How would you treat a Tibetan monk who experiences flashbacks of imprisonment and torture whenever he meditates?
That can be a monumental challenge. Often practitioners overlook the less-than-obvious manifestations of trauma if they lack the tools to understand trauma across cultures. And the Tibetan monks, for one, present symptoms that might go under the radar of a standard psychiatric evaluation.
It’s not uncommon to hear harrowing stories of torture and imprisonment when working with particular immigrant communities.
The challenge for us as practitioners is to help survivors move on from the ruins of such frightening experiences. But that can become even more challenging because so often, their escape from a traumatic ordeal means that they’ve left friends and family behind.
That’s why cultural heritage is so vital to the treatment protocol, as has been the case in treating Tibetan monks, imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese government.
To learn about techniques for trauma treatment, check out our treating trauma programs.
These monks possess some of the most highly developed meditation skills in the world. Treating them could be easy if this skill is encorporated.
The monk can unplug from his ego and reach his emotional regulatory side easily. He can let go of the story of trauma and let feeling, emotions and thought flow on through.
he has sat decades learning or knowing his inner world. He is familiar with the bodies mechanisms intimately. he knows what fear feels like, where it settles, it’s shape intensity and even color. he knows his true self and developed skills to let the ego be dormant.
he has practiced not to judge but accept life as it is and be here present without thought. I would say this monk would help the therapist gain insight into the human mind. just my thought but therapy did not even consider the minds mechanisms until recently and these monks have been practicing for 2500 years.
It is something how we grant ourselves in America letters behind names and that we think we our the leaders in the world.
I would ask how many therapists, psychologist healers have taken mindfulness in college or grad school.
How much do you really know about meditation/ mindfulness in actual time on the cushion. reading or knowledge of mindfulness does nothing. It is not a spectator sport and reaching the other hemisphere of our brain, we arrive in a space with no words dialogue or judgments. Numbers are pixels so anything gained by meditating comes intuitively with sitting. not reading.
You have to spend time to know your own mind to apply the power of a steady mind. Therapies and theories are so complex and abstract. A monk would have condensed all this down into its simplicity and offered it to everyone. As the Buddhist tradition says, happiness requires few desires.
This monk could sit empty of thought and observe his trauma without engaging it. he can see that these thoughts are air or delusions. he can see more than a therapist will ever gleam from an education.