Prescribing the Dharma

In today's podcast, I speak with Ira Helderman about his newly published book, Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) which surveys the diversity of Buddhist practices used in psychotherapy today. Ira shows that psychotherapists' approaches to Buddhist traditions are moulded by how they relate to what is and is not religion. This book will be of interest to scholars of psychotherapy, religion, and Buddhism as well as anyone interested in the relationship between psychotherapy and Buddhism in the West today.

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Alex Carroll studies Buddhist Studies at the University of South Wales and is primarily interested in Theravāda and early Buddhism. He lives in Oslo, Norway and can be reached via his website here.