An Introduction to the “Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy” Archives

by Jeffrey Fortuna

The Legacy Project is very happy to publish the complete set of the Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy, volumes I–IX. The Journal was published from 1980–1994, sponsored by Naropa University. Most of the authors generously gave us their permission for this archival reprinting. The estates of Chogyam Trungpa and Osel Tendzin did not give reprint permission due to their papers being published elsewhere or needing further editing.

In 1978, my fellow Naropa graduate student, Dan Montgomery, and I first had the idea for such a Journal. We raised start-up funds from the Naropa community and invited interested colleagues to form an editorial board. Edward Podvoll, who had recently become the Director of the Naropa Graduate Program in Buddhist and Western Psychology, immediately joined us and became the first Editor-In-Chief. We published our first issue in 1980 with four articles. We were all surprised at how much time and energy was needed to publish such a journal, but we carried on with joy and inspiration. We were young then. The following section is the introduction, called “Brilliant Sanity,” to the inaugural issue from the editorial board. This explains our vision and intention:

The emblem “Brilliant Sanity” proclaims the existence of an inherent wakefulness that can be pointed to, recognized, and encouraged through psychological work. This is not meta physics or metapsychology, nor is it some idealized picture. It is genuine experience that is simple, direct and sane. It arises from clarifying the nature of mind processes. This kind of psychological work involves a progression through discipline, gentleness, and courage, in developing ourselves and in helping others to grow.

The wheel in the center of the emblem stands for the principle of discipline. For the psychotherapist, discipline means that one has the fearlessness to accurately study one's own mind and environment. From that there develops gentleness in one's own life. The bodhi leaf represents the possibility of extending that gentleness to others. The warmth that one expands to others is the necessary environment that allows one to appreciate and truly understand the state of mind of another. The arch represents the courage and daring to help others by any means and beyond our own personal and professional interests.

Psychopathology arises from a failure, for whatever reason, to engage in the personal journey needed to cultivate the wakefulness, precision, and tenderness that is already there. Instead, one falls back to solidification and aggrandizement of the psychological construct of belief in an ego. It is a fragile construction—a homonculus, imaginary companion, double, friend or enemy, object of internal dialogue, a reference point. We continually have hints that ego is a fabrication and that it needs constant maintenance. This gives rise to an anxiety about one's own survival and we call that situation “pathological.” It is not pathological at all. It is a true and insistent reminder that we are doing something wrong by attempting to live in a personal mythology that is always falling apart. One then develops habitual patterns and defenses to deal with that anxiety and to further secure the notion of ego. The psychological construction of ego is the primary delusion that we live with. It is the foundation of all neurosis and psychosis, the source of our alienation in accurately relating to the phenomenal world. It is a core issue in the problem of “narcissism.”

This is of course, the central insight of the Buddhist experience and the major source of the inspiration for this Journal. From this, there has developed the possibility of working with oneself and others beyond ego. This Journal is a document of that kind of psychotherapy.

We recognize that this is not conventional psychological language, but that is not the main difficulty. The history of psychology reveals that any assertion as to the non-existence of ego has led to an enormous individual and cultural resistance, followed by ignoring and amnesia. The psychological observations and implications of the work of Charles Darwin about the origins of self-consciousness have never been pursued. The analysis of the subtle construction of ego in the work of William James has gathered few students. The early observations of Sigmund Freud as to the maintenance, justification, and rationalization of the “beloved ego” have been distorted and lost. The current work of Jacques Lacan in Paris, regarding the illusion of ego and our imprisonment by that conception, is usually dismissed as impenetrable. The reasons for the fierce resistance engendered by the threatening claims of the non-existence of ego are largely personal and political, but perhaps some of the resistance can be explained by the fact that no consistent psychotherapeutics has emerged from these claims. This Journal will attempt to demonstrate that therapeutic work without the crippling conception of ego is not only possible but is actually being done.

Studying the nature of mind in ourselves and others is the basic training ground for this approach to therapy. Because of that one can understand, clarify and work with disturbed states of mind in a direct and genuine way. At that point the skillful application of the experience of non-ego allows for the work ability of many different therapeutic modalities and styles. When one begins to awaken from the delusion of ego a further connection occurs-a connection with a conscious and unconscious striving for health as well as an urge to be helpful to others. Then one's life can be acknowledged as a meaningful personal journey of development.

— THE BOARD OF EDITORS

Over the next fourteen years the editorial board published nine issues of the Journal. This was a very exciting time in the field of psychology and psychotherapy. Little did we know that we were the vanguard for the mindfulness revolution that was to explode over the next several decades. In 1987, for Volume IV, we changed the name to the Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy. By this time the term “contemplative psychotherapy” had become the name of our evolving Naropa approach to psychotherapy, with the Journal documenting the process of that evolution. The following preface from Volume IV explained this change:

This is the first issue of the Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy and is a continuation, the fourth issue, of the Naropa Institute Journal of Psychology. The name change signals our increasing understanding of the proper role of the Journal and how it can become a more useful vehicle in the various disciplines of healing or heiping people.
This issue has a wide range of articles and reflects the expanded editorial policy of the Journal. “Contemplative Psychotherapy” refers to the quality of treatment that results from joining the interpersonal discipline of psychotherapy with the personal discipline of working with oneself through the practice of meditation. This Journal documents work being done in the application of mindfulness-awareness practice to clinical situations.
One of the earliest Western psychologists who pointed to the joining of personal and interpersonal practices was William James. He said,
The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the root of judgment, character and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not. An education which would improve this faculty would be the education for therapy) par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical direction for bringing it about (Psychology: Brief Course. New York: Dover, 1961, p. 424).
The unification of these practices reveals the central role of ego processes in the formation of neurosis and psychosis. This understanding of ego, so different from the prevailing notion of ego in conventional psychology, has led to many resourceful means of treatment. Though such clinical ventures are characteristic of Buddhist psychology, they are also developing in other contemplative traditions, both religious (including Christian, Judaic, and Hindu) and secular. We invite articles from clinicians who work with this view.
Edward M. Podvoll
Editor-in-Chief

In 1989 I moved to Nova Scotia, and in 1990 Dr. Podvoll also left the U.S. to enter long-term retreat in France. There were many other changes in the editorial board membership along the way. We are very grateful to the many people who put much loving and dedicated effort into continuing the work of the Journal. We are especially grateful for the authors who wrote these original papers for the Journal. The following is a list of the authors:

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The vision and energy for publishing original papers in a professional journal format in the field of contemplative psychotherapy went dormant in 1994 after our final issue.

However, that vision and energy is finding new expression in more modern publishing formats in the Windhorse community in Boulder, Colorado. The Windhorse Journal has just completed its first year publishing audio and printed materials in blog format. The Windhorse Journal team was founded by Chuck Knapp, a graduate of Naropa and published author, who currently leads the team. I am also on the team, continuing to share what we learned with the Journal of Contemplative Psychotherapy at Naropa. The Windhorse Legacy Project is also giving new life to that original vision and energy for publishing original papers in the field of contemplative psychotherapy, with a special focus on the Windhorse Project.

Both teams are committed to helping mature therapists and teachers find their voices to share their lifetimes of wisdom and experience. In this way, we are continuing to foster the evolution of contemplative psychotherapy, now forty-plus years since those first, early days.