A Collaboration of Two Disciplines: Contextual Therapy and Buddhism

In order to see how the two systems can supplement each other, the first thing that comes to mind is that Buddhism has a very precise definition and treatment of the self. If we are going to speak about the relationship between me and you, these two separate selves, then this needs to be within the Buddhist understanding of the self and what it is. Buddhism does assert a self, known as the conventionally existent self. This is just the person, who we are. It is what we refer to as “me,” as this is our most usual common everyday way of referring to ourselves. This is a convention in that we all agree on it, that it’s “me.” It is the agent of actions and the one that experiences its effect. For example, when I bang my foot on the table, I experience the pain. This is me, isn’t it?

Just as there’s a conventionally existent me, there is a conventionally existent you. The two enter into a conventionally existent relationship. This can be partners, marriage partners, mother and child, friends or whatever. Everybody has relationships with other people. Me and you and our relationship are all established in dependence on many other factors: causes, conditions, aspects of ourselves and so on. It also depends on the concept of the relationship. In Buddhist jargon, this is known as dependent arising. Things happen, or arise dependent on many other factors. It’s one of the most basic Buddhist principles that everything is interdependent. We speak about very large systems in which everything depends on and is interrelated to everything else in one way or another. 

This very holistic view of reality is one of the things that these two systems have in common. When we say holistic, it includes everything; however, there are some aspects unique to the Buddhist side and others presented on the contextual therapy side. The two disciplines can mutually benefit each other by adding more and more elements into the mixture of the holistically related psychology.

The False Self, Insecurity and Disturbing Emotions

In Buddhism we have a very specific definition of the conventionally existent self, and a self that lacks any of the factors in the definition is known as the false self. In other words, there is the self that corresponds to reality and the imagined self that we tend to identify with. We believe that this is how we exist, for instance, believing that we are the center of the universe, or the one that is most important that everyone should pay attention to, etc. This, however, doesn’t correspond to reality. The main thrust in Buddhism is to deflate that false me and to understand that it doesn’t correspond to reality. That absence of anything in reality that corresponds to our crazy imagination is known in Buddhist jargon as emptiness or voidness. 

When we believe that we exist as this false me, this manifests as insecurity. For instance, if we think that “everybody should love me and pay attention to me because I’m so important,” then of course we feel insecure about that “me.” We try to make that false me secure, a futile attempt because what doesn’t exist can’t be made secure, as it doesn’t correspond to reality. We have all sorts of mechanisms to try to make that false “me” secure. These are known as the disturbing emotions. 

We post all sorts of things on social media and write about what we are doing in order to get more and more people to like “me.” If more people like us, that should make us feel more secure; of course, this doesn’t ever make us feel secure. There are never enough “likes.” We get angry when people don’t like us and make some nasty comment. We can delete all of that and it should make us feel secure; however, it doesn’t. We can also put up walls around us, thinking that if we ignore things we don’t like maybe that will make us feel secure. Of course, we’re still left with paranoia. 

All of this leads to compulsive behavior such as constantly checking our phones for more messages or “likes.” That leads to more problems and unhappiness. What we try to do in Buddhist training is to realize that this type of “me,” the one that everybody should like is a myth and it’s impossible. Not everybody liked the Buddha; why should they like “me”? They crucified Jesus; what do we expect for “me”? If we can stop believing that we exist in this impossible way, we can start to work with how we actually do exist. 

That’s also true in terms of our relationships with others and how someone else exists; it’s not that someone is the perfect partner, the prince or princess on the white horse. This is absurd; nobody is perfect. However, we think that we will live happily ever after for the rest of our lives with “you.” This is a fairy tale and not real life, isn’t it? The problem is that we are looking for this perfect relationship and if it doesn’t work with this person, we then try it with somebody else. Maybe it will work with them; however, it’s doomed to failure because it’s impossible. It’s not based on reality. 

How the Conventional Self Exists: Imputation

How does the conventional self, the conventional me and conventional you, exist as discussed in Buddhism? Buddhism always speaks in terms of our moment-to-moment experience of what is actually happening. The only thing happening is what you and I are experiencing right now. If we analyze the self, we’re speaking in terms of what the self is in each moment of our experience in our lives. Each moment of our experience is made up of many parts. We have perception from all of our senses, thoughts, emotions, some feeling of happiness or unhappiness and many other parts. All of these are going on at the same time, aren’t they? There’s emotion and understanding, feeling unhappy, seeing and hearing things, and so on – all of this happens simultaneously.

The self, “me,” or the person is an imputation on all of that. Imputation is a very specific Buddhist technical term. A very good example of an imputation is a football game. What is a football game? Actually we have a football, lots of players running around and doing things all the time. We have teams and a score, rules and a field. What is the football game? A football game is an imputation on all of that, isn’t it? However, a football game isn’t any one of those things. It’s not just people running around. There is no football game without all of these parts, is there? There is no football game if there’s no football. All that’s happening at one moment at a time; the whole game doesn’t happen in one moment. However, in each moment we say, “I’m watching a football game.” What are we watching? We’re watching some people run around in a field, kicking a ball and following some rules. 

Are we watching a football game? Yes, that’s a convention. It’s an imputation on what is happening moment to moment, with all these parts changing all the time. The self is like that. We have all these parts: the emotions, the perceptions, happy and unhappy, the intelligence and the thoughts; all of these are happening moment to moment and all changing all the time. The self is like the football game, isn’t it? That’s “me,” sitting here, talking and drinking a glass of water. Is that all of “me,” an entire life? No, there is only one moment at a time. It’s a convention.

We refer to this enormous amount of things changing in each moment as “me.” Just as all the parts happening in the football game change as the game continues and grows, the same thing happens with the self. All these different parts: the emotions, the thoughts, the experiences and so on are changing all the time; likewise, the self is changing all the time. A football game doesn’t change into a different football game, does it? It retains its identity, even though the score changes. Likewise, as we grow up, we don’t change into another person; we’re still “me,” but this is very dynamic. This is how we grow as a person. We grow through our experiences; this is just common sense. 

Three Types of Dependent Arising

Therefore, how I grow as a person, how you grow as a person and how a relationship grows over time, all of that is dependent on many variables. This is called dependent arising. That’s the reality. Buddhism has a lot to say about dependent arising. This is the area in which contextual therapy can fit very nicely. There are three types of dependent arising:

First, we have causal dependence. Things that change, changing phenomena arise dependently on causes and conditions. For example, a plant will grow dependent on soil, seed, water, sunlight, etc. This is cause and effect. 

Next is mutual dependence. This refers to the fact that phenomena arise dependently on being in relation to something else. For example, a whole and parts; we can’t have a whole without parts or parts without being parts of a whole. Another example is parent and child. We can’t have one without the other. They arise simultaneously, dependent and relative to each other. Also, there is the game of football and the football itself. There would be no football without the game of football. Also, things like short and long are relative to each other. 

Another variant of mutual dependence is imputation and the basis for imputation. Again, we can’t have the football game without there being rules, players, a football and kicking. These arise dependent on each other. People running around kicking a ball wouldn’t be football if there weren’t such a thing as rules and the game of football. Without it, there would just be people running and kicking a ball. They wouldn’t be playing football, would they? 

Again, this is the area where contextual therapy comes in. One of the points that this therapy makes, coming from Buber, is that there can’t be a “me” without a “you.” These two arise dependently on each other. We will go into that further.

The third type of dependent arising is in terms of what’s called mere designation by names and labeling by concepts. It’s a bit technical. For example, there’s an object. We can imagine an object, a football. It’s only a football if we have the concept and the name; otherwise, it’s just an object, isn’t it? It arises as a football dependent on the concept of a football and the word “football.” Even then, it’s only a convention because what is called football in America is not the same as what is called a football in Europe or Russia. It’s a different shaped ball. Therefore, what is a football? It’s dependent on our concept of what a football is and the word we use for it.

It’s very subtle but really interesting when we begin to consider this. For example, there is a large group of people all experiencing different emotions all the time. These emotions don’t fit into boxes; they’re just feelings. However, then, a group of people came up with the concept and a word “love” and another word, “like.” Some feelings we can have are that “I like you,” and another set of feelings are that “I love you.” What everybody feels is quite different; still, though, we have these general categories of “I like you,” or “I love you.” We all have our own concepts of what that means. How do we draw the boundaries between when we like someone and when we love someone? Actually, that occurs differently in each relationship. Do we experience love? Yes, we do; conventionally we have agreed on what that word means and that it refers to certain feelings. This is an example of this type of dependent arising. 

The Three Types of Dependent Arising in Regards to the Self

How do these three types of dependent arising apply to the conventionally existent self? Remember, the self is occurring as an imputation in each moment on everything that we’re experiencing. The “football game of me” lasts our whole life. 

Causal dependence regarding the self refers to the fact that what we experience now is the continuity of what we experienced before. In that stream of continuity, causal dependence includes what we experienced in childhood or what we experienced yesterday is going to affect what we experience now. It’s going to affect “me.” For instance, because of everything that I’ve done in my life comes the experience of my being here giving this lecture. Just as what I experienced in the past affects what I experience now, it affects “me” now. In that very dynamic way, the self grows throughout our lives. It is always changing, but not into something completely different. It’s called continuity or a continuum. 

Mutual dependence means that “I” depends on what “I” experience. Experience affects “me.” “Me” and the experience arise dependently on each other. Now, we are doing this, eating that or saying this. We can’t have speaking without someone speaking. This is what is meant by mutual dependence. The “me” speaking and the speaking arise dependently on each other. What that implies is that the self has many parts. It’s not monolithic. We can be a business person, a family person or a sports person; we can have all these different aspects to our lives. It’s all “me.” We have relationships and friendships with many different people. In each of them, that’s “me,” but it’s not exactly the same, is it? In this way, we have many parts, many facets to ourselves.

Lastly, dependent arising in terms of names and concepts, we also have this concept of “me.” There is the self defined in Freud, in Jung, in Buddhism and in many systems. What is the self? It depends on the concept that we have of the self. It’s just like the football being defined differently in America and Europe. 

The conclusion of this from the Buddhist point of view is that the reality of self is that it isn’t rigid. It’s not a rigid entity sitting somewhere inside us. It’s changing all the time and affected by many variables. With this dynamic understanding of “me” it also applies to the dynamic understanding of “you” and the same understanding of our relationship. The three of these are affected by multiple variables changing in each moment. This is the complex holistic view that we’re trying to describe. 

Dependent Arising in Relationships

Now, we can examine relationships. As described, they also aren’t concrete rigid entities. They also arise dependently in these three ways. 

First, with causal dependency, our relationship arose dependently on causes. We had to meet each other and there had to be the circumstances under which we met. Very importantly, there has to be circumstances that allow for the relationship to continue. For instance, if the two people move to two different parts of the world and lose contact with each other, there may no longer be the circumstances to sustain the relationship. The relationship may not grow without circumstances, and people may have nothing in common. Therefore, there needs to be causal factors that continue to produce the continuity of the relationship, such as doing things together, etc. 

It is also of interest causally that our way of relating to others is the continuity of the way that we have related to other people in the past. We have certain patterns of how we relate to others and these affect how we relate to a new person. 

We find, as parents, that we are in situations that we don’t know how to deal with, but we just repeat what our parents did for us. We act the same way that our parents did; it can be very surprising when we realize that.

In mutual dependency, when the whole is dependent on the parts, the relationship arises dependent on all the times spent together, the interest and activities that we share, and so on. Of course, the things that we share with one person aren’t necessarily the same as what we share with somebody else. What we share with a business associate, or with somebody at the gym, or with our children all differ.

Dependent arising in terms of concepts and names has to do with our concepts of any relationship. For instance, what is the concept of being married to someone, or being a casual partner, a parttime partner, an acquaintance, or a friend? All of the relationships that we have also arise dependently on what concepts we have for these types of relationships. 

If the Buddhist understanding of the self, me, you and our relationships can supplement the dynamics of relationships as discussed in contextual therapy, then what does contextual therapy contribute to the Buddhist understanding? 

Five Dimensions of Relational Reality

Contextual therapy speaks of five dimensions of relational reality. These are five sets of variables that affect a relationship and the people in that relationship. They add further material into the general category of dependent arising. 

Factual Variables

First, we have the dimension of factual variables. These refer to the given facts of the lives of the two people in a relationship. This is the factual profile that affects not only the people but also the relationship. This profile refers to the sex, age and also age differences, good or bad health and any disabilities, such as wheelchair bound, blindness and so on. It also includes the couples’ status. Are they single or in a committed relationship? Are they married or divorced? Do they have any children? For instance, we might have a good friend and when that friend falls in love with someone else, we don’t see that friend very often. Further, when he or she gets married and has a child, we see him or her even less. These things affect relationships very much. This also includes what language is spoken. If two people don’t speak the same language and can’t express themselves very well, that also affects the relationship. There are also economic factors; if one person has money to travel to many places and the other person doesn’t, often that means they can’t travel together. In addition, there are geographic factors, such as living very far away from each other or places difficult to get to. 

These are all the factual variables, and what is interesting is that in any specific relationship, these factual variables will change. When we have a good childhood friend, we have a certain type of relationship; however, as adults, we have a different type of relationship. Marriage, having children and all these types of variables change over the lifetime of a relationship and affect the relationship, don’t they? That’s happening in all our relationships throughout our lives. 

Psychological Variables

The second dimension is psychological variables. There can be psychological manifestations of mental illness, personality disorders, depression, anxiety, delusion and narcissism. For instance, we might have a relationship with somebody who has a bad temper and gets angry all the time. This would be very different from the relation that we have with a very relaxed person. This dimension also includes cognitive abilities, the ability to solve problems and remember things. People can have disorders and dementia as they age. There are also the intellectual abilities, where one person can be limited, average or very gifted. These factors can affect that relationship, and also takes in account sexual preferences. 

There are also the emotional factors described in Western systems, such as emotional maturity. Are the people in the relationship extroverted or introverted, optimistic or pessimistic, rational or irrational, shy, anxious or nervous? We also have the emotional factors, as also discussed in Buddhism, such as the level of compassion, kindness, generosity and patience; or the negative factors, such as aggressiveness, selfishness, arrogance and jealousy. 

The people, me and you, are an imputation on all of these factors, both the factual and the psychological. There is an entire set in both me and you changing all the time and of course the relationship is going to be affected by the interaction of these. It is very complex and different in each moment.

Systemic Variables

The third dimension is systemic variables. This refers to the mode of transaction communication that the people establish with each other once they are in a relationship. How do they communicate with each other? What are the systems that they participate in and how do these influence their interactions? A style of interaction might be a battle for power and control. Who is in control and talks all the time? It could also be a childlike or adult interaction. Further, there is the style of communication; some people are very expressive and speak about their feelings all the time and others are very reserved and don’t discuss feelings at all. 

The family structure also has an effect on the relationship and people. For example, there can be a very dominant father, or a family with a large number of children, or a disabled parent that a child has to take care of. Another example of a family structure might be when an older child has to take care of all the younger children. Certainly, this affects how a person interacts with others and within the family. 

In a business relationship, the environment and the mode of interaction in that business will affect how the people who are working in that business interact with each other. There is also the religious belief context or what’s called the value ethics. If one lives in a society that dictates that the women can’t go outside unaccompanied by men, this will certainly affect a person’s interactions with others.

These are the systemic variables that affect relationships. Even when we visit other countries that have differing systems of values, we have to adapt to them. In some countries, it would not be considered proper to have public displays of affection such as holding hands. How a person deals with that affects the relationship. One person might go along with this while the other person might say, “This is stupid,” and protests. This aspect of the relationship is affected in each moment.

Relational Ethics

The fourth dimension is relational ethics. This differs from value ethics, which involves some religion. This form of ethics is defined as the direct impact of our behavior on others and an understanding of realistic needs. It deals with the issues of fairness and balance in a relationship. There is a balance of giving and receiving. Is it equal or, for instance, is one person in a relationship always giving or is the other person a taker, always receiving and never giving anything back? The level of fairness can also be in terms of expenses and workload. Does one person have to do all the housework, while the other person just sits and watches television? Is one person always paying and the other person just going along for a free ride? How does it work? Is it fair? 

Additionally, there can be loyalty conflicts. Is a person loyal to their spouse or to their parents? There can be a conflict in that. There can also be conflict in a divorce, such as the children siding with this or that parent. There can be issues of fairness about spending all the time with one and not the other. The older parents may be upset, as in, “Why don’t you visit and spend more time with me?” Disagreements such as these can arise from who we are loyal to and spend time with. This is what is involved with relational ethics.

Relational Self/Other Establishment 

The fifth and last dimension is a bit complex. In the original formation of these dimensions, it was called the ontic dimension; however, since this is such an obscure word in English, my colleague and I decided upon the term “relational self/other establishment.” This is what arises from Martin Buber’s ideas. Buber describes two types of relationships: I/you (I/thou in English) and I/it. In contextual therapy, Boszormenyi-Nagy proposed six modes of relations.

How do we establish an actual self? We establish a self in contrast to what is not the self. This deals with boundaries; there are some people who don’t know how to set these boundaries between themselves and others very well.

The first of these six modes is called intrasubject counter-position. In this mode, we don’t have an actual internal or external other. It’s a contrast between the self and self. An example of this is found in people who cut themselves to feel something. If they can feel pain, then they can feel something and get a sense of self. They establish themselves in terms of that boundary of the pain. Another example is people who talk to themselves. We speculated, although not quite sure of this example, it might also be when a person defines themselves in terms of a cause, a project or ideology. It can apply to a religious figure, like a Catholic nun marrying Jesus, and that gives the sense of self; that’s “me.” In these cases, there is no actual external other. We would be dedicated to this cause, this ideology, and this makes me “me.” 

The second mode is an internal dialogue, like talking to a dead parent or partner and they talk back and give advice. An example would be playing chess with an imaginary opponent. Another example would be a type of internal dialogue, like negotiating with our conscience – asking it whether we should do this or that, and the conscience says that we shouldn’t, as it’s naughty. 

The third type is merger, in which the self and other merge into a “we.” That “we” transacts with a third party either as a subject or an object. For example, in a marriage where the two act as united, saying “We want him to do that.” One is always thinking in terms of “we” and not as individuals. It becomes very interesting when one person in the relationship considers the relationship as a “we,” and the other person doesn’t. One person is saying, “We don’t do things like that,” and the other is saying, “What are you talking about?” Another variant of this is between a mother and an infant; they form a “we.”

The fourth mode is being the subject. This is when we treat the other as an object, the I/it interaction. This could be the type of relationship we have with the checkout person at the market when we regard that person as just an “it.” The person is just an object and we don’t really care about their emotions and feelings and what is happening at home. They are an “it.”

Remember, we are discussing how we establish “me” in relation to somebody else. Do we establish “me” with an “it”? Do we establish “me” in a merger? These are variables that also will change in each relationship, in each moment, over time. 

The fifth mode is being the object. That is the it/I relationship, where we consider ourselves to be the “it,” like a secretary with the boss or the cleaning lady with the head of the house. We feel like an “it.” The other person gives the orders. 

The last one is the true I/you dialogue, in which the self and the other have reversible positions. In this mode we have a two-way interaction, in which both sides are free of projections, preconceptions and judgments about each other. We don’t treat each other as an “it” and just relate to each other as people. This, of course, is ideal.

When we broaden the Buddhist understanding of dependent arising beyond just causes, parts and concepts, then we can add these five dimensions. Some of them are already included in Buddhism, but specifically the points in contextual therapy concerned with interactions can supplement what is offered. In Buddhist practice, we can deconstruct the false self into all the variables that affect the conventionally existent self. We can analyze that there is too much of this or too little of that and get some balance and rid ourselves of what causes problems. We can do the same thing with all of our relationships. Of course we have many relationships, not just one.

If we can understand more and more of the variables that can affect “me” and each person that we relate to and interact with, and how they affect the relationship, we can see what isn’t working, what the difficulties are and what would be the best way of making the relationship work. We can be very fluid and lose the rigidity in our relationships with others to make them as beneficial as possible to both parties.

In this weekend seminar, we will apply the five-dimensional model to analyze three specific types of relationships that we establish in Buddhism. We will also examine how these affect our personal relationships with others. 

First, as a Mahayana Buddhist practitioner, we are working to benefit all beings. How do we relate to all beings? What is the optimal way and what are the difficulties that come along in that process? When we are trying to benefit everybody, what happens to our relationship with our children or close friends? How does it affect that? What are the problems that come up and what is the best way of dealing with them? We don’t have to be a Buddhist to experience this. There are many people involved with social work, wanting to help everybody, but then they have no time for their family and the family resents the time spent working with the public.

The second relationship that we will look at is the one with the spiritual teacher. When we have a very strong commitment to our spiritual teacher, how does that sometimes conflict with marriage commitments? For example, our teacher is leading a meditation retreat; do we go to that or with our partner who wants to go on a beach holiday? How do we handle that conflict? 

Lastly, in tantra practice, we imagine that we are already in the form of a Buddha, practicing as a rehearsal to acting in this way. What is our relation to that image that we are trying to live up to and how does that affect our everyday relationships with people?

I find this system of these five modes of relational reality to be very helpful in indicating almost a therapeutic type of approach to dealing with these types of problems that come up in the relationships we establish in Buddhist practice. The longer article on which these talks are based can be found on the website, available in several languages. 

[See: Dependent Arising of the Self in Terms of Relations with Others]

How does the mindfulness meditation when we are staying in the present moment apply to what we are discussing today? How do all these factors and details pertain to the present moment to moment of an interaction?

There is the popular form of mindfulness that’s been taught in the West and Asia; the Buddhist form of mindfulness is a bit different. Mindfulness as it’s currently taught in the modern world is primarily a method to be here now, to pay attention to what we are experiencing in each moment. The actual Buddhist practice of mindfulness is based on the meaning of the word in the original language. It’s the same word as “to remember something.” What we try to do is always keep in our memory an understanding of something. We focus on an object, on something with an understanding and we always recall or remember that and try not to forget it. 

We would apply the Buddhist practice of mindfulness to what we’ve been discussing here to try to understand and view our relationship and interaction with others in terms of dependent arising on all these variables. If we apply that with the modern-day explanation of mindfulness, in each moment of our interaction with somebody, we would try to remember all the variables that are going on and notice when we might be treating someone else like an “it.” Then, we would change that mode of interaction to a mode of recognizing that the other person has emotions and feelings just as we do and there is a person, not just an “it.” If we understand the variables that are affecting each moment of the here and now in our relationship, then we can correct them when there are faults and behavior causing problems.

The modern-day explanation of mindfulness is very useful and helpful; however, we should be aware that it’s only the very first step in the full Buddhist practice of mindfulness. It’s much more than that. 

What Buddhist techniques could we begin to use moment to moment?

Basically, in order to follow the Buddhist methods, we already need to have a certain level of emotional maturity. If a person is really very disturbed, then going to a professional is really recommended first. Even in Tibetan society, someone who has schizophrenia or something like that, would go to a Tibetan doctor for medication rather than be taught meditation. 

Nonetheless, if we have that level of emotional maturity, then it seems in our modern times when we are all so busy that we have to start by quieting down. There is so much pressure, social networking, constantly checking the phone and these sorts of things. With all of this, without quieting down, quieting the mind, putting away the phone, etc., there is no way of starting with any Buddhist practice. 

Once we are able to put the phone away and not compulsively look at it every few minutes, then we need to develop social skills to be able to deal with others in real life, rather than in an online virtual life. This requires understanding that everybody has feelings and emotions just as we do. We need to start to relate to other people as real people, not as a fictional presentation on a social media page. 

If interested, there is an entire program I developed based on these two fundamental principles: developing a quiet mind and a caring attitude. It’s called Sensitivity Training. There is a huge section on the website in both English and Russian. With that as a basis, one could then engage in the more extensive Buddhist practices.

What is the Buddhist definition of love?

The Buddhist definition of love is the wish for others to be happy and have the causes of happiness regardless of how they behave or treat us. It’s equal to everyone and also includes the wish for “me,” ourselves to be happy and have the causes of happiness. The self isn’t excluded from “everybody.”

Could you speak about other forms of psychology that are widely known, such as cognitive therapy, and how this applies?

I’m not a psychologist or a therapist, and although I’ve certainly heard of cognitive therapy, I couldn’t speak in depth about it. If my understanding is incorrect, please excuse me. I suppose it has to do with our attitudes towards things, how we cognize them, and if so, Buddhism has a great deal to contribute in terms of how we change our attitudes from destructive to constructive. There is an entire category of teachings called mind training (lojong) that deal with this.

Could you tell us a bit about the person you collaborated with and how this collaboration evolved?

The person that I collaborated with, Catherine Ducommun-Nagy, is an old friend from when I was living in India. I lived in the Tibetan community for twenty-nine years and she was a volunteer doctor at the Children’s Village. I began my friendship with her over forty years ago. She’d just finished her medical degree and went on to become a psychiatrist. We maintained a friendship and she married Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, the founder of contextual therapy. Over the years, while they were married I maintained a friendship with both of them. I engaged in many conversations with them, arranged a meeting for Boszormenyi-Nagy with His Holiness the Dalia Lama to discuss various issues of psychiatry and so on. She has become a world lecturer and teacher of contextual therapy beside her practice as a therapist. Her husband died about ten years ago and we have continued our lifelong friendship. She is also a Buddhist practitioner.

What the Dalia Lama was particularly interested in regarding this field of contextual therapy was the introduction of ethics into therapy. This whole idea of fairness in a relationship is usually not taken into consideration. Particularly in family therapy, it gives equal validity to the perception of each person in the family regarding the situation, giving everybody equal attention. In this way, everybody listens to each others’ point of view of what is going on in the family. This is also very much related to the way a Buddhist looks at it as well.