from the participants in the focus group and individual interviews. This theme
13
is not only significant because of its clear importance to the participants of this study, but also
because it is prominent in the counselling literature across many counselling approaches (cf.,
Aron 1996; McConnaughty 1987; Reupert 2008; 2006). What is distinctive here are the
particular personal qualities which these Buddhist counsellors identify and the rich descriptions
they offer of the integration of personal beliefs and ways of living with professional practice.
Under this super-ordinate theme are two master themes, and their interrelated subthemes (see Table 1). For each sub-theme, descriptive and hermeneutic interpretations are
given and these are supported with translated extracts from the participants. This is “not only
to enable the reader to assess the pertinence of the interpretations but also to retain the voice of
the participant’s personal experience” (Shinebourne and Smith 2009, p. 155).
Table 1. Master themes and sub-themes of the personal qualities of the counsellor as key
Master themes
Sub-themes
Developing the counsellor’s
personal qualities
Internalising the Four Noble
Truths
Observing Buddhist practices
Bringing the counsellor’s qualities
into therapy
Therapeutic presence as key
Understanding and identifying clients’
suffering
Findings
This paper focuses on the significance of the personal qualities of the counsellor in practising
Buddhist Counselling. The following extract from Manid, one of the participants, captures the
essence of this theme:
14
It [practising Buddhist Counselling] is very much about myself, very much about myself, very
much about my mind in being able to work successfully with the client or in being fully in
harmony with the client. (Manid - Focus group)
The three repetitions of “very much” emphasise her strong sense of belief in the significance
of “the counsellor’s personal qualities” in generating therapeutic effectiveness. All the
participants in this study could not emphasise enough the significance of their personal
qualities to their therapeutic work. They believed that they could develop the personal qualities
that they saw as essential for practising Buddhist Counselling through internalising the Four
Noble Truths and through observing Buddhist practices (‘Developing the counsellor’s personal
qualities’), and they highlighted the significant role that their personal development practices
played in their therapeutic practices (‘Bringing the personal qualities into therapy’). These two
master themes and their sub-themes, as shown in Table 1, will be explored in turn.
Developing the counsellor’s personal qualities
Internalising the Four Noble Truths. All the participants maintained that to integrate
the Four Noble Truths into their therapeutic work, they needed to move beyond theoretical
knowledge of the Truths and develop an understanding of them, “wholeheartedly”, by living
them:
Buddhist counselling, I feel, depends on the counsellor, the counsellor who … who as Denchai
said, needs to understand them [the Four Noble Truths] wholeheartedly and live our lives in
that way. (Somsak – Focus group)
Somsak clearly felt that congruence between the personal and the professional was important.
The use of the word “wholeheartedly” suggested that, for him, an effective counsellor does not
simply have theoretical knowledge, but lives in a Buddhist way. This means that therapeutic
work does not depend only on theoretical knowledge and techniques, but is principally driven
15
by the personal qualities of the counsellor, and these qualities, he believed, could be developed
by internalising the Four Noble Truths. Manid similarly described this point in the following
extract:
What I feel makes Buddhist Counselling distinctive and interesting is that firstly the counsellor
needs to have Buddhist knowledge; this is not only theoretical knowledge. I mean the
counsellor needs to look … look at their own problems and their own mind using Buddhist
ideas as well. (Manid – Focus group)
Understanding the Four Noble Truths through direct experience of investigating the
counsellor’s own suffering, Manid seemed to believe, can help the counsellor move beyond
“theoretical” understanding of the Truths to understanding them “wholeheartedly”.
The underlying justification for this internalisation is the notion of “practise what you
preach”. As Somsak said:
To help others to understand life as it is, we need to live our lives like that as well. We need to
be first in order to help others to understand what we understand. (Somsak – Interview)
For Padee, this internalisation was a matter of being “fair” and of showing “respect for”
clients. Padee seemed to believe that she could achieve this by testing out Buddhist ideas in
her own life first:
Before offering the service, I think it’s necessary to test by trial and error what we will use in
our profession by ourselves first. I feel this, er, it … it’s fair and what should I say? … This is
also to show respect for the clients. (Padee – Focus group)
In the next extract, Somsak described why it was important for him to live his life in a
Buddhist way:
If we live our lives or practise living in harmony with reality, live our lives based on Buddhist
concepts, our work will be in line with our own lives, as we don’t separate life and work. But
if we don’t live our lives like this, then work and life will be separate, and I think we will be
unable to understand Buddhist ideas deeply. (Somsak – Interview)
16
For Somsak, internalising the Four Noble Truths enables the two domains of his life - the
personal and the professional - to become one, and this alignment helped strengthen his
understanding of Buddhist ideas. This better understanding of Buddhist ideas is explicitly
linked to a better understanding of Buddhist Counselling. As Noree pointed out:
I feel there are levels of understanding Buddhist Counselling according to our personal growth
and our Buddhist understanding. The more we understand Buddhist ideas, the more we
understand Buddhist Counselling. (Noree – Focus group)
Noree’s extract above suggests that the level of counsellor competence in practising Buddhist
Counselling varies over time and varies also from one counsellor to another. This competence,
Noree believed, is determined by how well the counsellor understands Buddhist ideas. Padee’s
comment that “the direction we will take a client is the route we have walked before”, also
helps to make sense of Noree’s comment that “the more we understand Buddhist ideas, the
more we understand Buddhist Counselling”. These two extracts convey the idea that
counsellors are only capable of taking a client as far as they have gone themselves. Thus, to be
able to understand and help suffering clients, the participants felt they needed first to
investigate, understand and work through their own suffering using Buddhist concepts.
Observing Buddhist practices. The participants reported using formal or informal
Buddhist practices as a way of developing their personal qualities. Each participant chose what
they considered to be the most suitable type of practice for them. Somsak and Padee both talked
about developing their awareness and sensitivity while working with clients and both had
experienced formal Buddhist practice a short time before the study: Somsak and Padee
undertook formal Vipassana meditation, taught by a Buddhist monk inSomsak’s case, and by
a Buddhist nun in Padee’s case. This practice involved applying their attention to and
increasing their awareness of their own mental and bodily sensations. The other three
17
participants, Denchai, Noree and Manid, practised daily mindfulness, which they described as
regular daily private exercises aimed at cultivating an awareness of their thoughts, feelings,
and emotions.. Manid also sometimes practised meditation informally at home, by focusing
her mind on the present, and chanting. Despite their differences, the central component of all
these practices is paying attention to the present moment and observing one’s feelings and
thoughts:
Mindfulness helps me to know the state of my mind and its movements. (Denchai – Focus
group)
Meditation helps me to be able to pay attention to what is happening in myself, like seeing that
this is my anger. Vipassana helps me to see what is happening to my body when I’m angry oh!
It’s not peaceful, it’s hot. (Somsak – Interview)
In the next extract, Padee explains why she felt it was important for her to follow
Vipassana practice:
We can’t turn the switch on as soon as we are in the counselling room; it’s important that we’re
able to live in harmony, which is not easy … yes, it’s hard even to be peaceful in the counselling
room, but the teacher [counselling trainer] said that ideally even outside the counselling room
you have to be able to tune in to the world - [Noree: “With everything around us”], and doing
Buddhist practice can give me the ability to do so, to help me to be a counsellor longer, not
only in the counselling room. [Padee – Focus group]
In this extract, the idea that “we can’t turn the switch on as soon as we are in the
counselling room” again suggests that it is not simply a technique that can be applied: the
person needs to be the counsellor, not just act the counsellor. Thus the two parts - the personal
and the professional - cannot be separated. Padee regarded being “peaceful” as important but
challenging, both in her professional and personal lives. However, she found that her Buddhist
practice gave her the ability to be peaceful not only in her therapeutic practice, but also in her
personal life outside the counselling room.
18
The participants’ Buddhist practices appeared to have an impact on their
counselling practices in terms of providing them with a better understanding of Buddhist
concepts and improved therapeutic presence. Somsak, who practiced Vispassana, viewed this
practice as a useful tool in developing an understanding of Buddhist ideas:
Before, I may have understood Buddhism superficially, I never did any Buddhist practice, never
at all, and I thought I understood Buddhism, but actually I didn’t. […] Buddhist practice helps
me to understand Buddhist ideas. We won’t truly understand Buddhist ideas if we just study
them theoretically […] before, I thought I understood the concept, but practice makes me see
oh! impermanence is actually like this, it is not only about knowing it superficially, I can’t
explain how it feels like when knowing this wholeheartedly. (Somsak – Interview)
This extract indicated a shift in Somsak’s understanding of the Buddhist concept of
impermanence, from “superficially” to “wholeheartedly” as a result of Vipassana meditation.
He also described the impact of his Buddhist practice in terms of self-transformation, and this
self-transformation in turn had a positive impact on his therapeutic practice:
Before, my counselling work was at a thinking level, I thought and then I saw oh … this way
was for this client, but my real self didn’t change; I was still moody, angry. But when I, as I
said, practise Vipassana, I can feel that inside me also changes. As a consequence of my
practice, I can feel that I’m less moody, I have fewer expectations of something, and this has
an impact on my counselling work; that is, I could more fully concentrate on my clients, and I
could completely let myself be with the client; these things were really helpful. (Somsak –
Focus group)
In this extract, Somsak explicitly linked his Vipassana practice to inner change (change
in himself) and this brought about outer change (change in how he was with clients). More
specifically, Vipassana practice helped improve his mood, in that it helped him to be “less
moody”. This emotional improvement in turn appeared to facilitate an increased level of
therapeutic presence.
19
From this perspective, Buddhist mind training seems essential in enhancing the
participants’ personal and professional development. On the other hand, not practising mind
training can bring about the opposite result. Below, Manid expresses how the absence of mind
training had a negative impact on her therapeutic presence:
I feel that when I work with my clients, I need to concentrate, to be peaceful. I mean I can’t
have concerns and expectations, and when I don’t have self-practice, my mind wanders easily.
I mean, when something enters my mind, it takes over. (Manid – Interview)
Manid clearly attributed loss of self-control and concentration to her untrained mind, and
this untrained mind limited her ability to be fully present with clients. Given the beneficial
results of Buddhist mind training, regular practice over a period of time is highlighted by many
participants as necessary to cultivate and maintain this quality of mind. This is reflected in the
participants’ use of comparative language to highlight, firstly, the importance of having a clear
mind in therapy - “the clearer my mind is, the more perceptive I will be” (Padee – Focus group)
- and, secondly, to stress the importance of maintaining regular mind training – “the more we
practise, the sharper we will be” (Somsak – Interview).
This master theme has shown the ways in which the participants developed their
personal qualities through internalising the Four Noble Truths and through observing Buddhist
practices. Developing themselves in these ways fostered the participants’ development of the
skills and qualities necessary for practising Buddhist Counselling. The time and energy the
participants devoted to their Buddhist personal development was thought to influence the
quality of their therapeutic practice and distinguishes the therapeutic competence of one
counsellor from another.
The next theme goes on to explore how the participants’ personal development played a
role in their therapeutic work.
20
Bringing the counsellor’s personal qualities into therapy
Therapeutic presence as key. All five participants reported that their main commitment
in therapy was to tune in to the client as fully as possible. For them, to be able to stay fully in
tune with clients meant “leaving their selves aside”. In the participants’ accounts, this was
when they let go of their subjective preoccupations:
To be able to do so [tuning in], I need to put my expectations, and my desires aside. I need to
connect with the client’s world, I need to be equal and in harmony with the client. To be equal,
I mean I have to put my thoughts, beliefs, biases, previous experiences, my standards, oh
everything, aside; this is to understand the client’s suffering as fully as they are feeling it.
(Manid– Interview)
Manid made an explicit link between the ability to leave her self aside and the ability to engage
deeply with the client. This means that to get to the full meaning of what the clients are
expressing she believed she must approach the clients’ experience from the position of ‘not
knowing’. The two extracts below demonstrate how approaching the clients’ experience from
a state of (not) knowing can make a difference:
At that time I thought I knew the direction to go, and this was based on my previous knowledge,
I had memorised the map, and when I relied on the map, I used thoughts, and I wasn’t connected
with the client. Whenever I wasn’t in harmony with the client, my mind wasn’t peaceful, and
when I felt that to help the client I had to do this or that, my mind wasn’t peaceful, and this
means that I was increasing the client’s suffering. (Padee – Focus Group)
When I talked to a client and when I was really peaceful, eventually at one point I realised that
it should be like this; I was not sure if that was right or wrong, I didn’t think, it came out
automatically. So when talking to a client, I don’t think ... don’t think about what the teacher
taught me - what I have to look out for - but I try to be as peaceful as possible, and gradually I
will see oh! it clicks!, it should be like this. (Somsak – Focus group)
21
These two extracts focus on the idea of putting knowledge aside and also failing to do so, and
demonstrate how these different ways of being in therapy can lead potentially to different
therapeutic outcomes.
In the first extract, Padee attributed her times of ineffective counselling practice to
operating from thinking and knowing. She regarded holding on to “the map”, or her theoretical
knowledge, as falling into the trap of using her own reference frames to work with a client. By
knowing “the direction to go” before being deeply immersed in the client’s world she was
“dragging” the client into her own ways, instead of letting the client direct himself or herself
in his or her own preferred ways. For Padee, holding on to what she “thought she knew” was
by no means helpful for the client, as this kind of knowledge appeared to block her from truly
being in the moment with the client, and blocked the client from freely and deeply exploring
himself or herself.
In the second extract above, Somsak talked about the “click” moment, which was the
moment when he realised the client’s main concern and knew how to respond to the client’s
issue. He attributed this click moment, which appeared to arise “automatically”, to his
embracing a ‘not knowing’ stance. Committing himself to a position of not knowing allowed
Somsak to let go of “what the teacher taught” and his own theoretical knowledge; it was the
absence of thinking about what to do next that appeared to foster a peaceful mind. This peaceful
mind, in turn, enabled Somsak to be with a client without thinking. In other words, peace of
mind enhanced authentic presence. Authentic presence gradually allowed Somsak to become
deeply immersed in the client’s experience and feelings. This potentially enhanced his attuned
responsiveness, and ultimately provided him with a click moment.
Overall, the participants reported that the less they brought of their own selves to
therapy, the more they could give themselves to the client. It appeared that what was left when
22
the participants “leave” their selves was emptiness, peace, concentration, and mindfulness.
These qualities of mind, the participants believed, could be fostered by observing Buddhist
practices.
Understanding and identifying clients’ suffering. All participants made a clear link
between their capacity to internalise the Four Noble Truths in their lives and applying them in
their counselling work. In other words, there was a parallel between what the participants could
do for themselves and what they could do for others. Maind used comparative structures to
express this:
The clearer you understand the Four Noble Truths in your life, the clearer you can understand
them in clients. (Manid – Interview)
Internalising the Four Noble Truths to investigate and understand the participants’ own
suffering appeared to help them to appreciate the suffering of clients. As Denchai said:
Knowing my own suffering helps me to work with my clients. When I work with my clients, I
don’t think, I think less, I’m just with them, and I can understand the client’s suffering - what
and where the client’s suffering is. (Denchai – Focus group)
Saying that the lived experience of investigating his own suffering made Denchai “think less”,
suggested that this lived experience made it easier for him to understand and identify the
suffering of his clients.
In the next extract, Denchai further described how his direct experience of investigating
his own suffering influenced the ways in which he worked with his clients. This lengthy extract
is interesting on several points, not only because it clearly shows the participant’s direct
experience of the use of Buddhist concepts in dealing with his own suffering, but also because
23
it is a powerful illustration of the role that the participant’s internalisation of Buddhist ideas
plays in his therapeutic practice:
I’ve practised noticing myself and I have found that suffering makes me feel like this; this
makes me focus not only on solving the client’s problem. Like when I suffered from my broken
relationship, other people said to me that I should have stopped listening to sad songs; I had to
take my mind off this problem. These suggestions were okay, but they didn’t fit my feeling. As
I really suffered, so I only wanted to look at my suffering. I found my clients coming to see me
with this kind of feeling as well. From my experience, I found that looking at my suffering was
okay, but I had to look at it really, really clearly until I found how heavy it was, why I still
clung to it, and then I felt relief. So when I work with clients and I find that they still want to
be with their suffering, I’m able to help them in a Buddhist way [to] look at their own suffering
mindfully, help them be in touch with their direct experience of suffering, and eventually realise
how much they are suffering. (Denchai – interview)
In this extract, we can see the ways in which Denchai moved back and forth, comparing
what he did to bring himself out of his own suffering, to how he tried to help his clients. Again,
this supports the idea of using what helps oneself to help others. The direct experience of his
own suffering allowed Denchai to appreciate the suffering of his clients and to not rush into
“solving” their problems. This direct experience also helped Denchai help clients to immerse
themselves in their suffering “mindfully”, rather than unconsciously. Being with their suffering
“mindfully”, Denchai believed, can help clients come to terms with their suffering, as he did.
This way of looking at suffering mindfully is informed by the first Noble Truth.
According to this, to clearly understand ‘dukka’ or suffering we need to investigate it carefully
and directly from our own experience. Facilitating a mindful exploration of suffering, the
participants believed, not only helps clients to understand their own suffering more clearly, but
also helped the participants to identify clients’ problems.
When the client says something, sometimes only one sentence, I can see that there is a ‘split’
in that sentence. And when I see this split, I help the client to examine it clearly. (Noree –
Interview)
24
While listening to clients’ stories, an understanding of the cause of suffering informed
by the second Noble Truth appeared to help Noree identify clients’ suffering and this led her
to invite clients to see the beliefs that make them suffer, and to see how their beliefs are
incongruent with what they are experiencing. This careful exploration of the cause of suffering
is believed to help facilitate clients’ realisation of their own suffering, and offers a way to bring
themselves out of that suffering.
This master theme shows how the participants’ personal qualities played a significant
role in their therapeutic practice. Buddhist practices appeared to help foster the participants’
therapeutic presence. Utilising the Four Noble Truths to understand their own lives appeared
to help the participants strengthen their understanding of these Truths, and this understanding
helped enhance their therapeutic competence to understand and identify clients’ problems.
These therapeutic qualities, the participants believed, helped contribute to their therapeutic
efficacy.
Discussion
This paper has presented Thai counsellors’ experience of practising Buddhist Counselling,
focusing on how they developed their personal qualities through the use of Buddhist ideas and
practices, and how they regarded these personal qualities as integral to their practice of
Buddhist Counselling. Inviting the participants to report their experience by adopting the
qualitative approach of IPA offered a detailed picture of their subjective experience. This study,
therefore, contributes to the relatively small pool of existing literature on Buddhist Counselling
in Thailand and to the growing body of work on Buddhist-informed therapies, by providing a
more comprehensive understanding about the lived experiences of counsellors practising
Buddhist Counselling.
25
One of the most striking features of the findings presented in this paper is that the
participants described their personal qualities as the key therapeutic tool. The participants
placed a greater emphasis on the personal qualities of the counsellor over technical skills, and
they believed that the counsellor’s personal qualities have a greater impact on the therapeutic
process and outcome than theoretical orientation.
The significance of the counsellor’s personal qualities as key in therapy has been
recognised widely across the psychotherapeutic literature (cf., Aron 1996; McConnaughty
1987; Reupert 2008, 2006). Aron (1996), a psychoanalytic therapist, noted “[not] only does
every intervention reflect the analyst’s subjectivity, but it is precisely the personal elements
contained in the intervention that are most responsible for its therapeutic impact” (p. 93).
Similarly, McConnaughty (1987) made it clear that “it is the individual therapist, regardless of
school, who determines the quality of the therapy” (p. 307). Smith (2000) commented on the
importance given to therapeutic techniques: techniques, he argued, can only be used and made
possible by the therapist. In this light, counsellors coming from the same therapeutic
orientation, and using the same techniques, can generate significantly different therapeutic
outcomes depending on their experience and expression of personal qualities. In this study, the
participants also described how different Buddhist counsellors provide qualitatively different
therapies, as the quality of therapy is thought to depend essentially on the personal qualities of
the counsellor.
The participants in this study believed the counsellor’s personal qualities that are
essential for practicing Buddhist Counselling can be cultivated through living in a Buddhist
way. By this, the participants meant that they needed to develop their personal qualities
continually, both through an application of the Four Noble Truths to their own lives and
through the use of Buddhist mind training. The participants’ aim in internalising the Four Noble
26
Truths was to investigate and understand their own suffering, and this understanding in turn
helped them to understand their clients’ suffering.
This perspective is reminiscent of the concept of the “wounded healer”, first referred to
by Carl Jung (Wheeler 2007), which is that “the more healers can understand their own wounds
and journey of recovery, the better position they are in to guide others through such a process,
while recognizing that each person’s journey is unique” (Zerubavel and Wright 2012, p. 482).
The participants’ aim in following Buddhist practices was to help develop their personal selfawareness and concentration, and thus help foster their therapeutic presence. Although the
participants’ primary aim in following Buddhist self-practices was to serve clients better,
observing this practice was seen as having a positive impact on the participants’ daily lives,
and not only on their therapeutic work.
The participants regarded Buddhist counselling as a way of life that links the professional
and the personal domains. This finding provides support for the point made by Donati and
Watts (2005) that a belief that therapeutic change is mainly brought about by the personal
qualities of the counsellor, rather than by any technical skills, is likely to see the personal and
professional development of the counsellor as being one and the same.
The concept of inter-dependency between the personal and professional development
of counsellors is not novel in the literature (cf., Cigolla and Brown 2011; Johns 1996; Skovholt
and Ronnestad 1996; Wilkins 1997). Indeed, Skovholt and Ronnestad (1996) noted that this
inter-dependency has been increasingly recognised in the field of counselling and
psychotherapy, and they argued that personal development and professional development
constitute “counsellor development”. Counsellors across a range of theoretical orientations
have sought different ways in which their personal development can foster their professional
development. For example, research has suggested a positive impact of ch’i-related practices
27
(Liou and Prior 2012) and of mindfulness practice (Cigolla and Brown 2011) on counsellors’
personal lives and on their therapeutic practice.
In this study, the participants reported attempting to cultivate and maintain their quality
of mind through the use of both formal and informal Buddhist practices, including meditation,
mindfulness, and chanting. In line with a number of studies (cf., Bell 2009; Campbell and
Christopher 2012; Cigolla and Brown 2011; Dunn et al. 2013; Ryan et al. 2012), the
participants in this study found Buddhist practices enhanced their ability to be with clients more
fully. However, this study also found potential effects of Buddhist practices and ideas on
counsellors’ therapeutic work that have not been explored in the existing literature. Firstly, the
participants in this study reported that Buddhist practices helped strengthen their theoretical
understanding of Buddhist concepts. Secondly, the participants used the Four Noble Truths not
only to work with the clients (cf., Rungreangkulkij et al. 2011), but also as the main tool for
their own personal development.
The findings from this study indicate the usefulness of integrating Buddhist ideas and
practices not only into work with clients, but also into practitioners’ personal lives. Thus this
study suggests that counsellors practising Buddhist-informed therapies may consider
incorporating Buddhist ideas and practices into their personal lives, as a way potentially to
enhance their therapeutic effectiveness. Buddhist practices, and especially in recent times
mindfulness practices, have received substantial interest from counsellors across theoretical
orientations, and they have been widely acknowledged as effective ways of fostering the
physical and psychological well-being of people (Beitel et al. 2005; Brow and Ryan 2003), and
particularly of counsellors (Chistopher and Maris 2010; May and O’Donovan 2007). A number
of studies argue that the usefulness of mindfulness goes beyond it being an effective therapeutic
technique, and that it should be included as a significant part of counselling training and be
28
placed at the core of continuing professional development (Bruce et al. 2010; Campbell and
Christopher 2012; Childs 2011, 2007; Gockel 2010). This study offers suggestions in line with
these studies; namely, that Buddhist practices, such as mindfulness and meditation, would be
of significant value for counsellors who are interested in finding ways to cultivate and maintain
the quality of mind that can enhance not only their therapeutic presence, but also their
psychological well-being.
It is apparent that the participants in this study seemed to integrate their personal and
professional lives to experience both in Buddhist ways. We can see then that the ongoing
professional development of the participants involved a dual process. Firstly, it was a process
of working towards bringing Buddhist teachings, the theoretical underpinnings of Buddhist
Counselling, into their personal lives. Secondly, it was a process of working towards the
integration of their Buddhist personal development into their practice of Buddhist Counselling
(Fear and Woolfe 1999).
The participants reported that this congruence between the ways they worked on
themselves and the ways they worked with clients was critical to effective practice. In contrast,
they perceived the lack of such congruence may result in poorer practice. This finding concurs
with research and scholarship on the importance of the integration of the self of the practitioner
in their work with clients in order to offer a fully engaged and authentic ‘presence’ in the
therapeutic relationship with the client (Aron 1996; McConnaughty 1987; Reupert 2008;
2006). While not specifically focused on indigenization – the argument that intervention
models and services need to be adapted to the local cultures of the populations served (Duan
et al. 2011; Laungani 1997) – this finding might be interpreted as supporting the indigenization
debate. These practitioners perceive the congruence between their personal beliefs and
practices, grounded in local culture and community, and their practice with clients as essential
29
to the integrity of their professional practice. Where the indigenisation argument is usually
based on the needs of the populations to be served, this research might point to another
dimension of cultural adaptability: that practitioners need also to practise in a manner that is
sensitive and congruent to their culture and beliefs in order to be truly effective.
Additionally, the study strongly supports the idea put forward by Irving and Williams
(1999), that each counselling orientation has its own unique aim and therapeutic theory, and
there is, therefore, “no universal recipe for personal development work” (p. 524). The most
important thing, they argue, is that counsellors need to identify the personal qualities and skills
that are essentially relevant to their own therapeutic practice, and that are critical for working
effectively with their clients.
Limitations of the study
This study only looked at counsellors who had received Buddhist Counselling training from
one institution and in one cultural context. The findings generated from this study are thus
specific to this particular group of people. In addition, this research was conducted with a
relatively small sample of participants. It is, therefore, possible that the findings are not
generalisable to other Buddhist-informed counsellors. As such, it would be useful to learn more
about the Buddhist-informed psychotherapy experiences of counsellors from different
institutions and/or cultural groups. Such research may help confirm and/or extend the present
findings.
Conclusion
The results of this present study capture the detailed accounts of Thai practitioners’ experiences
of Buddhist Counselling, in ways not possible with quantitative studies. As discussed earlier,
there is limited existing research in the field giving voice to practitioners using Buddhist-
30
informed therapies. This study opens up the practitioners’ lived experiences of practising
Buddhist Counselling in a Buddhist context by detailing the ways they cultivate and maintain
their personal qualities through the integration of Buddhist ideas and practices in their own
lives. It also shows how these qualities play a significant role in the participants’ practice of
Buddhist Counselling. As such, the results presented in this study can be regarded as an
illustration of how Buddhist philosophy and practice are integrated into practitioners’ personal
lives and then integrated into their therapeutic work. This provides a clearer picture and a
greater understanding of how Buddhism and counselling are integrated in the practice of these
Buddhist counsellors in contemporary Thailand.
Acknowledgement
With heart-felt thanks to all participants for their valuable contributions to the study.
References
Aron, L. (1996). A meeting of minds: Mutuality in psychoanalysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic
Press.
Beitel, M., Ferrer, E., & Cecero, J.J. (2005). Psychological mindedness and awareness of self
and others. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(6), 739-750. doi: 10.1002/jclp.20095
Bell, L. G. (2009). Mindful Psychotherapy. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 11, 126–
144. doi:10.1080/19349630902864275
Bhikkhu, M. (2007). A Buddhist Model for Health Care Reform. Journal of the Medical
Association of Thailand, 90(10), 2213–2221.
Bojuwoye, O., & Sodi, T. (2010). Challenges and opportunities to integrating traditional
healing into counselling and psychotherapy. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 23(3),
283–296. doi:10.1080/09515070.2010.505750
Bowman, R., & Baylen, D. (1994). Buddhism as a second-order change psychotherapy.
International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 17, 101–108. doi:
10.1007/BF01407966
Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role
in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(4), 822–
848. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.822
Bruce, N. G., Manber, R., Shapiro, S. L., & Costantino, M. J. (2010). Psychotherapists
mindfulness and the psychotherapy process. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research,
Practice, Training, 47, 83-97. doi:10.1037/a0018842
Campbell, J., & Christopher, J. (2012). Teaching mindfulness to create effective counselors.
Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 34(3), 213–226. Retrieved from
31
http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-297915507/teaching-mindfulness-to-createeffective-counselors
Central Intelligence Agency. (2013). Thailand. Retrieved April 2, 2013 from
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/th.html
Cheung, F. M. (2000). Deconstructing counseling in a cultural context. The Counseling
Psychologist, 28(1), 123–132. doi:10.1177/0011000000281008
Childs, D. (2007). Mindfulness and the psychology of presence. Psychology and
Psychotherapy, 80(3), 367-376. doi:10.1348/147608306X162600
Childs, D. (2011). Mindfulness and clinical psychology. Psychology and psychotherapy,
84(3), 288–298. doi:10.1348/147608310X530048
Chong, F. H., & Liu, H. (2002). Indigenous counseling in the Chinese cultural context:
Experience transformed model. Asian Journal of Counselling, 9, 49–68. Retrieved from
http://hkier.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/journal/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ajc_v9n1-2_49-68.pdf
Christopher, J. C., & Maris, J. A. (2010). Integrating mindfulness as self-care into
counselling and psychotherapy training. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research,
10(2), 114–125. doi:10.1080/14733141003750285
Church, A. T., & Katigbak, M. S. (2002). Indigenization of psychology in the Philippines.
International Journal of Psychology, 37(3), 129–148. doi: 10.1080/00207590143000315
Cigolla, F., & Brown, D. (2011). A way of being: Bringing mindfulness into individual
therapy. Psychotherapy Research, 21(6), 709-721. doi: 10.1080/10503307.2011.613076
Daya, R. (2000). Buddhist psychology, a theory of change processes: Implications for
counsellors. International journal for the advancement of counselling, 22(4), 257–271.
doi: 10.1023/A:1005648127301
Donati, M., & Watts, M. (2005). Personal development in counsellor training: Towards a
clarification of inter-related concepts. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 33(4),
475–484. doi:10.1080/03069880500327553
Duan, C., Nilsson, J., Wang, C-C. D. C., Debernardi, N., Klevens, C., & Tallent, C. (2011).
Internationalizing counselling: A Southeast Asian perspective. Counselling Psychology
Quarterly, 24(1), 29–41. doi:10.1080/09515070.2011.558253
Dunn, R., Callahan, J. L., Swift, J. K., & Ivanovic, M. (2013). Effects of pre-session
centering for therapists on session presence and effectiveness. Psychotherapy Research,
23(1), 78-85. doi:10.1080/10503307.2012.731713
Eatough, V., & Smith, J.A. (2008). Interpretative phenomenological analysis. In C. Willig &
W. S. Rogers (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitatitive Psychology (pp. 179-194). London:
Sage.
Fear, R., & Woolfe, R. (1999). The personal and professional development of the counsellor:
The relationship between personal philosophy and theoretical orientation. Counselling
Psychology Quarterly, 12(3), 253-262. doi: 10.1080/09515079908254095
Gehart, D. R., & Paré, D. (2008). Suffering and the relationship with the problem in
postmodern therapies: A Buddhist re-visioning. Journal of Family Psychotherapy,
19(4), 299–319. doi:10.1080/08975350802475049
Gockel, A. (2010). The promise of mindfulness for clinical practice education. Smith College
Studies in Social Work, 80, 248–268. doi:10.1080/00377311003784184
Hanrinth, R., & Rungreangkulkij, S. (2008). การให้การปรึ กษารายบุคคลแนวพุทธศาสนาในผูป้ ่ วยเรื้ อรัง
ที่มีภาวะซึมเศร้า [Buddhist-oriented individual counseling for depressed chronic illness
patients]. Journal of Mental Health of Thailand, 16(1), 14–23. Retrieved from
http://thailand.digitaljournals.org/index.php/JMHT/article/view/8118
Hathirat, S. (1983). Buddhist monks as community health workers in Thailand. Social
Science and Medical, 17(19), 1485–1487. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(83)90047-3
32
Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and commitment therapy.
New York: Guilford Press.
Hoogasian, R., & Lijtmaer, R. (2010). Integrating Curanderismo into counselling and
psychotherapy. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 23(3), 297–307.
doi:10.1080/09515070.2010.505752
Hoshman, L. T., & Polkinghorne, D. E. (1992). Redefining the science-practice realtionship
and professional training. American Psychologist, 47(1), 55-66. doi:10.1037/0003066X.47.1.55
Irving, J., & Williams, D. (1999). Personal growth and personal development: Concepts
clarified. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 27(4), 37–41. doi:
10.1080/03069889908256287
Johns, H. (1996). Personal development in counsellor training. London: Cassell.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1982). An outpatient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain
patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: Theoretical considerations and
preliminary results. General Hospital Psychiatry, 4, 33-47. doi:10.1016/01638343(82)90026-3
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: How to cope with stress, pain and illness
using mindfulness meditation. New York: Bantam Dell.
Kumar, S. M. (2002). An introduction to buddhism for the cognitive-behavioral therapist.
Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 9(1), 40–43. doi:10.1016/S1077-7229(02)80038-4
Larkin, M., Watts, S., & Clifton, E. (2006). Giving voice and making sense in
interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 102-120.
doi: 10.1191/1478088706qp062oa
Laungani, P. (1997). Replacing client-centred counselling with culture-centred counselling.
Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 10(4), 343-351. doi: 10.1080/09515079708254184
Lee, B. (2002). Chinese indigenous psychotherapies in Singapore. Counselling and
Psychotherapy Research, 2(1), 2-10. doi: 10.1080/14733140212331384938
Leiper, R. and Maltby, M. (2004) The Psychodynamic Approach to Therapeutic Change.
London: Sage
Leung, S. A., & Chen, P. (2009). Counseling psychology in Chinese communities in Asia:
Indigenous, multicultural, and cross-cultural considerations. The Counseling
Psychologist, 37(7), 944-966. doi: 10.1177/0011000009339973
Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder.
New York: Guilford Press.
Liou, C., & Prior, S. (2012). Taiwanese senior counsellors’ ch’i- related experiences and their
counselling practice. Asia Pacific Journal of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 3(1), 1828. doi: 10.1080/21507686.2011.638310
Marlatt, G. A. (2002). Buddhist philosophy and the treatment of addictive Behavior.
Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 9, 44–50. doi:10.1016/S1077-7229(02)80039-6
May, S., & O'Donovan, A. (2007). The advantages of the mindful therapist. Psychotherapy in
Australia, 13(4), 2007. Retrieved from
http://www.psychotherapy.com.au/fileadmin/site_files/pdfs/MayO_Donovan.pdf
McConnaughty, E. A. (1987). The person of the therapist in psychotherapeutic practice.
Psychotherapy, 24(3), 303–314. doi: 10.1037/h0085720
McWilliams, S. (2010). Inherent self, invented self, empty self: Constructivism, Buddhism,
and psychotherapy. Counseling and Values, 55, 79–100. doi: 10.1002/j.2161007X.2010.tb00023.x
Mohatt, G. V. (2010). Moving toward an indigenous psychotherapy. The Counseling
Psychologist, 38(2), 236–242. doi:10.1177/0011000009345532
33
Nissanka, H. S. S. (1993). Buddhist psychotherapy: An eastern therapeutic approach to
mental problems. Delhi: Ram Printograph.
Owen, I. R. (1999). Exploring the similarities and differences between person-centred and
psychodynamic therapy. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 27(2), 165-178.
doi: 10.1080/03069889908256262
Payutto, P. P. (1995). Buddhadhamma: Natural laws and values for life. Trans. by Olson, G
A Albany: University of New York Press.
Pedersen, P. B. (2003). Culturally biased assumptions in counseling psychology. The
Counseling Psychologist, 31(4), 396–403. doi:10.1177/0011000003254630
Pokeao, S. (2010). การสังเคราะห์ หลักอริ ยสั จ 4 สู่กระบวนการปรึ กษาเชิ งจิตวิทยา/จิตรั กษาเพื่อการพัฒนา รั กษา
และเยียวยาชีวิตจิตใจ: แนวคิด แนวทาง ประสบการณ์ และงานวิจัย [An application of the Four Noble Truths
to counselling process for developing, treating, and healing: Concepts, ways, experience
and research]. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University.
Reupert, A. (2006). The counsellor’s self in therapy: An inevitable presence. International
Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 28(1), 95–105. doi:10.1007/s10447-0059001-2
Reupert, A. (2008). A trans-disciplinary study of the therapeutist's self. European Journal of
Psychotherapy and Counselling, 10(4), 369-383. doi:10.1080/13642530802577125
Rogers, C (1951) Client-Centred Therapy. London: Constable
Rungreangkulkij, S., Wongtakee, W., & Thongyot, S. (2011). Buddhist group therapy for
diabetes patients with depressive symptoms. Archives of psychiatric nursing, 25(3),
195–205. doi:10.1016/j.apnu.2010.08.007
Ryan, A., Safran, J. D., Doran, J. M., & Muran, J. C. (2012). Therapist mindfulness, alliance
and treatment outcome. Psychotherapy Research, 22(3), 289–97.
doi:10.1080/10503307.2011.650653
Segal, Z. V., Williams, J. M. G., & Teasdale, J. D. (2002). Mindfulness-Based Cognitive
Therapy for depression: A new approach to preventing relapse. New York: Guilford
Press.
Shinebourne, P., & Smith, J. A. (2009). Alcohol and the self: An interpretative
phenomenological analysis of the experience of addiction and its impact on the sense of
self and identity. Addiction Research & Theory, 17(2), 152–167.
doi:10.1080/16066350802245650
Skovholt, T. M., & Ronnestad, M. H. (1996). The evolving professional self: Stages and
themes in therapist and counsellor development. London: Wiley.
Smith, E. W. L. (2000). Toward the meaning of "the person of the therapist". Journal of
Couples Therapy, 9, 43–49. doi: 10.1300/J036v09n03_04
Smith, J. A. (1996). Beyond the divide between cognition and discourse: Using interpretative
phenomenological analysis in health psychology. Psychology and Health, 11, 261-71.
doi:10.1080/08870449608400256
Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis:
Theory, method and research. London: Sage.
Tomkins, L., & Eatough, V. (2010). Reflecting on the use of IPA with focus groups: Pitfalls
and potentials. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 7(3), 244–262.
doi:10.1080/14780880903121491
Tuicomepee, A., Romano, J.L., & Pokaeo, S. (2012). Counseling in Thailand: Development
from a Buddhist perspective. Journal of Counselling and Development, 90, 357–361.
doi: 10.1002/j.1556-6676.2012.00044.x
34
Ushiroyama, T. (2006). Clinical efficacy of psychotherapy inclusive of Buddhist Psychology
in female psychosomatic medicine. International Congress Series, 1287, 334-339. doi:
10.1016/j.ics.2005.09.178
Vicary, D.A., & Andrews, H. (2000). Developing a culturally appropriate psychotherapeutic
approach with indigenous Australians. Australian Psychologist, 35(3), 181–185.
doi:10.1080/00050060008257476
Wada, K., & Park, J. (2009). Integrating Buddhist psychology into grief counseling. Death
Studies, 33, 657–683. doi:10.1080/07481180903012006
Wilkins, P. (1997). Personal and Professional Development for Counsellors. London: Sage.
Wheeler, S. (2007). What shall we do with the wounded healer? The supervisor's dilemma.
Psychodynamic Practice, 13(3), 245-256. doi: 10.1080/14753630701455838
Yip, KS. (2003). A critical Asian response to issues and debates in cross cultural counselling.
Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development, 13(1), 117-137. doi:
10.1080/21650993.2003.9755916
Zerubavel, n., & Wright, M. O. (2012). The dilemma of the wounded healer. Psychotherapy,
49(4), 482-491. doi: 10.1037/a0027824