Deborah Bowman "Transpersonal Therapy Program" [MUSIC] Hello. And welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I'm your host David Devine. And it's a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions -- Naropa is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement. [MUSIC] [00:00:45.11] DAVID: Hello, today I'd like to welcome a very special guest - Deborah Bowman to the podcast. She is the Professor of Mindfulness Based Transpersonal Counseling. ItÕs a very special treat to have you again. So, thanks for coming. [00:00:58.08] DEBORAH: Thank you, David. [00:01:00.02] DAVID: Is there anything else you'd like to add? [00:01:00.23] DEBORAH: Oh sure. ItÕs just a delight to be here again. And, this is the 28th year I've been at Naropa. [00:01:07.19] DAVID: Wow! [00:01:07.23] DEBORAH: Yeah, and I want to share a little bit of the history about the programs I've taught with and share a little bit about oh -- a few stories and what we do in the programs. And why they've had such meaning for me over the years - and I hopefully many of our thousands of graduates. [00:01:27.21] DAVID: Yeah, great. So, mindfulness based transpersonal counseling -- where did it come from? [00:01:33.21] DEBORAH: Oh, that's great! Well, that's what we renamed ourselves a couple of years ago in the general tract that used to be called Transpersonal Counseling Psychology. And, we're now moving in an emphasis with counseling at the master's level. That's sort of the - the degree that people get in master's level at this point. That work with others in the field. And, in a sense we have been implicitly mindfulness based for the last 28 years. But the program that I teach in -- originally was a transpersonal program with another college. And that was over 28 years ago. And that was a very small school that tried to invest in other programs that didn't go, but are going strong, but the school unfortunately had to close. [00:02:28.12] And while that's how we got to Naropa because we had about 110 stranded students in the field of transpersonal counseling. And, we graduated about half of those throughout the year - many of us volunteered to do that - to help people through their internships that were farther along in their programs, but there was another 50 or so students who didn't have a home. And, the other main college in our town - here in Boulder, Colorado - was Naropa University and at the time it was the Naropa Institute. And you know we kind of looked at them as our competitors from the school because they have this very delightful contemplative psychotherapy program. But ours was more transpersonally based, which is more you might say ecumenical in its reach. The contemplative program at Naropa is - is a wonderful program based deeply in Buddhist psychology and also has a very strong meditation component. And the transpersonal field you might say would call that a transpersonal program, but the transpersonal field in its reach is more ecumenical. It involves many other different wisdom traditions because it draws on the wisdom tradition to understand human experience as well as psychology. So, itÕs kind of a marriage between traditional psychology and the understanding that the human experience as a spiritual experience. So, the field has drawn greatly from Buddhism and meditative practices bar helping individuals lead a more full and fulfilling life. And, it also studies chanting and mystical Christianity and Sufism and Shamanistic practices. So, it looks across the spectrum that humans have sort of played with - reaching for something beyond their ego. Reaching for something beyond a little self. So, the work of Carl Jung. The work of Stanislav Grof. The work of many others -- have been under this umbrella of transpersonal psychology and so it was a field that was developed in the 50s as an extension of humanistic psychology. Abraham Maslow was the person who developed humanistic psychology - sort of put a framework around many others who were sort of developing that uh - Fritz Perls and Carl Rogers, but he sort of defined the field but when he studied individuals who were exceptional - what he found was - they all described mystical experiences. They all described experiences beyond what I am calling the little self or the ego that gives one a connection to everything. That doesn't separate us from others. That understands were either not separate or we have this unitive experience. And, is guided by ethical principles and so - when he studied these people he realized there was a vast new field beyond humanistic that included humanistic but went beyond that. So, what we brought to Naropa was the transpersonal but when we came we were able to marry with the deep meditative traditions at Naropa that are part of the Buddhist tradition. [00:06:16.07] So, Naropa has been unique also in being able to teach both very traditional Buddhist practice as well as being aligned with how do we study this in a more secular way. You know Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche developed a sort of container where people could study meditation and mindfulness without the religious trappings to broaden its reach to people you know all around the world and so - it was so wonderful when we came - with these 50 students to Naropa and Marvin Casper was the individual I worked with in developing a new curriculum that included meditation practice as a basis for understanding the self and sitting with others. So, our program is based in that more secular vision and we sort of marry those two. We've done that since the beginning, but it was only a couple years ago that we renamed that core program - mindfulness based transpersonal counseling. And what that means - because in the transpersonal field there is a very theoretical end of it - like in all psychology. But, what this does - it gives an experiential basis for learning about the self - and learning about others through quieting the self, through doing contemplative practice that reaches across all religious traditions - all spiritual traditions. So, itÕs been a very exciting program because of that - itÕs been really juicy and its very experiential and one of the other things when we started this particular program is both programs at the old school I was with - graduate school and Naropa Institute taught Gestalt therapy -- and I myself am a Gestalt therapist and in my other talk I talked about it. [00:08:17.19] DAVID: Yeah, that's what we talked about last talk. [00:08:18.16] DEBORAH: Healing in the here and now. So, it was such a wonderful marriage to - to put it in the program as sort of part of the requirements because it meant people were going to sit still and quiet and work with their mind, which is not always still and quiet - right? [00:08:35.01] DAVID: Yeah, you realize how unstill and quiet when you have to sit with it. [00:08:38.08] DEBORAH: That's right. And its sort of - people have this idea that meditation is just quieting the mind and no the mind never quiets. Its working with the mind - and going through a quieting process and itÕs just accepting all that noise. [00:08:55.07] DAVID: Yeah, itÕs like sitting in the boat and just letting the current go and not trying to like paddle against the current. [00:09:00.04] DEBORAH: That's right. Because most of us do in our lives. Paddle against the current. So, this program is very much based in that and it took off right away. It was very popular. So, that's been very exciting and as I've been a part of the program - I don't know I had this vision even before I came to Naropa about when I was at the other school about what would it be to have a creative arts program? Or what would it be to have other varieties and I was actually -- [00:09:30.23] DAVID: Where did that idea come from? [00:09:32.08] DEBORAH: I don't know! [00:09:33.17] DAVID: It just kind of popped in your mind? [00:09:35.02] DEBORAH: It popped in my mind, but I was involved with creative process also and I had had a difficult experience - my mother died when I was at Boulder graduate school and one of the teachers there - Mame Fairly -- was an art therapist and she was running a little class and I decided to take her class. And, I ended up painting portrait after portrait of my mother and painting boxes where I put items - mementos from my mother in and I did sculpture and it just opened that whole field because you know my mother was the person I was closest to in my entire life. And I had no tools at that point in my life to really process my own stuff in that way. And so, I did this study with her and it just opened doors. And then I also studied what's called the dream painting process with Carl Jung. Carl - I didn't study with him, but uh - I would have loved to! But you know itÕs been a long time since he's walked this earth. So, it opened me up to that creative process. And then, Mame and I were a part of the Colorado Art Therapy Association and we would go down to the meetings together and she was trying to start a program with another college in our region - in art therapy. And they were interested kind of and maybe and I kept watching this thinking boy that would fit well at Naropa. Boy that would be nice to have an art therapy program. And so, when the other school did reject it - she had done all this surveys about there were like two or three hundred people in Colorado that were interested in art therapy. So, -- [00:11:18.01] DAVID: She had the program - she just didn't have an institute to bring it to? [00:11:22.11] DEBORAH: That's right. So, I said come to Naropa. Please come to Naropa. And it took a little while to convince her, but it ended up being a great fit and we immediately had students to fill our first class and so what we did was - our art therapy students took about half their classes in art therapy and half their courses shared with the other students in you know the transpersonal program. And so, again here we had a highly experiential program. Like you know with Gestalt meditation at the heart of the transpersonal counseling psychology program. Then we had art as a contemplative practice - art is so reflected. Art is such an opportunity -- both the doing of it and the looking of it, and the sharing it. You know itÕs just such a powerful medium. ItÕs a powerful medium with children. ItÕs very well known work with children, but also with adults and people of many different stripes and colors and needs in the world. So, we got this going and that was so exciting. And then I was there for another 5 or so years - and I had stepped out of - I was chair at the time of the regular program and then I had had a climbing accident when I was working in outdoor education many years earlier and I had lost my eye. And, when I worked in the outdoor field I loved it - I just was so alive. It felt so empowering to do things I had never done in my life with my body and to be in nature and you know that was a lot of inspiration with the art as well. And it was sort of like - what would it mean to have a wilderness therapy program that had emotional intelligence as part of it? [00:13:20.01] Because you know in the outdoor field its often not therapeutically minded, but itÕs very - I hate to use the stereotype but pretty macho field particularly when I was doing that 30 years ago or 35 years ago. [00:13:32.09] DAVID: Yeah, itÕs -- you can say abled bodied field. [00:13:35.13] DEBORAH: You've got it. Yeah. So, we looked at what would it mean to do a wilderness therapy program? [00:13:44.04] DAVID: What does it look like? [00:13:45.04] DEBORAH: Oh, its fabulous! But I - we kind of - I drew out a skeleton and then I invited a friend who was professional in the field - had worked for Outward Bound. Had been a consultant with organizations in the outdoor field and he filled out the bones - that I had kind of sketched out and our wilderness therapy program is out of site. These students when they entered - they spend 10 days in the wilderness together. Camping, sitting, hiking, climbing a mountain together - dealing with bears. You know - dealing with whatever is there as a group in a community. So, itÕs a very community group based - sort of classroom. So that was in the outdoors and then the first year they take very traditional courses with an emphasis often in wilderness. But their second year is highly experiential. They do rock climbing. They do canyoneering. They do river trip. They do horses. They do rites of passage. Like when I taught with that program I would teach group dynamics and we would have a classroom experience and then we spent 10 days together on a river. And the students lead exercises - and if they were interested in working with children they lead exercises of how to sand play with children because we had these beaches on the Green River that were pure white sand underneath cottonwood trees. [00:15:23.16] And so, we were enacting exercises to work with children and half of us would be children and the other half would be the therapist. And - or we have days on the river where they would be leading on the river and we'd have exercises in boats. We had students make up exercises of they brought a canoe - up on the land - and they said ok two of you in the group - that feel like you have a conflict step into the canoe. And, then they did basically couples therapy with them. It was so brilliant. You know so the students are highly creative in this program. And they work together you know itÕs not easy living with people you know your fellow students and you know you're going through your own stuff, but what we do in all these programs is we experientially work, we pair up students often actually we pair - to one to play a counselor, one to play the client. And then a third to observe. So, we have them be in this triads and then - they work with each other for a half an hour and then they debrief with questions we might have for them. And then the observer says this is what I saw. And then later on in these programs they make videos of their work you know. And then they - they work with their teacher and their teacher gives them feedback. So, itÕs very experiential. And the sitting is so important or the walking meditation or whatever meditation they may be particularly interested in pursuing, but they all do a certain kind of Shama taught basic meditation. [00:17:07.07] DAVID: And there is meditation pretty much basically in all of these programs. [00:17:10.06] DEBORAH: All of these programs yes absolutely. So, they need that ground because that experiential work is not easy. You are risking a lot. You're showing your mistakes because you are new, and you don't know what you are doing, and you can't be perfect and then often times you - these pairs will say well if you get stuck take a breath, stop, take a time out and talk about what is going on. You know talk about the therapist. What came out for you? Oh, that reminded you of your dad. [00:17:40.18] DAVID: Yeah, the check ins are so important because they do allow us to stop and like reset the moment - itÕs kind of the bow in that we do. ItÕs like just this - ok let's just check in with how we are feeling and keep moving forward. I am hearing this interdisciplinary play of bringing multiple ideas and theories and thoughts together to fuse them to find a program and I kind of want to explore how does being interdisciplinary with these ideas and theories and kind of psychologies - how does that inform the learning process? [00:18:17.23] DEBORAH: Well, itÕs my preferred mode because in this world right now all those tools are at our fingertips. ItÕs really good to ground yourself like say my approach is mindfulness based cognitive therapy or my approach is Gestalt therapy, or my approach is you know -- working with children. So, itÕs good to have a ground, but if you don't study other approaches you're so limited these days. And, what we find with our students is we help them find their passion. Someone may come in and say I am really interested in the work of Carl Jung. And then they find out oh no - sensory experiencing is where itÕs at for me. You know our - itÕs sort of like because there is exposure early - there is an opportunity to learn that these things are out there, and you have choices. And find out where your home is. You may have an idea of where it is - but until you experience you don't know. [00:19:25.12] DAVID: Yeah. And the more you learn - the easier you are to be available to show up for your clients. To show up in therapy sessions because everyone that shows up for you is going to show with different issues, problems, situations and if you have a vast idea of what's going on in the world of the mind, which seems to be vast itself then you can help them along their journey and guide them along the way and how it uniquely shows up for them. [00:19:55.09] DEBORAH: Absolutely, yes because you are right, every client is totally different. And, you may be married to this one technique but itÕs not working with them. And if you don't have a few more things in your toolkit, you're going to have a hard time. But that doesn't mean the bottom line tool in the toolkit is your wisdom. And, your practice. And you're love. Your compassion. Because all these programs - the bottom line is - you have to learn compassion towards yourself. And, that naturally opens to compassion with others. [00:20:36.12] DAVID: Yeah. [00:20:37.11] DEBORAH: Now, practicing you know compassion based without skills to back it up - isn't usually very helpful. So, one of the things I always learned that - loved that Carl Jung said was - learn everything you can. Read everything you can. And when you sit in front of your client forget it. [00:20:59.07] DAVID: Yeah. I like that. [00:21:00.20] DEBORAH: Because then you are without preconceived ideas of what's going to work for them. And that you know I would just give a talk on diversity and that goes for that too - learn everything you can about the field. You know learn -- what is racism? What is sexism? What is white privilege? Learn all those things, but then when you sit in front of somebody drop it. And trust that what you will need will arise. [00:21:32.07] DAVID: And then it seems as though you just sit and listen. So, you learn all these different things, but then you - you're just a conduit to listen. Someone just needs to say what they need to say to someone. [00:21:44.11] DEBORAH: Yes and no. [00:21:45.17] DAVID: Ok. [00:21:46.14] DEBORAH: I've been in practice for 31 years. [00:21:49.07] DAVID: I've never practiced - so you will definitely know more than me. [00:21:53.13] DEBORAH: Ok. And I can't tell you how many people come to me and - and not that listening - listening is critical. Listening is the bottom line, but I can't tell you how many people come to me and say well - he just listened to me. They just listened to me. She just listened to me. So, listening is the bottom line. Our students have to get that. And, you have to be genuine, engaged and real and itÕs a creative process - Winnicott who worked primarily with children, but he worked with adults too - said, play is the essence of good therapy. And that's what - because you are alive. Play is based on the unexpected. ItÕs being able to take a cardboard box and create a castle out of it right. So, its two people in a room - and they're human beings and they get to create together you know and you as therapist support that person in creating what they want, but you create the work together. So, my experience is listening is the bottom line and for some people that's going to be enough. That's all they need, but I would say the average person needs something more. They need right word and the right time. They need a certain kind of understanding. They need a certain kind of marrying because maybe nobody has done that accurately or very well. And so, in the transpersonal field - in the mindfulness based field and in art and in wilderness - what we see is that - it gives you handle. ItÕs sort of like ok - here is the swing set. What are you going to do with that? ItÕs sort of like particular in a transpersonal field where you want -- anything is possible, and you believe - you absolutely know that a person's basic goodness and their human potential is limitless. Absolutely limitless. And, helping somebody find that because that is a little bit where transpersonal verges from the traditional psychology. Is that we're not aiming towards ok. We're not aiming towards - the relief of agony. We're aiming towards - the full potential of that human being. You know and of course in Buddhism that's often referred as basic goodness. So -- [00:24:44.19] DAVID: Yeah, which we all inherently have. [00:24:46.06] DEBORAH: You've got it. Right, right so believing that no matter who is sitting across from you and not knowing the answers and that kind of not knowing you know itÕs funny there's two maxims I think of the field of transpersonal. Know thyself. And, I don't know. And holding those together - that's the paradox of the human experience. We have to know thyself but on the ultimate level we don't know. And, living with that groundless, living with that not knowing you know what's coming tomorrow - that there is no certainty in life and still delighting in what is. And what is possible. [00:25:27.23] DAVID: Yeah. Very beautiful. Well said. There is so many different programs that we have here, and they are - they all seem to have a mindful sort of meditative practice to it that informs the teaching on a deeper level that can allow the therapy sessions to go deeper. Is there like a certain mindfulness practice that is applied to every single program. Or does it shift per program? [00:25:56.11] DEBORAH: Ok. Well, the three that I described and now we have a hybrid program which is kind of half online, half in person with a mindfulness based transpersonal counseling. Those three have a particular mindfulness based and meditation practice that is associated with them. Now we are embedded in a larger part of the university - called the Graduate School of Counseling and Psychology. Ok, and they have two other programs - really other three other programs within that that were there before we came to the school in 1991. Ok and that's the contemplative psychotherapy and Buddhist psychology program. That's been there I think many more years than ours. And, it also has the basic mindfulness and meditation practices, but it goes deeper into Buddhist psychology and other Buddhist kind of practices as a basis for understanding the human psyche and the human experience. Ok, and experience as human beings. And then there is our sematic psychology program, which is sematic counseling right now. Which is also this brilliant sort of work with the body integrating the mind. Now they have less formal meditation. They've got a little bit of it, but the study of the body - you know is an awareness practice. ItÕs a mindfulness practice. [00:27:30.02] DAVID: ItÕs very in the moment. [00:27:30.20] DEBORAH: Yes. And that program actually there is two divisions within it. There is also dance therapy. And, that is just a delightful program. And I hope you get to talk to the people with those programs as well. [00:27:47.07] DAVID: I'd love to. Awesome thanks for sharing. So, we have about a minute or so left. Is there anything else you'd just like share about the programs and maybe your experience? [00:27:55.22] DEBORAH: I'll share with you when the program closed, and I was on a retreat and I don't know if you know the name Angeles Arriens, but she was a - she was big in the field of transpersonal psychology. She is an anthropologist psychologist. She also studied religion. And, she had a saying that we sort of based sort of kind of one of our mottos of our program and oh she devised these four steps based on her study of the world wisdom traditions and she felt that these were truths within all of them. They weren't necessarily named like this but underlying this was the practices. Show up. First thing you have to do is show up. Pay attention. And she said pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Ok. And so, show up, pay attention, tell the truth. [00:28:55.23] DAVID: Uh oh. [00:28:55.23] DEBORAH: Yeah, I know. But its tell the truth without judgement or blame. That is not easy. Ok. [00:29:01.21] DAVID: Get you there though. [00:29:03.10] DEBORAH: Yeah, and be open to outcome. You know those are the four things we have to do in this life. And that's sort of been our motto at this program from its inception and she was a great inspiration to me and to many of us to start this program. In fact, she - I consulted with her - what do we call it? Well, how about transpersonal? Yeah, that sounds really good. LAUGHS. [00:29:28.06] DAVID: Awesome. Well thank you so much for just sharing your passion and your love. Your knowledge and just your being. It was really beautiful to hear your reflection on the program and just kind of like the developing of the program. [00:29:41.02] DEBORAH: Oh, thank you David. ItÕs been a delight to spend this time with you again. [00:29:45.21] DAVID: Yeah, again. [00:29:47.12] DEBORAH: All right. [00:29:48.16] DAVID: So, today I would just like to thank Deborah Bowman speaking with us. She is the professor of the Mindfulness Based Transpersonal Counseling. So, thanks again. [00:29:56.05] DEBORAH: You're welcome. [MUSIC] On behalf of the Naropa community thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates. [MUSIC]