Jeffrey Rubin, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst and a pioneering expert in meditative psychotherapy, which integrates Western psychotherapeutic modalities with Eastern meditative traditions. In practice since 1978, he treats patients in New York City and North Salem, New York. Rubin is an international lecturer and keynote speaker, as well as a faculty member at The American Institute of Psychoanalysis, The Object Relations Institute and the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. An author of eight books and numerous articles, his latest works include Meditative Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Pathways to Healing and Transformation and Psychotherapy Case Studies: Escaping the Prison You Didn’t Know You Were In.

 

What are the strengths and weaknesses of psychotherapy?

In most schools of Western psychotherapy, the emphasis is on identifying and addressing what is wrong with people. While that is important, it is equally vital to acknowledge and support what is right about people. In my book The Good Life: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Love, Ethics, Creativity and Spirituality, I explain that we need a double focus—not just looking at what challenges us, but also exploring our untapped potential.

Psychotherapy is a search for meaning and self-awareness, as well as an inquiry into relationships as a vehicle for self-transformation. These are its strengths. In therapy, relationships tend to be carefully described and understood, looking into the complexities and obstacles.

 

What are the strengths and weaknesses of meditation?

Meditation has its weaknesses. Even if you practice with 100 people, it offers less insight into relationships compared to psychotherapy. Meditation doesn’t focus on meaning. A woman once told me in therapy, “I don’t want to travel to Tibet to learn about Buddhism,” then paused, “I said ‘don’t’—is that a Freudian slip? Maybe I’m going to Tibet only because my boyfriend wants to go.” A meditation teacher would dismiss her slip as a glitch, while a psychotherapist might see it as symptomatic. As an adult, you have to learn to distinguish between symptoms and glitches, and one of the dangers of meditation is that you often stay on the surface of things.

As for strengths, meditation teaches you to greet the present moment freshly with minimal biases, minimal expectations, maximal openness and the innocence of a child. Imagine a metronome ticking. After a while, you would probably tune it out, but a meditation master continues to hear each tick and tock.

Meditation also reduces self-criticism, and fosters self-compassion and acceptance. It can help us learn to tolerate difficult feelings better, less reactively, without suppressing them or letting them affect your body. You notice—I’m angry or I’m sad—breathe into that feeling, then let it go.

 

What is meditative psychotherapy?

It is what I call the marriage of mindfulness and meaning. You need to be present and centered like a meditative discipline teaches, while also willing to investigate and inquire into things. Analyzing your feelings is difficult if you’re emotionally reactive. Meditation allows you to explore emotions, delve deeper, form thoughts and notice details. I call this “expanding inner space”. Inner space is not a place, but a capacity that you develop to become centered, reflect and broaden your perspective. Once you cultivate this capacity, psychotherapeutic investigation becomes easier.

If your hand is shaking, you can’t take a clear picture with a camera, no matter how great the lens. You have to steady your hand first to hold the camera still and capture a much richer picture.

 

What symptoms are you seeing more often in therapy sessions?

Greater alienation, powerlessness and loneliness. People are overwhelmed, foggy-headed and frazzled. As we face relentless tough news cycles, economic uncertainty and social divisions, people act like pinballs in a machine, ricocheting off walls and lashing out with road rage and impatience towards loved ones.

Without a tolerance of uncomfortable feelings, we take it out on others and on ourselves. James Baldwin said, “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

We’re hit with conditions that trigger feelings we don’t fully understand and have never been trained to handle—fear, uncertainty, dread, anger, shame, hatred. If we can’t tolerate these feelings, we overeat, feel suicidal or mistreat others.

I think we’re seeking cotton-candy self-care. People watch Law and Order reruns and isolate themselves because they’re overwhelmed, so anything becomes too much. They seek quick routes to peace, but it’s like empty carbs for the spirit. Tastes good, and the next second, you’re hungry for more. That’s one reason people stay up later; they’re searching for greater meaning.

The alternative is to sit with the uncomfortable feelings, which is a trainable ability. As we learn to sit with more discomfort, we become more patient and tolerant, allowing us to eliminate adversarial relationships and form closer connections with less friction and meanness. It’s achievable, but it requires practice.

 

How can we learn to handle difficult emotions?

I call it equanimity training. Equanimity means accepting whatever happens with a calm, matter-of-factness. I’m okay if there’s pleasure; I’m okay if there’s pain. I don’t have to be pleased, entertained and happy all the time. In The Art of Flourishing, I wrote about our obsession with happiness. Although it’s nice that people are trying to cultivate positive emotions, eliminating discomfort reduces our tolerance for tough times. When someone has to be happy every second of the day, that’s when you get the reactiveness and bad behaviors when life frustrates them.

I want to be happy as much as the next person, but I don’t spend five minutes the whole year worrying about being happy. What I focus on is flourishing. By flourishing, I mean living fully, on all cylinders, being the best that you can be, treating people ethically and supporting everybody. If you live rightly, then you’ll be happier. But if you focus solely on being happy, it becomes all about “me”. Massive self-centeredness is a big problem in our culture.

 

Can you be more specific about equanimity training?

To expand your tolerance for uncomfortable feelings, start by focusing on less emotionally triggering things in your meditation practice. For example, learn to master sitting with increasingly uncomfortable sounds. Begin with a pleasant sound—hear it, let it wash over you. If your mind wanders, gently return your attention to the sound without judgment. Once you can do that, move to a neutral sound. Hear it. Let it wash over you. After mastering that, progress to an irritating sound, and eventually move to more challenging ones like a crying baby or a police siren.

Apply this practice to all five senses to develop presence, concentration and equanimity. Whether you’re observing a beautiful flower or a war-torn village, the skill set remains the same. You’re not numbing yourself; you’re experiencing without clinging or attachment. Simply let it wash over you and remain open to the next moment, greeting the present with freshness. This trains us to handle life’s challenges and cultivate equanimity, first with what’s easy, then with what’s hard. You can then apply this to your emotions. If you’re scared, sit open to the experience, let it touch you and let it wash over you. This is a concrete way of calming ourselves.

 

How can we set effective boundaries around our news consumption?

We watch the news compulsively to try to control the confusion, fear, powerlessness and chaos, but it often leaves us feeling more scared, confused and burned out. Be selective and watch it just twice a day. Do other things at night, such as listening to your favorite music, connecting with someone, doing something meaningful, reading, taking a walk, meditating or practicing yoga. Regularly check in with your mind and body. If you’re consuming a lot of news and start feeling foggy-headed, irritable or impatient, it’s time to take a break. Play pickleball, go bowling, knit or get your hands in the garden.

I could get deeply affected by the heartlessness I see. This isn’t the country you or I knew when we were younger, but I refuse to let it bring me down. Instead of bemoaning it, I focus on lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness. I make it my mission to counteract the cruelty and sadism I see by being different—saying something nice to the teenager at the grocery store, uplifting everyone I meet.

It’s also important to keep speaking truth to power. I’m writing a paper on hate and working on a new book called The Political Is Personal: Cruelty and Benevolence Are Learned at Home. It’s hard for many people to feel excited right now, but there are actions we can take. We have to build relationships and communities of hope—it could be marching, working at a food pantry or donating clothes to someone who just lost their job. We do what we can.

 

Are tough times opportunities for growth and transformation?

Yes. One of my great Buddhist teachers, Shinzen Young, explained that in ancient Greek, kairos means window of opportunity—a moment when conditions are right for crucial action. Crisis is a challenge and an opportunity. By managing our feelings, difficult times allow us to engage in self-investigation and transformation.

If we think honestly about our lives, periods of significant growth coincided with times of great crisis; they weren’t times of great victories. Ilia Malinin, the ice skater known as the Quad God, will return more determined after losing at the Olympics than if he had won. Gymnast Simone Biles is another example of this. Her struggles in the Olympics transformed her in powerful ways. That’s the way it works for us, too. We can use challenges to strengthen ourselves.

 

What self-care measures do you recommend?

We need better forms of self-care that truly nurture us. Keep cultivating self-trust. There are large forces—like the cosmetic industry—that make us feel inadequate as we are. It’s a big problem in our culture. We don’t trust ourselves and our judgment. We shouldn’t dismiss our insights and perceptions so quickly, yet most of us do.

When you look in the mirror, you have no right to criticize yourself. Instead, you can say, “Body, thank you for carrying me around all these years.” We constantly undermine ourselves, and we need to change that, because it erodes self-trust and leads us to look outside ourselves for answers.

People have to live in two worlds simultaneously. They have to recognize what’s wrong and continue pursuing what they value. This is the self-care we need. Keep chasing your passions, spending time in nature, connecting with life-spirited people and supporting older relatives. Stay active and eat healthy. Prioritize quality rest and strive for a meaningful life.

 

Sandra Yeyati is national editor of Natural Awakenings.

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