Richard Taylor |

Dec
05
2007

It may be that Western-trained clinical psychologists have for too long over emphasized the importance of changing or modifying unpleasant symptoms without recognizing the importance of acceptance.  One reseacher has noted that acceptance involves 'experiencing events fully and without defense, as they are'.  Escape and avoidance behaviour as a mechanism of control is often a strategy used by many people in coping with stress and anxiety.  Control agendas in these terms are mostly destructive and only serve to entrench anxiety-related problems.  The alternative is acceptance and willingness which refers to how open you are to experiencing your own experience when you experience it - without trying to manipulate it, avoid it, escape it, change it, and so on.  In the sessions that follow I am going to review the acceptance of pain, thoughts, feelings, urges, or other bodily, cognitive (thinking), and emotional phenomena, without trying to change, escape or avoid them. 
David Brazier in 'Zen Therapy' sums this up quite nicely. 'While we long for clear weather, the clouds are an obstacle to our happiness.  When we learn to appreciate the whole sky, the clouds are seen simply as its adornment'. 

Posted by Richard Taylor in Mindfulness. Comments

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