The Courage to Be Present: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Awakening of Natural Wisdom

by Karen Kissel Wegela

The quality of presence a psychotherapist or counselor brings to the therapeutic relationship makes all the difference in effective treatment. With this groundbreaking new application of Buddhist practice to psychotherapy, Karen Kissel Wegela offers mental heath professionals a Buddhist’s perspective on bringing compassion, patience, generosity, and equanimity to their work with clients. She presents as a model the Buddhist ideal of the bodhisattva, the archetypal being whose life is radically dedicated to seeking the benefit and welfare of others over his or her own.

Drawing on her background in Buddhist practice and her years of teaching at the university level and of working with clients in private practice, Wegela begins with the basic Buddhist understanding of how suffering arises and ceases, and then continues with teachings on how to discover and cultivate the bodhisattva’s awakened heart.  She uses stories from her own practice as well as teachings from the Buddhist tradition to describe how to discover and cultivate the six traditional “awakened actions”: generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and wisdom.

The Courage to Be Present  offers an effective method for cultivating the wisdom of compassion and equanimity in all relationships—both personal and professional. Wegela shows not only how counselors can apply this wisdom in their own lives, but also how they can help their clients to cultivate these qualities in themselves.

Genres: Buddhism, Psychology, Spirituality, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published August 11, 2009

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bible for contemplative psychotherapy. The woman practices what she 'preaches'.

[Jim Lavis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ll give this one 5 stars. This book is about Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the awakening of Natural Wisdom. In essence, it’s a textbook for students who are studying psychotherapy, but I love the way this author presents the content within this book. She’s instructing readers or students to embrace mindfulness within their own lives which in turn will support their client’s recovery or healing.

Living in the present moment is a challenging task to say the least, and the author, Karen Kissel Wegela, does a fine job of describing how she uses these Buddhist principles in her own life and how those practices add to her life and foster a better relationship with her clients.

This type of work is inspiring and helps me in my own practice. She gives wonderful examples. It’s a good read.

[Gabrielle Jarrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wegela has written a clear book which would be helpful for therapists as the target readership. Good review of many of the Buddhist principles I have read over the years I have studied Buddhist philosophy. At times, it felt tedious, most likely because reading stories of clients/patients is not my preference.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start with a disclaimer: I'm not a pscyhologist. I just find psychology interesting. And so I was very interested in this book, which joined the trainings of pscyhology with the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. I think a lot can be learned from pretty much any kind of meshing of different cultural or philosophical disciplines, and I think this is a great example of that. I think if I actually were a pscyhologist, I would try to find a lot more books just like this one to try to find new and different ways to relate to people's pain and help them ease their suffering. But even for the layperson, this book is great for encouraging mindfulness and self-awareness.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Presenting Buddhism in an widely accessible language, this book describes with examples and in a direct way the overlaps between Buddhism and Psychotherapy. Wegela has a clear-cutting, direct expression of Buddhism and psychotherapy. She explains how we can use Buddhist teachings to inform a more compassionate and powerful method of therapeutic connection and exhange. Perhaps her best book, to my knowledge.

[Steve Woods · Rating 3 out of 5]

I founf this book a bit hard to relate to. There were times when I just had the feeling that it was entirely intellectualised and a bit false, i couldn't connect with what was being put. Maybe because she was trying to relate Buddhist practice to a western psychotherapy practice. Of limmited use to me though there were several exercises around specific concepts that I thought were useful and effective. Not high on my list of must reads.