COMMENTARY

Is Buddhism a Psychology?Commentary on Romanticism in‘‘Mindfulness in Psychology’’

Harris FriedmanDepartment of Psychology, University of Florida

A core value within the United States is the separation of church and state;however that value is constantly challenged by those wanting to see Americaredefined as a Christian nation. Likewise, there has been a long-standingstruggle between religion and science in which the field of psychology isparticularly vulnerable, because much of its content focuses on human,rather than the natural (i.e., the nonhuman) world and is correspondinglyshaped by culturally-constrained values, including those embedded inreligious worldviews. Keeping boundaries between overtly religious agendaand the discipline of psychology often is muddled, such as in the encroach-ment of various forms of religious parochialism passed off as psychology(e.g., the growth in the number of graduate schools now approved by theAmerican Psychological Association to explicitly train so-called Christianclinical psychologists; Johnson & McMinn, 2003). Of course, looking atinterrelationships between religious and psychological variables, such ascomparing religious with psychopathological experiences (e.g., Johnson &Friedman, 2008), is different than confounding religion with psychology.

Ironically, humanistic psychology, although often vilified by fundamen-tal Christianity for its secularism, is no less subject to misunderstandingreligious content as psychological, but often in a different way. The recentspecial issue of this humanistic psychology journal on ‘‘Mindfulness inPsychology’’ (Khong & Mruk, 2009b) presented an implicit variant of

Correspondence should be addressed to Harris Friedman, 1270 Tom Coker Road, LaBelle,

FL 33935. E-mail: harrisfriedman@floraglades.org

The Humanistic Psychologist, 38: 184–189, 2010

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0887-3267 print=1547-3333 online

DOI: 10.1080/08873267.2010.485899

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religious parochialism through misportraying mindfulness, a burgeoningarea of interest within psychology, as stemming predominantly fromBuddhist beliefs and practices, as well as ultimately being embedded in aBuddhist worldview. Although the avowed purpose of this special issue isto ‘‘separate facts from fiction,’’ ‘‘clear up misconceptions,’’ and ‘‘sharethe body of knowledge’’ about mindfulness (Khong & Mruk, 2009a,p. 110), it strongly tended to situate mindfulness within the context of justthis one religious tradition. Representative statements to this effect includethe following: ‘‘although . . . the practice of mindfulness does not require thepractitioner to ‘adopt’ Buddhism but to develop inner peace, the concept ofmindfulness is nevertheless drawn primarily from the Buddha’s teachings’’(Khong & Mruk, 2009a, p. 112), ‘‘cannot be divorced from the philosophi-cal and psychological foundations of the Buddha’s teaching . . . [in which]Buddhism constitutes the ‘bigger picture’ in which mindfulness needs tobe contextualized’’ (Khong, 2009, p. 119) and ‘‘the heart of mindfulness isthe Buddha’s teaching’’ (Khong, 2009, p. 133). Imagine how similar writingswithin a humanistic psychology journal, but from a Christian vantage,might be received, as illustrated by the following fictionalized paraphrase:‘‘Although the practice of forgiveness does not require the practitioner toadopt Christianity but to develop inner peace, the concept of forgivenessis nevertheless drawn primarily from the Christ’s teachings, cannot bedivorced from the philosophical and psychological foundations of theChrist’s teaching in which Christianity constitutes the bigger picture inwhich forgiveness needs to be contextualized, and the heart of forgivenessis the Christ’s teaching.’’ Surely such a statement, simply substituting‘‘forgiveness’’ for ‘‘mindfulness’’ and ‘‘Christ=Christianity’’ for ‘‘Buddha=Buddhism,’’ would not go unchallenged if published in a humanisticpsychology journal. So why are the former statements about Buddhismaccepted without being noticed as privileging a particular religious tradition,while the equally prejudicial latter about Christianity would likely raisevociferous protest and never make it to print? To be fair, there are a fewisolated disclaimers in this special issue noting that mindfulness is notexclusively under the domain of Buddhism, but alternative traditionsemploying mindfulness are given comparatively short shrift and the gist ofthis special issue, when read as a whole, overwhelmingly privilegesBuddhism by positioning mindfulness as a Buddhist practice embeddedwithin a Buddhist worldview.

I attribute this problem to the pervasiveness of romanticism withinhumanistic psychology, which is especially prevalent in its transpersonalbranch. This manifests as a subtle countercultural bias against the moremainstream Christian tradition in the West, while paradoxically oftenaccompanied by subtle favoring of so-called exotic traditions, such as

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Buddhism. I recently wrote about this in terms of xenophilia (Friedman,2009) and previously provided a conceptual basis for understanding someof the dynamics of this type of romanticism by delineated a number ofcultural errors often made in elevating such exotic traditions to the statusof psychology (Friedman, 2005). I have also written more generally aboutdangers of romanticism within humanistic psychology when religious tradi-tions are confounded with psychology through seeing them as psychologiesper se, rather than as practices and beliefs possibly having much to offerpsychology (Friedman, 2002). My intent here is to point out some of theproblems in this special issue, due to misattributing mindfulness as beingpredominantly a Buddhist approach and unfairly, compared to other reli-gions, elevating Buddhism to supposed unique importance for psychology.

To begin, I do not quibble that Buddhism has explicitly developedmindfulness practices with considerable sophistication and potentially greatvalue for psychology, especially in its Theravadan lineages, but many otherreligious traditions also include rich mindfulness practices. In fact, mindful-ness practices likely go back to the very origins of humanity. They also havelong been part of psychology, as in psychoanalytic depth approaches (e.g.,employing free association while minimizing critical judgments), whichcan be traced back to their Jewish Kabbalistic roots (Bakan, 1957). It is alsoimportant to note that complex mindfulness practices exist in manynon-Buddhist strands of Eastern traditions (e.g., Chinese daoist and Hinduyogic), some of which are historical precursors of Buddhist mindfulnesspractices. In addition, many Western and indigenous traditions also employsophisticated mindfulness practices. In sum, this suggests that mindfulnessmay be a cultural universal, like consciousness itself, and is not wedded toany particular religious tradition. There are also many rich humanisticand scientific approaches for understanding mindfulness from a moresecular vantage (e.g., Fogel, 2009; Langer, 1989; Siegel, 2007). Although anumber of current mindfulness practices attribute their roots to Buddhismand appear to rapidly be increasing in popularity, mindfulness practiceshave been part of psychology since its advent and have been nourished frommany traditions. As one religion tradition, Buddhism simply has no exclus-ive franchise on mindfulness, and claims that mindfulness within psychologyin any way belongs to Buddhism comparatively disenfranchises the manyother traditions employing similar practices.

Second, there is no justification for evaluating Buddhist approaches tomindfulness as superior to similar approaches derived from other traditions.Attributing superiority to any one religious tradition is fraught with dangers,as there are no trustworthy indexes to evaluate the overall comparative worthof any among the many traditions. However, there has been a generalizedtendency recently to elevate Buddhism within psychology, as exemplified

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by Wallace and Shapiro’s (2006) unfortunate claim that Buddhism is ‘‘themost psychological of all spiritual traditions’’ (p. 690). In contrast to thisprivileging of Buddhism as psychologically superior, I note there are vastliteratures relating the value of many different Eastern (e.g., for Hinduism;see Paranjpe, 1998), Western (e.g., for Christianity; see Jeeves, 1997), andfolk and indigenous (e.g., Wringe, 2002) traditions to psychology. In thisregard, I concur with Rue (2005), who ecumenically claimed that all religionspotentially offer much to psychology. Concluding that Buddhism is uniquelyimportant in regard to either mindfulness, or more broadly psychology ingeneral, is indefensible.

Third, although Buddhism is often mischaracterized as a psychology andnot a religion, it shares religious assumptions alien to psychology. Wallaceand Shapiro (2006), as an example of such a misportrayal, claimed Buddhism‘‘does not begin with arousing faith in a supernatural being’’ (p. 690), but thisis largely inaccurate (although it is difficult to generalize about a religion thathas many varied expressions). Buddhist foundational beliefs include manyfaith assumptions (e.g., Buddha’s supposed enlightenment, in which heallegedly became freed from karma, a notion inextricably tied to belief inreincarnation); it is faith in his enlightenment, a supernatural belief, that pro-motes others emulating him both as a human role model (Oman & Thoreson,2003) and as a divinity (Norezayan & Hansen, 2006). The beginning appealof Buddhism is based on faith that the Buddha was able to disentanglehimself from the bonds of karma and, therefore, others who follow his samepath can presumably obtain the same supernatural result. This and manyother empirically inaccessible assumptions of Buddhism are antithetical toa scientific approach, so misportraying Buddhism as a psychology, ratherthan a religion that includes many psychological insights, as do all religions,is another form of elevating Buddhism through romanticism.

Last, although there is an impressive body of work on the salutary effectsof mindfulness practices within psychology, their possible iatrogenic effectsshould not be ignored. However, this special issue gives little mention of anypossible harm that could inure from mindfulness practices, which a morebalanced coverage would provide. In terms of such possible harm, Mace(2007) stated,

It must not be assumed that all of the clinical consequences of mindfulnesspractice are necessarily positive or therapeutic. Attrition during trials ofmindfulness-based interventions is rarely explored, and the whole questionof side-effects is under-researched. Known possible unintended effects thatare exacerbated during intense training retreats include restlessness, anxietydepression, guilt and hallucinosis . . . including accounts of the precipitationof frank psychiatric illness. (p. 105)

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I am reminded of the classic fable of the grasshopper (a traditional trickster)and a centipede. The grasshopper, intending to befuddle the centipede, askshow it manages to walk using so many legs. Once asked, of course, the centi-pede becomes aware of what previously was unconscious and, confusedabout which leg to move next, falls over—suggesting that mindfulnessapproaches may not be a panacea. To ignore the possible iatrogenic effectsfrommindfulness practices is yet another example of romanticism, as it servesto noncritically elevate these practices beyond their demonstrated worth.

This special issue contributes many good things to an understanding ofmindfulness as related to humanistic psychology. However, it misattributesmindfulness to predominantly one religious tradition, confounds thistradition with psychology, and elevates this tradition by adulating itsuniqueness and worth for psychology, while minimizing its possible limita-tions. Most important, attempts to understand and apply mindfulness prac-tices within psychology need not be only through a Buddhist religious lens.Tacitly accepting these types of errors of romanticism in elevating Buddhismcan have dire consequences to humanistic psychology (e.g., see Friedman,2002). I conclude with a quote from this previous paper in which I dealt withromanticism of this type more comprehensively, as follows:

The point is that science, including its applications in professional practice,should not be tied to any particular religious or spiritual tradition althoughit can clearly be used appropriately within the context of such a tradition.In addition, traditions might be sources of fruitful hypotheses for beginningto scientifically explore within transpersonal psychology, but a skeptical scien-tific attitude should prevail unless support is evidenced. Finally, I intend nodisrespect for those in any religious or spiritual tradition as long as they donot try to characterize their tradition as science and do not try to stop scientificinquiry. (Friedman, 2002, p. 178)

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