Meditation versus therapy

Meditation has become hugely popular in recent years. So much so, that there is an increasing confusion as to what exactly the difference is between meditation and psychotherapy, if meditation is actually a form of psychotherapy, and if so, why actually see a therapist at all? After all, if meditation provides us with the peace of mind and serenity needed to put a distance between us and our worries and troubles, surely this is more than enough we can hope for? Better yet, meditation is something we can do on our own, whenever or wherever we choose, it is a truly autonomous and independent practice.

Yet there is a clear difference between meditation and psychotherapy. Yes, meditation does indeed help us accept certain things we cannot change, but therapy gives us the motivation and strength to radically transform our lives, that is to change the things that can be changed. And therapy also provides us with a safe space to distinguish the two.

For example: My mother keeps bombarding me with unexpected phonecalls several times a week, sometimes several times a day. I obviously cannot change my mother. But what I can change, is to receive those phonecalls or not. So therapy will provide me with the opportunity to discuss gentle ways to get the message across to my mother; for example picking up the phone only at certain times, or even gently blocking her number for a week at a time, until the message comes across. I can discuss my options with the help of a kind yet firm therapist. The therapist can also help me identify underlying emotions, for example guilt (I am being very cruel to my poor mother) or anger (doesn’t she understand I have a life too?!). 

And then, outside the therapy session, in the peace and comfort of my own home, I can meditate on the guilt, on the anger, and see them as emotions that are painfully unpleasant, but that are ultimately not part of me, not part of who I really am. As in the Boudhist philosophy that teaches us to observe our emotions as we would observe clouds passing by in a blue sky, we can take some necessary distance from our emotions. And they can thus become a little less painful every time we sit down to meditate. 



So, meditation and psychotherapy are wonderfully complementary, yet there essence is very different. Ideally, we would engage in some form of the two combined in order to get the best results, in the quickest amount if time.