Crawling around old posts on the forum, I noticed hearsay that therapy is different after attaining SE or paths.

Think Niels lyngsø mentioned a lot of old baggage simply dropped away after SE.
I think Ingram mentioned therapy or self-healing was vastly different after attaining Paths.
Linda seemed to naturally find a body based practice to work through old stuff, that Taft said was something he had heard of before.

I wonder if I am doing myself a disservice by working on releasing trauma before going for SE? Maybe SE would make it all much easier to heal (which would be warmly welcomed )

Then again, whenever I hear of Arhats describing how they were changed by deep insight, they seem to always mention or at least infer that ego material (and I suppose, trauma) is still present to some degree.

What's your opinion?
Which approach is best/most efficient to start with?

No right answer. Best approach is what works for you.

No guarantees after SE/paths.

Most people get better through the work they did in the road to SE/paths. The paths just locks it in, so to speak. This is especially true of pre-SE dark night stuff. SE doesn't "give" anything that the yogi didn't already learn through practice, it just sort of makes it easier to default to " don't resist or exaggerate fear, it's just fear; don't resist or exagerate misery, it's just misery; ...disgust; ...desire for deliverance; ...reobservation" 

Some feel worse because they have old material surface that was repressed before.

Some mess up their lives by "using" the concept of progress/paths and spiritual bypassing the trauma/psycological knots that remain. 


My advice is that when a big question pops up (I wonder if I am doing myself a disservice by working on releasing trauma before going for SE?), the odds are the answer is yes. It's so common that there is an expression for it: if you ask the question, you know the answer. Now, obviously this isn't always true, but this kind of thing happens a lot.

​​​​​​​At least take the question seriously and ponder, "what would my practice look like if I wasn't so focused on releasing trauma and was working more towards SE?"

I think you should decouple the idea you need help from a mental health professional from your Buddhist path.

Buddhism is not a form of health care. People sometimes develop severe mental health problems on retreats. 

Many people (maybe most) awaken without having any noticable SE experience.
https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/
https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/

So I don't think it's a good idea to wait for stream entry first, just in case it might mean you won't need therapy or you might need a different kind of therapy. If you need therapy now, get therapy now.

On the other hand I think if you do get therapy, it could help your progress on the Buddhist path. The point of Buddhism in my opinion is to learn to let go of attachments and aversions. One reason that is so hard is because often we build up layers of emotions hiding one emotion behind another because we don't want to acknowledge unpleasant, unflattering truth about our "self". You can't let go of something if you are not conscious you are holding on to it. It is much easier for someone else to see through our self decptions than it is for us.

Also there are sometimes biological conditions that cause emotional problems and no amount of meditation will fix them. A mental health professional might be able to recognize when that is happening to a patient.  

I also think it can be a problem relying on what people say about the psychological effects their awakening. In a way they are diagnosing themselves, and they will be very biased by their own experiences. Self reporting on subjective phenomena is not really a good way to get reliable psychological information that you can apply in a general fashion. Someone might be able to tell you: "if you do this technique you will experience that phenomenon". However interpreting that in a reliable way in terms of what it means psychologically is not something I think you can do without objective, controlled, scientific experiments with large numbers of people. There are plenty of examples of highly regarded meditation teachers being have problems of their own.

Another potential problem with mixing Buddhism and therapy that one should be alert to is that some therapists might consider awakening a form of depersonalization and consider it a mental illness.  Actually, based on what I wrote in the last sentence of the previous paragraph, I think in at least some cases, that could be right.

I agree with Jim. It is, at the very least, complicated to try to mix Buddhist practice and therapy. Also, aiming for SE via the POI while dealing with problems that are usually addressed through therapy, such as trauma issues, is reported on this forum to produce results that I would not want. In fact, people who describe having reached SE often also report significant mental health problems which I would want to deal with as a priority. While some people do describe POI-based SE as having solved their mental health issues, based on what I have heard reported, it is not something I would recommend. 

I worked my way through my own mental health problems (addiction and depression) before finding Buddhist practice, so I cannot speak from direct experience of mixing the two. But, if I had to do it again, I would still want to get my mental health on an even keel first. 

On the other hand, Buddhist philosophy and general mindfulness, relaxation, and concentration practices don't seem to aggravate mental health problems. 

I deeply appreciate all your replies, and take the generalized advice to heart: Therapy before insight.

If my memory would work reliably, I could have also deduced that since insight tends to pull new "stuff" up for me to process, processing would be a smart first priority.

Just can't help but keep wondering... Isn't insight and enlightenment supposed to be the holy grail that uproots suffering (but not physical pain) for good? If only it could be that simple.

I started vipassana before serious therapy (depression and other stuff) and don't regret. The first retreats were hard as hell, but I was lucky to have excellent teachers who had enough confidence in the practice, and skill in supporting me throughout the process. The afterglow lasted for a month or two after each retreat, and then I knew I needed another. The later insight stages (ñ11) mobilize suprising amount of internal resources to face stuff (with clarity, inclusivity, sometimes lightness); that kept giving me hope that things can change for better. So, for me at least, insight & therapy are mutually supportive.

Relating to "stuff" as habitual but nonetheless ephemeral/momentary products of the mind bound to come by conditioning makes therapy easier. It certainly also helped me to engage in both therapy and meditation more out of loving-kindness (adjusting existing conditioning towards being more skillful with my feelings, for example — which theravada calls "wholesome") than out of resistance against "stuff" and hatred of myself .

And for the holy grail: no There is this famous Salla Sutta (about the first and the second arrow). It is an example, but (as I understand it), the importance is NOT in physical vs. mental, but about unavoidable (because already present) pain of the first arrow, and reactive pain of the second arrow. The unavoidable pain can also be mental, e.g. coming from a mental health condition, but also perhaps sadness or any type of mind state which happens to occur. You can't change that, it is already here, and then what? If the mind is reactive, it might go into resistance (not being in peace with what happens), and then the second arrow hits the next moment (which is perhaps again the first arrow for the next reactive step), and there is more suffering. Acceptance of "things as they are" (non-reactivity, less/no second arrow) is about "things" both outside and inside.

Since I'm being mentioned in the OP, I will also chime in:

I agree with shargrol here: It will probably vary by the individual, so follow you intuition!

It's true that a lot of psychological baggage has been dropped in my system, but that didn't happen all at once at SE. It happened over time due a combination of (self) therapeutic work and consistent meditation. To use an image: I spent two years in the EQ nana, digging around and losening some roots of suffering, and then at SE these roots were sort of pulled out. So personally I don't think I would have gotten to SE without therapeutic and self-therapeutic work, but that doesn't mean it's true for everybody. My hunch is, though, that for most of us neurotic 21st century westeners, some amount of (self) therapeutic work will be necessary to wake up.

As I see it, vipassana and (the right form of) therapy can help each other, especially until you are stable in EQ (pre SE). To put it in a simple way: with vipassana you get better at digging up material that can be processed in therapy. And with a more stable and clear mind (provided by consistent meditative training), the findings from therapy will more easily implement them selves down through the layers of mind.

PS: I have found IFS (Internal Family Systems) very helpful and very compatible with insight meditation. You could check that out and see if it speaks to you.

Best wishes!

I can support what others above have said: trust your intuition on what the best "next step" is for you.

In my case paths-progress has been heavily complimentary to therapy and therapy-like healing practices - these have become easier after. But in a sense also inseperable in a sort-of joint awakening-healing journey.

Good luck!