Relationship To Other Psychotherapy Approaches

Tara Rokpa Psychotherapy defines itself as a Buddhist based psychotherapy which is consistent with a Constructivist analysis of reality. We share with other Constructivists concerns about taking responsibility for how we construe and experience the world and questions the possibility that we can know anything definite of any reality that might be out there. In this it also shares common ground with Existentialist and Phenomenological approaches.

While it does not share the psychoanalytic view we do value and use free association in the Back to Beginnings Process, which was developed by Sigmund Freud.

While we would not advocate the strict assumptions and treatment protocols found in the Cognitive Behavioural approach, we do encourage people to engage with and enquire through specific exercises and visualisations which open out the experience of being human. Along with other Mindfulness-based approaches we acknowledge that not fixating on thoughts as solid can be helpful for the participant and therapist in the mutual quest to open up new alternatives and possibilities. Such identification with our thoughts is often the ground of momentary identity.

Our approach also shares many of the values of Humanistic Psychotherapy but does not hold with the notion of the existence of a self or a Higher Self.