Acceptance Therapy

In the book Siddartha's Brain, James Kingsland devotes a chapter to various kinds of therapies that have been inspired by Buddhist teachings and practices. One of the most intriguing models I have come across is something that has often been referred to as "Acceptance Therapy". The tenet of acceptance therapy is that one learns "to allow distressing emotions, thoughts, and sensations to come and go without trying to fight them, suppress them, or run away from them" (p.132), which might in a way be considered the essence of mindfulness. How does such a therapy work, however? Does it mean simply accepting whatever thoughts come to mind? It's more than this: it means not identifying with the thoughts themselves; not saying, in other words, that this thought is "me", and thus not indulging particular thoughts. Kingsland distinguishes between a "doing" mode of being, which emphasizes "automatic" responding without awareness, and a "being" mode, more akin to mindful awareness, where one is able to "experience thoughts and feelings as transient phenomena" (p.131). It's only when I am not attached to my passing thoughts or moods that I am not compulsively doing things to try to regulate or control such thoughts. An analogy might be that of standing before a whirpool rather than being absorbed into it (ibid).
   A lot of acceptance therapy meshes with the ideas of Silent Illumination. Silent Illumination emphasizes seeing the whole without trying to grasp at the parts. When I am attuned to totality, there is actually nothing to grasp, not even totality. Then my mind is free to pick up something and put down as needed, and it is not clinging to any conditions. The difference is that Acceptance Therapy uses this principle to get patients to engage in what is called "metacognition", which is thinking about the process of thinking. When I am attuned to the way my mind is tossing and turning in all sorts of crazy ways, I become less invested in the thoughts themselves. It is almost as though there is a kind of ironic detachment being cultivated here, although Silent Illumination isn't performing any kind of reflection. To the contrary, contemplation is a kind of knowing without judging or evaluating the ways one approaches experiences.
  I think that in order to really practice this kind of therapy, a person does need to commit to some sense of wanting to change. Being mindful is certainly a tool, but I also think that a person going through this therapeutic process needs to have a plan or a concrete thing that they would like to improve or do better on. It also helps to have a social model, such as a teacher or a person to look up to. The danger I see with this kind of therapy is that, when taken alone, it might start to lead to self-deceptive ideas, such as allowing every thought to be entertained without principle, or even daydreaming at the worst. Some Buddhist practitioners also succumb to a false idea that because everything is "only a thought", then there is no point stopping behaviors from arising since everything is created by the mind. But this is precisely wrong because it only reinforces compulsive behaviors that lead a person to seek treatment in the first place. If I am doing this practice on my own, I won't have people to look up to who can help me see where I might not be engaging the practice correctly. \

Kingsland, James, (2016). Siddartha's Brain: Unlocking the Ancient Science of Enlightenment. New York: Harper Collins.