Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Psychology meets Religion

REFLECTIONS ON MY PUBLIC DIALOG WITH THE DALAI LAMA

Aaron T. Beck, M.D.

Göteborg June 13, 2005

Judy Beck and I met with the Dalai Lama initially in his private drawing room in the hotel for an informal discussion a couple of hours prior to the actual public dialog. Also attending were Paul Salkovskis, Astrid Beskow, and a number of his own representatives, including his long-time interpreter. Initially, I presented His Holiness with a copy of Life magazine from 1959, which had a cover picture of him receiving bouquets from his American supporters after his escape from Tibet to the United States. He seemed pleased to see this much younger picture of himself. I also presented him with a hard copy of Prisoners of Hate. He seemed taken by the title, which epitomized his own view that hatred imprisons the people who experience it. He then remarked that there must be six billion prisoners in the world!

On a personal level, I found him charismatic, warm, engaging, and very attentive to what I had to say. At the same time, he seemed to maintain an objective detachment not only with me but also with the members of the entourage. He also impressed me with his wit and wisdom and his ability to capture the nuances of very complex issues.

The dialog was held at the Göteborg Convention Center with about 1400 attendees at the International Congress of Cognitive Psychotherapy. In keeping with his expressed wish, I started the dialog. I began to recite the dozen or so main points of similarity between Tibetan Buddhism and cognitive therapy (listed below). After I recited four or five similarities, he interrupted with the statement that they were as many items as he could absorb at one time.

My main challenge in the dialog was to inform him about the cognitive approach to human problems without in any way taking away from the broad philosophy and psychology of Buddhism. My strategy was to find appropriate points in his discourse where I could introduce cognitive concepts that were relevant in some way to his train of thought. I tried to represent the cognitive approach as a valid system or discipline in its own right that overlapped but also was complimentary to Buddhism. I also had to be conscious of my choice of words. Although His Holiness is quite fluent in speaking English, he is not familiar with more technical words, especially those for which there are no Tibetan equivalents. For example, he used the term “negative thoughts,” which I repeated in preference to the more technical (and precise) cognitive terms, such as self-defeating thoughts or dysfunctional cognitions.

Among the points that I brought up, which he then expanded on from his own vantage point, were that both systems use the mind to understand and cure the mind. Acceptance and compassion were key similarities. Also, in both systems, we try to help people with their overattachment to material things and symbols (of success, etc., something we call “addiction”). I gave a case example of a depressed scientist who was so attached to success (in this case, specifically winning a Nobel Prize) that he excluded everything else in his life, including his family. I had used a typical cognitive strategy to give the patient perspective. In the course of a single session, he changed his beliefs and got over his depression (at least temporarily). The Dalai Lama’s response to this anecdote was, “You should get the Nobel Prize for Peace.”

Another point that I brought up was our distinction between pain and suffering. I suggested that much of people’s suffering is based on the fact that they identify themselves with the pain. People who are able to separate (“distance”) themselves from the pain and view it more objectively had significantly less distress (as pointed out by Tom Sensky’s group in London). His Holiness seemed taken with this concept and then said in an amusing way that maybe he could use this notion to help himself with his chronic itch. (This half-serious comment, of course, evoked a large amount of laughter from the audience.) He later referred to cognitive therapy as similar to “analytical meditation.”

I asked His Holiness how he thought that his message could really take root in the world. He then expanded on his ideas that education had to be the answer. He also expressed his own philosophy, which he described as secular ethics. Although people of different faiths could embrace the values that he expressed, such as total acceptance of all living things, he did not feel that religion was a necessary instrument for this. He appeared to echo what is also the essence of the cognitive approach, namely self-responsibility rather than depending on some external force to inspire ethical standards. Since I believe that CT also regards unethical and morally destructive behavior as a cognitive problem and thus would advocate a “cognitive morality,” I later was able to get this point across but in different words. When he asked me for my view of human nature, I responded that I agreed that people were intrinsically good but that the core of goodness was so overlaid with layer after layer of “negative thoughts” that one had to remove the layers for the goodness to emerge. He expressed the belief that positive thinking (focusing on positive and good things) was the way to neutralize the negative in human nature. My position was that the best way to reach this goal was to pinpoint the thinking errors and correct them. After we concluded the dialog, Paul Salkovskis gave an outstanding summation of the topics that we had covered.

Since Astrid Beskow (the prodigious organizer of the event) discovered that by coincidence this was his birthday, there was a short birthday celebration during which he was then given a large bouquet. He then gave Astrid, Paul, and myself a Buddhist prayer shawl. I later learned from an intermediary that he enjoyed the dialog and that he would think about several points that I raised.

All in all, it was a thrilling experience for me and, from what I heard from several of the attendees, also for the audience.

From my readings and discussions with His Holiness and other Buddhists, I am struck with the notion that Buddhism is the philosophy and psychology closest to cognitive therapy and vice versa. Below is a list of similarities that I suggested to the Dalai Lama in our private meeting. Of course, there are many strategies we use such as testing beliefs in experiments and formulating the case that are not part of the Buddhist approach.

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN COGNITIVE THERAPY AND BUDDHISM

I. Goals Serenity, Peace of Mind, Relief of Suffering

II. Values

(1) Importance of Acceptance, Compassion, Knowledge, Understanding

(2) Altruism vs. Egoism

(3) Universalism vs. Groupism: “We are one with all humankind.”

(4) Science vs. Superstition

(5) Self-responsibility

III. Causes of Distress:

(1) Egocentric biases leading to excessive or inappropriate anger, envy, cravings, etc. (the “toxins”) and false beliefs (“delusions”)

(2) Underlying self-defeating beliefs that reinforce biases.

(3) Attaching negative meanings to events.

IV. Methods:

(1) Focus on the Immediate (here and now)

(2) Targeting the biased thinking through

(a) Introspection, (b) Reflectiveness, (c) Perspective-taking, (d) Identification of “toxic” beliefs, (e) Distancing, (f) Constructive experiences, (g) Nurturing “positive beliefs”

(3) Use of Imagery

(4) Separating distress from pain

(5) Mindfulness training

Thursday, March 16, 2006

SAID and ISLAM

Enlightened views of reality are much needed today. Thus the need for alternative press and non-mainstream media. That said here is a link to COUNTERPUNCH.


In the news today American Exceptionalism has reared it's ugly head once again in Bush's reaffirmation of U.S.'s First Strike Policy.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Afghanistan the Narco-State

Bumper crop of illicit opium expected in Afghanistan this year: UN survey

Daniel Cooney
Canadian Press

KABUL (AP) - Cultivation of opium poppies has increased in large areas of Afghanistan, raising fears there could be another bumper crop this year, a government and UN survey said.

Widespread eradication of poppies is needed in the coming months leading up to harvest time in the world's top producer of opium and its derivative, heroin, officials warned Monday.

Farmers are planting more opium poppies than last year in 13 provinces, while cultivation levels are stable in 16 provinces and have dropped in only three, the Ministry of Counternarcotics and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a statement.

"We are concerned about these trends," UNODC representative Doris Buddenberg said.

But Counternarcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi said he was optimistic that widespread eradication and programs encouraging poppy farmers to switch to legal crops would cause illegal cultivation to drop by year's end.

The survey was carried out in December and January, the start of the poppy growing season, it said. Another survey will be done at the end of the season in autumn.

Afghanistan is the source of nearly 90 per cent of the world's opium and heroin, even though the international community has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into eradication campaigns since the Taliban was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

News of the increased cultivation comes after last year's drop major drop in the number of hectares used to grow poppies, according to separate surveys by the United Nations and the U.S. State Department.

Monday's survey said there were dramatic increases in poppy cultivation in seven provinces, including Helmand in the south, where about 3,000 British soldiers are being deployed later this year to combat a rising Taliban-led insurgency and the drug trade.

The Taliban discouraged the poppy trade when it was in power. However, western officials say the rebels are believed to be partially funded by the narco-gangs and have warned that they will attack government forces if they eradicate opium poppies in the region.

Afghanistan's current government has been criticized for not being tough enough on the burgeoning drugs trade amid warnings the country is fast becoming a "narco-state."

A number of senior government and police officials and former warlords are suspected of involvement in the business.

Qaderi said hundreds of hectares of poppies already had been cleared.

"This is already showing results in some provinces, and I believe we can expect to see it have an impact on cultivation levels elsewhere in the country as the campaign and the year progresses," he said.

Buddenberg cautioned against expectations that the drug trade can be quickly curtailed.

"Counternarcotics is a long-term process, which must be based first of all on an overall development approach, and this takes a long time," she said.

"Such an approach must also be coupled with law enforcement, to go after those who control the drug business."




Drug Agents Target Afghan Poppy Crop

By JIM KRANE Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — Springtime is on the way and already hundreds of farmers are tending pale green shoots of Afghanistan's chief crop and economic mainstay: opium poppies.

It looks to be a bumper year. Some 320,000 acres are currently blanketed in rows of dandelion-like sprouts that eventually produce almost 90 percent of the world's heroin.

But drug agents are counterattacking. An army of 500 tractor-driving Afghans hopes to plow the plants under before producers grow powerful enough to corrupt the country's fledgling government.

"There's going to be a continuous effort in spring and summer," U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the top American commander in Afghanistan, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press.

When the Taliban ran Afghanistan, its leader enforced an effective ban on poppy growing under threat of jail. As a result, cultivation dropped to practically nothing in 2000.

But Afghan and Western counternarcotics officials say the hardline Taliban militia fighting the U.S.-backed government is now implicated in the trade and uses the proceeds to help fund its insurgency.

The dramatic increase in poppy cultivation since U.S. forces ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001 has caused alarm in the West, particularly Europe, the destination of most of the drugs. Only a fraction of the output is consumed inside Afghanistan.

Getting farmers to stop growing the flowers _ which thrive in Afghanistan's poor soil and abundant sunshine _ will take decades, Eikenberry said. Thailand's largely successful campaign took 25 years. Afghanistan's crop is being eradicated amid a guerrilla war and some of the world's starkest poverty. It will take longer, Eikenberry said.

One farmer in Kandahar's poppy belt, Haji Abdul Karim, says planting his 12 acres with poppies is the only way to feed his six sons and two daughters. Revenue from wheat or grapes wouldn't even cover cooking fuel, Abdul Karim said.

"I have no other option," the 40-year-old farmer said. "I don't like growing poppy. If I had another way to earn money, I wouldn't grow it."

The U.S. Agency for International Development has earmarked $146 million this year for economic development and export-oriented farming projects meant to wean Afghans from the crop. The U.S. funds are paying for replanting poppy fields with orchards of apricot, apple, pomegranate and nut trees and grape vines.

Even so, a U.N. survey released Monday said this year's crop would be larger than last year's _ though smaller than the record 2004 crop of about 500,000 acres.

One reason cultivation has risen is that threats to cut down last year's crop never materialized, a U.S. drug agent said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of his involvement in sensitive counternarcotics operations. This year, agents hope threats are now backed by action.

Making matters more difficult, farmers like Abdul Karim may receive protection from drug gangs who have warned of attacks on government eradication teams. Last year, several team members were killed in action.

And drug gangs are finding unlikely allies among radical Muslim insurgents, especially in southern Afghanistan, according to Eikenberry.

"We've seen some evidence of cooperation with the Taliban," he said.

The heroin industry has become so strong that the corruption and crime it fosters are endangering the government, Eikenberry said.

"You've already got a narco-economy here. We don't want it to become a narco-state," said the drug agent, who estimated that opium and heroin smuggling accounts for more than 35 percent of Afghanistan's economy.

U.S. and British narcotics agents hope to eradicate 50,000 acres of this year's crop before sap is collected and smugglers trundle heroin to markets across Asia and Europe.

Last year they chopped up only a quarter as much.

On Monday, drug eradication teams tore up crops in Nangarhar province, where dozens of Afghan police armed with AK-47s blocked angry farmers from interfering with the work.

Already, 6,000 acres of the flower in its young "cabbage stage" have been plowed under in Nangarhar and three other provinces, a U.S. narcotics official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

In the coming days, officials say, eradication teams will move into Afghanistan's poppy belt: the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, Taliban strongholds where insurgent-backed drug gangs have urged farmers to grow the flower. Helmand alone accounts for 40 percent of the country's poppy cultivation.

The surrounding region is showing the strain of coping with the 4,400 tons of Afghanistan's opiate exports.

Neighboring Iran is now thought to harbor the world's highest per capita heroin use, with as many as 3 million addicts; Pakistan counts 1.5 million. Afghanistan has flourishing opium dens and 50,000 addicts, about 7,000 of whom inject heroin, the U.S. agent said


Friday, March 10, 2006

Audio: World in peril, Chomsky tells overflow crowd

BROKEN by JACK JOHNSON

With everything ahead of us
We left everything behind
But nothing that we needed
At least not at this time
And now the feeling that I'm feeling
Well it's feeling like my life is finally mine
With nothing to go back to we just continue to drive
Without you I was broken
But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side
I didn't know what I was looking for
So I didn't know what I'd find
I didn't know what I was missing
I guess you've been just a little too kind
And if I find just what I need
I'll put a little peace in my mind
Maybe you've been looking too
Or maybe you don't even need to try
Without you I was broken
But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side
With everything in the past
Fading faster and faster until it was gone
Found out I was losing so much more than I knew all along
Because everything I've been working for
Was only worth nickels and dimes
But if I had a minute for every hour that I've wasted
I'd be rich in time, I'd be doing fine
Without you I was broken
But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side