Dramatherapy Vol 28 No 2 Autumn 2006 'From Bowlby to Buddha'

^FROM BOWLBY TO BUDDHA' - an

initial exploration of the meaning of
attachment and non-attachment and their
implication for Dramatherapy
by Di Gammage
This Being Human
This being human is a guesthouse.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture
Still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing.
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes.
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.
Rumi
Introduction
It is many years since my first encounter with Buddhism.
I vividly recall listening to a speaker, on a wet, windy
night, telling me that we are nothing, that an egoless state
is to be aspired to and that until we achieve this we will
continue to suffer. I was appalled and affronted! Here
was I working diligently to develop and shore up my own
ego (as well as the egos of my clients) only to be told
that letting go was the only way to alleviate suffering.
I experienced the speaker's words as threatening and
alien, and with anything experienced thus, I developed an
immediate aversion to it. As I reflect upon this encounter,
I wonder how other listeners heard him? My friend, for
instance, had not had such a violent reaction to his words
and frankly my rage baffled her. This event probably
contributed to the demise of our friendship.
Over the last three years I have found myself

responding more openly to the practice of Buddhism.

A curiosity has grown. I would like to believe that,
nowadays, there is generally more light and less heat in
my soul. I would like to think that my ability to respond
rather than react is deepening. Perhaps a seed was planted
that fateful evening all those years ago that has slowly
begun to germinate - 'The fruit of awareness is already
ripe, and the door can never be closed again' (Nhat Hanh,
1993: 59).
As a dramatherapist and play therapist and previously
a residential social worker, I have been exposed to and
witnessed much suffering. I consider the work I undertake
to be a privilege, and yet until fairly recently, my core as a
therapist has harboured an unease. Questions arose such
as: What is happening here? What is meant to happen?
How can I facilitate this happening? How will I know
when it does? To a more fundamental question: What do
I believe is the core of human existence - are we innately
'good' or innately 'bad'?
As I discover more about the practice of Buddhism,
the dharmic path, I am finding responses to my unease.
In particular, I have been intrigued by the subject of
Attachment. I have encountered both a resonance
and a discord with my existing knowledge of Western
psychology and Eastern philosophy around this concept.
Attachment theory proposed by John Bowlby and Mary
Ainsworth and the Buddha's teaching of non-attachment
seem to reflect and challenge one another and serve
to illuminate core understanding of what it means to
be human. What follows is, in effect, an enquiry into
the development of, and beyond, the ego - from the
incarnation of the child to an adult discovering some way
of moving beyond being a product of their conditioning.
I offer here my cautious exploration on the meaning of
attachment and non-attachment and its implications for
dramatherapy.
Who is the Buddha?
I have found that when Buddhists speak of Buddha,
there is often a reference to both the Buddha and to the
Buddha-nature within each of us. The Buddha, that is
the first Buddha, is Siddhartha Gautama, who was bom
a prince in India over 500 BC. Buddha was not a god.

Dramatherapy Vol 28 No 2 Autumn 2006 'From Bowlby to Buddha'

He was a human being and he suffered like any other

human being. Siddhartha abandoned his palatial lifestyle
at the age of 29 so that he might seek understanding of
the suffering he witnessed around him and search for
a way to end this suffering. Siddhartha wandered the
land for a period of six years, experimenting with many
practices which included over-indulgence, self-torture,
trance, yoga, deep discussion and ultimately, fasting. So
weakened and sick by the fasting, he famously sat down
under the bodhi tree declaring, 'I will not leave this place
until my understanding is complete...or I die' (de Bary,
1969; Nhat Hanh, 1998; Napthali, 2003). He remained
sitting there all night and when the morning star ascended
in the sky, he had an intense breakthrough. He became a
Buddha, filled with understanding and love. He became
enlightened. Henceforth, he vowed to do what he could
to relieve suffering in the world and for over forty years
this is what he did.
The word Buddha means quite simply 'awake' or
'awakened one'; in contact with an inner wisdom that
is inherent in everyone, which has been described as
'growing up - being completely at home in our world no
matter how difficult the situation' (Chodron, 1994: 139).
This principle resonates with the work of Carl Rogers,
and forms the basis of his person-centred approach to
psychotherapy. He believed that every human being
has an innate tendency towards trustworthiness. This
view is also shared by a great many psychotherapists and
psychoanalysts from differing backgrounds.
The Buddha's teaching is based upon the Four Noble
Truths. These Truths offer the individual a means of
embracing their suffering in order to look deeply into it.
The First Noble Truth is that suffering (dukkha) exists.
Buddha taught of the need to recognise and acknowledge
the presence of suffering, not to deny nor to minimise it.
The Second Noble Truth is the origin or arising of
suffering. A deep exploration into how this suffering
came to be. What is it we do, what is it we take in, that is
causing this suffering?
The Third Noble Truth is the ending of creating
suffering by refraining from doing what it is that causes
the suffering. Suffering can be transformed. Buddhism
is fundamentally a practice and it is the practice in ending
suffering. The Second and Third Noble Truths have great
significance for the therapist, for they unequivocally
convey the potential for healing by understanding
suffering.
The Fourth Noble Truth is the dharmic path that leads
to refraining from doing all that causes suffering and the
cultivation of what leads to happiness and liberation. The
path of transformation or core change.
Zen Buddhist and psychodramatist psychotherapist
David Brazier defines the Four Noble Truths as:
1) To accept the afflictions in this world as real.
2) To accept that associated with these afflictions are
energy and a motivating power that can be turned to
good or ill.

I 3) To harness that energy.

4) The noble life that results from so doing: a life
led by vision.
Brazier (2001:24)
The Four Noble truths are a kind of lens through which
we can look at our lives and which enable us to move
towards liberation. Although the Buddha believed
personal liberation to be the responsibility of the
individual, there is great onus upon community (sangha)
and the individual's dependency on others.
The Four Noble Truths are also a way of understanding
the process of therapeutic change; The personal growth
of the client is the client's own responsibility, however, it
is the therapeutic relationship that helps to facilitate this
growth. The challenge to the dramatherapist is in how
to harness the client's energy and facilitate its use for the
benefit of the client.
The Attachment Theory of John Bowlby and Mary
Ainsworth
In the late 1930s, British psychoanalyst John Bowlby
alerted the psychological world to the significance of
the relationship between a child's mental health and
developing character and the child's experience of their
mother's physical presence and her emotional attitude
towards her child. Prior to Bowlby's work (with the
notable exception of the Dorothy Burlingham and Anna
Freud's contributions (1944), 'any connection between
these, in the childcare professions, had been vague and
inconsistent, refiecting the prejudices of the era and the
professionals involved. Attachment theory is concerned
with understanding the nature of bonding established
between humans arising fundamentally from the need
for protection, safety and comfort. The human baby, in
contrast to other mammals, is bom woefully helpless and
is utterly dependent upon his caregivers for the early part
of life (I refer to the baby as male so as to distinguish
between him and his mother. I am, of course, also
referring to female babies).
Mary Ainsworth, colleague to Bowlby and a prominent
psychologist in her own right, furthered Bowlby's theory
by her meticulous documentation of her observations of
the mother-child relationship, (initially in Uganda, then
in the USA). It was Ainsworth who created the Strange
Situation Experiment. The Strange Situation Experiment,
one of the most widely-used and reliable psychological
diagnostic tools, enables professionals to ascertain the
pattern of bonding in the relationship established between
a mother and her child (Bowlby, 1988; Karen, 1994).
The significance of this first attachment is profound for
it provides the child with a blueprint that underscores
that individual's capacity to love and be loved and,
thus, all future relationships they will make, including
the relationship they will create with their own child
(Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969; Ainsworth, 1985; Ainsworth
etal, 1978; Main etal, 1985).

Dramatherapy Vol 28 No 2 Autumn 2006 'From Bowlby to Buddha'

The Strange Situation

In the experiment, the parent (usually mother though
fathers, also, take part in the experiment) and one year
old child are introduced to an unknown playroom and a
stranger in the role of experimenter. A one-way mirror
allows the situation to be observed. The baby's reactions,
responses and behaviour are noted when mother leaves
the room, during her absence and on her return. Of
particular importance to the observers are the ways
in which the baby separates from his mother, engages
with the experimenter during the mother's absence,
his willingness to be comforted by the experimenter,
his capacity to be alone and how he reunites with his
mother. When mother leaves the room a second time, the
experimenter departs also, leaving the baby alone. The
experimenter re-enters shortly afterwards, followed by
the mother. The experiment is concluded,
Ainsworth and her colleagues carefully observed and
recorded great numbers of mother-infant pairs and their
results were remarkably consistent despite wide variations
in background and experience. From these results the
researchers were able to categorise the behaviour patterns
of the children (Ainsworth et al, 1978). Ainsworth
identified three categories of attachment (a fourth was
created later). These categories are:
Secure Attachment
Secure attachment is characterised by the baby showing
some degree of distress at the mother's departure yet a
willingness to engage with the experimenter, to allow
himself to be comforted by the experimenter and to
show an interest in the toys. On his mother's return,
the securely-attached baby greets her with smiles,
chatter, crying or any combination of these. There is a
desire for physical comfort from the mother, and the
mother, securely-attached to her child, happily responds
to him. On mother's second exit accompanied by the
experimenter, the child's level of distress is intensified.
Reunion with mother involves the same responses shown
earlier only with greater magnitude.
This baby is confident that his mother is sensitively
responsive to him. He is trusting of his parent to be readily
available should he need her comfort and protection.
Insecure Attachment
Insecure attachment is sub-divided into three further
categories:
Anxious Resistant or Ambivalent Attachment
This baby is uncertain of his mother's availability or
sensitivity towards him. He cannot trust that she will
protect and/or comfort him when he is fearful or in pain.
This baby is always prone to separation anxiety, he is
clingy and untrusting of his environment and his own self
within it. Often, threats of abandonment are used by the
mother as a means of control. This mother is inconsistent
in her care of her baby, sometimes she is available and at

10

other times she is not.

In the Strange Situation, the ambivalently-attached
baby will show higher levels of distress than the securelyattached baby. He will be less willing to engage with
the experimenter, and less able to accept comfort from
the experimenter. On his mother's return, he will greet
her just as the securely-attached baby, however, the
ambivialently-resistant baby demonstrates an uncertainty
towards, his mother (reflecting his experience of her)
and this will manifest as simultaneously pushing his
mother away from him and a desire to be close to her.
Contradictory impulses may manifest as hitting, kicking,
or smacking at the same time as seeking comfort from
her.
Anxious Avoidant Attachment
Whereas the ambivalently-attached baby is uncertain
whether to trust his mother, the avoidantly-attached child
knows without doubt that he cannot trust his mother to be
available to him. He has learnt very early on that he is
unable to rely on her and therefore on his environment.
Ultimately, he has only himself and yet this self, borne out
of isolation and despair, is fragile and fragmented.
In the Strange Situation, the anxiously-attached baby
demonstrates a low level of distress on his mother's
departure. He is very familiar with this scenario and has
learnt to survive it as best he can. He seems detached from
his environment and, largely, from himself. His capacity
to play with the toys or engage with the experimenter is
severely hampered. This is a child who does not show his
distress because no one notices it anyway.
Disorganised Attachment
This third category of insecure attachment patterning was
included by Ainsworth and her colleagues as they noticed
a small, yet significant, number of children who did not
fit with either of the other categories as their behaviour
seemed disorientated and unpredictable. A child with a
disorganised attachment pattern is likely to demonstrate
similar characteristics as the ambivalently- or avoidantlyattached children, however, this child also engages in
stereotypic behaviour such as freezing and repetitive
movements like rocking or head banging.
In the Strange Situation the child with a disorganised
attachment pattern is likely to show extreme levels of
distress at his mother's departure counteracted by the selfcomforting behaviours identified above. His capacity to
play with toys or engage with the experimenter is grossly
impaired.
The Wider Context
In my view, it is absolutely crucial to include the other
parent (usually the father) in the child's attachment
patterning if this parent is present in the child's life. This
is not only for the reason that the father develops a separate
relationship with the child, which has the potential to be
as significant as that with the mother. It is important to

Dramatherapy Vol 28 No 2 Autumn 2006 'From Bowlby to Buddha'

include the other parent because the mother's availability

and her ability to respond sensitively to her child has a
direct inter-relationship with the father's capacity to be
available and sensitive to her. If the mother experiences
a secure attachment with her partner, she is more likely to
be able to offer this to her child.
The mother herself was once a baby and experienced
her first attachment with her own mother. As mentioned
above, all future relationships, including those made with
her own children, will have this first attachment as their
foundation.
It is not a foregone conclusion, however, that an
insecurely-attached individual will automatically go
on to create similar relationships in the future. Mary
Main, colleague of Mary Ainsworth, was forefront in
researching the longitudinal effects of infant attachment
patterns and their significance across the life cycle (Main,
1991). She determined that the insecurely-attached child
is still open to the possibility of secure attachments with
other people. In other words, transformation is possible.
One person who may become extremely significant
in the life of an insecurely-attached child or adult is the
therapist. Within the therapeutic relationship, that part of
the self, however small, that has remained inherently wise
and awaiting the opportunity to relate in a wholesome
way may be awakened and nurtured.
Enlightenment
Underneath the tree, the Buddha became enlightened.
Buddhism uses the concept of enlightenment to mean
ultimate realisation and liberation. Enlightenment is the
complete understanding of how we create suffering and
then living a life that is free from that suffering. Living a
life in love, freedom, openness and fearlessness.
Van Morrison urges me to 'Wake up' and tells me that
enlightenment is non-attachment (Van Morrison, 1990).
I asked my therapist what enlightenment means and
straightaway she said, 'It's living without fear'. Fear is to
mistrust or distrust. Therefore enlightenment must mean
to live with trust. To trust myself and the world I live in.
To realise my own trustworthiness. In real terms this
means - not to worry about money, my relationships, how
other people see me, what they think of me, my health,
the health and well-being of my children, my partner, my
family, my friends, my clients, the country, the world, the
lack of water, the amount of pollution, destruction of the
ozone-layer, exhaustion of the world's natural resources,
melting ice-caps, extinction of the polar bear, prostitution
of children, genocide, floods, insatiable human greed
and corruption, the lack of meaning in people's lives,
loneliness, violence, alcoholism and drug abuse, HIV,
poverty, children diagnosed with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder, cancer, ageing, disease...death.
I understand there to be a difference between worry and
concern. It isn't that I lack concern for all the above,
what I am seeking rather, is a freedom from an unhelpful
self-obsession that refers only to me and to my ego. This

liberation allows a much more open, authentic concern for

all that is precious in life.
To live such an enlightened life? Who would refuse
this? So, in Buddhism, if enlightenment means to live
without fear, without suffering, and enlightenment is nonattachment, what does non-attachment mean?
Non-attachment
The whole of Buddhism has, at its core, the practice
of non-attachment, of letting go. Here, however, the
concept of attachment has meaning beyond relationships
with others. We can become attached to almost anything;
for example, our body (our beauty, our youth, our vigour,
our unsightliness, our limitations); our feelings ('I'm just
an angry person', 'I'm always anxious'); our beliefs ('I'm
right, you're wrong', 'There is only one way and that's
my way!'); the roles that we play in our lives (victim,
aggressor, martyr, rescuer, hero/heroine, carer, the wise
one); our material possessions, wealth and the illusion of
security that frequently accompanies these. Often implicit
in these attachments is a lack of choice, freedom and an
inability to change ('This is me...jealous/a perfectionist/
scared of commitment/unable to see the dirty dishes piled
up in the sink/withdrawn). When we cling so tightly to
something, we are closed to the possibility of anything
else.
There is a common belief that non-attachment implies
disconnection, aloofness or aversion to something. This
is an inaccurate belief. Avoidance of (moving away
from), ambivalence for (pushing towards and away
from) and clinging to (pushing towards) are all forms
of attachment (in the Buddhist sense of the concept) and
all involve suffering. There are resonances here with the
insecure-attachment patterns identified by Bowlby and
Ainsworth. Unlike the states of avoidance, ambivalence
and clinging, each of which has a foundation of fear and
a quality of closedness, non-attachment has a virtue of
heart and a quality of openness. It is possible to feel your
heart literally opening and closing when you are moved
or when you are feeling threatened or humiliated. This
experience is real and felt in the body.
Letting go is not the same as getting rid of, rather it is
about relaxing around, finding a spaciousness with, the
object or subject we are in relationship with.
Ego
Who or what is getting attached? Who am I? In the
Bowlby model, it is ego. Body-centred psychotherapist,
Ron Kurtz, originator of the Hakomi Method, maintains
that effort, an ego function, fundamentally obstructs the
healing process as it creates an 'I' and a something that
the 'I' wrestles with. In this struggle, a separate self is
created: an ego. When there is no struggle, effort fades
and ego loosens. It is this loosening of the ego that Kurtz
believes is essential for transformation. This relaxation
of the ego is not a passive giving up, but a giving in to
the process, a faith in something deeper in oneself. It is

11

Dramatherapy Voi 28 No 2 Autumn 2006 'From Bowlby to Buddha'

beyond the ego (Kurtz, 1990).

t h e suffering arises through the ego's attachment to
an object or subject, not so much the events in our lives as
the relationship we create to these events.
Co-arising
What if ego is so fragile and fragmented, how then can
it be let go of? A great many of the children I worked
with as a residential social worker, and some of my
dramatherapy and play therapy clients, I believe, have
extremely fragmented object relations. Surely, before one
can relinquish ego, one has to have had a good enough
sense of it?
Everyone has an ego. Sometimes, however, ego
is contracted and wounded and self crystallises into
something rigid and negative . Before an individual
is in any position to relinquish ego, ego needs to.be
strong enough and this can only be achieved through
the experience of secure attachment. The therapist can
become a crucial figure in the creation of this secure
attachment. In Buddhism, there is a concept called
co-arising, which means 'coming about together'.
Attachment is paradoxical in that one is simultaneously
connected to others and separate from them. This
paradox was familiar to psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott
as illustrated in his observation that we leam to tolerate
our aloneness through relationship with others (1971).
Secure attachment and non-attachment have the capacity
to be co-arising. As the client becomes more secure in
themselves, they simultaneously develop the capacity
to let go of themselves. Crystallised self loosens into
something much more fluid and responsive.
Once enough buoyancy of being has been reached,
when a secure-enough attachment has been created, then
client and therapist gradually begin exploring the client's
patterns of attachment; With compassion and nonjudgment they make the enquiry - who is getting attached
to what? The therapist encourages and supports the client
in their discovery, in developing a capacity for awareness,
in noticing what's happening in any given situation and
for living in the moment. The therapist helps the client to
notice whether the heart is tightening, or opening; whether
the breathing is shallow or deep and unobstructed. The
body is a delicate barometer for our emotional states and
the therapist can help the client become more attuned to
their physical self.
'The greater the degree of awareness, the less the
degree of grasping. It's psychological physics'
Levine (1994: 110)
As the Sufi poet Rumi advocates, the therapist reassures
the client in their welcoming of every emotional
state. Much can be leamt by inviting a sadness or
a despair to 'sit at the table' with one. Welcoming,
being a compassionate host and bidding farewell to any
emotional state is a powerful and liberating experience.
'I am feeling angei"' has a much more spacious quality

12

about it that 'I am angry'. 'There is anger' has even more

spaciousness as it is totally lacking in any reference to
self. The dramatherapist is naturally equipped with the
skills to facilitate the client in visualising, personifying
and conversing with emotions. Frequently in sessions,
my clients invite Frustration, Anger, Lust or another
emotion to a 'dinner party' so as to converse with their
guests. As dramatherapists we have an invaluable means
of supporting our clients in creatively connecting with
their suffering without threat of overwhelm.
Healthy attachments
Healthy attachments are simply those attachments that
do not cause or create suffering for the individual,
others or the environment. In Buddhism, terms such as
'wholesome' or 'unwholesome', 'helpful' or 'hindrance'
and more commonly used as opposed to dualist terms like
'good'or 'bad'.
'When the cause of suffering has been seen, healing is
possible'.
NhatHanh(1998:39)
With deepening awareness, the client learns to distinguish
the attachments that are healthy or harmful to their
wellbeing. When I think this, say that, act in this way,
my suffering increases. Very often our perceptions are
clouded by emotional states such as craving, anger,
ignorance and prejudice which cause great suffering.
Such emotional states are described as afflictions (the
seeds of which are the three kleshas - greed, hatred and
deep misunderstanding) in Buddhism. It is important to
facilitate the client in looking deeply at their perceptions
and to do this with kindness and compassion. It is when
the client knows the source of these unhealthy perceptions
that they will have a choice in whether to continue using
them or to explore alternatives. Authentic responsibility
(response-ability) arises from choice.
Choice and Empowerment
When the client is becoming more authentically
responsible, they are able to make more informed choices
in their life. What do you want/need and how can you
take responsibility for your part in creating this life? This
is a period of awakening joy and knowing when you are
experiencing it. Thich Nhat Hanh describes it as watering
the seeds of joy (1998). This is the cessation of suffering
and the presence of wellbeing. Pema Chodron identifies
the source of wisdom as whatever is going to happen to
you today and your response to this creating the future
(1994).
Current Western teaching in Buddhism
Within current Western teaching in Buddhism there seems
to be a wide range of ideas regarding non-attachment.
Some aspire to complete non-attachment to anything and
an egoless state. I realise now that the speaker cited in the
introduction was of this ilk. Whether he was right or not

Dramatherapy Vol 28 No 2 Autumn 2006 'From Bowlby to Buddha'

in his understanding of the dharmic path, I can't judge.

What I do know, however, was my aversive reaction to his
words which I experienced as violent and threatening.
I am fortunate to have encountered a more
compassionate interpretation of Buddhist concepts.
One that holds the position that to be noti-attached
does not automatically mean to throw something out.
It means having a healthy attachment to something that
does not cause or create suffering. Non-attachment in
dharmic practice is the building up of a reservoir of
love, compassion, clarity, wisdom and patience and to
be healthily attached to these. The Buddha had a healthy
attachment to meditation. He had a healthy attachmetit
to teaching. He even had a healthy attachment to being
the Buddha (Nhat Hanh, 1988). For myself, my journey
is to look at where and to what I am attached, and to
enquire with kindness and compassion whether these are
healthy attachments. This, I believe, is also the task of the
therapist.
Conclusion
As a naive and enthusiastic dramatherapist, I once
believed it was my place to affect change within my
clients. I was heavily influenced by many of the
environments in which I practised (mainly health and
education) where I was fully expected to direct my
clients in their healing process. Their 'healing' entailed
implementing a programme or action plan specifying
what the client needed to do and when they needed to
do it by. My credibility and my professional status as a
dramatherapist depended upon my success with clients,
and should my clients fail to co-operate with the 'master
plan' then they were seen as resistant and challenging.
Many inexperienced dramatherapists are subjected to
this covert (and sometimes overt) pressure within their
workplaces. They may also experience this from the
clients themselves, who are so used to handing the
responsibility for their wellbeing over to someone else
and, of course, when it does not work out, someone else
can always be blamed.
Buddhist psychotherapy is non-violent in its approach.
It offers the client an opportunity to change according to
their own innate wisdom and trustworthiness. It is not
about the therapist effecting change in the client, nor is
it about the therapist taking the credit for any change the
client does make. Any healing that happens is co-arising
between client and therapist.
I understand the therapist's task as one of helping
the client let go of those obstacles that are preventing
them grow and become all that they can become. Carl
Jung said patients do not get cured, they simply move
on (Kurtz, 1990). Irvin Yalom comments that the single
most valuable concept he learned as an inexperienced
psychotherapist was that all humans have an innate
propensity towards self-realisation (Homey, 1950). He
understood that the role of the therapist was therefore to
help the client identify and to let go of those obstacles that

have thus far served to restrict the client's psychological

growth (Yalom, 2001). Ron Kurtz stresses, 'This is very
special work. In this process, violence is not only useless,
it is inevitably harmful' (Kurtz, 1990: 6).
Over the years of practice I have become increasingly
aware of a disquiet within myself. At times this disquiet
has manifested as an out-and-out rebellion. Yet when I
tried to give voice to my uneasiness, it was generally met
with blank expressions and something along the lines of,
'Well, that's just how it is'. Rare, precious, encounters
with some more enlightened beings persuaded mie that it
did not have to be this way. It seems it is never too late
to accommodate alternative ways of meeting the world.
Their trust in me and my capabilities encourages me
to believe in myself, and this quality of the therapist is
crucial if she is to authentically convey to her clients that
she believes in them and their own capacity for healing
and growth.
Buddhism teaches that life is constantly changing
in a dynamic way dependent on both internal and
external processes and conditions. It has much to
offer dramatherapy, and dramatherapy lends itself very
generously to the exploration and transformation of the
client's attachment patterns; obstacles which may have
served some function at some time but now prevent the
client from growth and self-realisation.
As a Buddhist dramatherapist my intention is to
create and maintain an unconditional acceptance of my
client based on Buddhist confemplative practice. The
deep respect I have for my client, for their innate wisdom
and their ability to work with the organisation of their
own experience is encapsulated in the Rumi poem, 'This
Being Human'. Together, we create the conditions that
allow the client to harness their energy and to effect core
change in their life.
References
Ainsworth, M. & Wittig, B. (1969) 'Attachment and
exploratory behaviour of one-year-olds in a strange
situation' in B.M. Foss (ed) Determinants of infant
behaviour, vol. 4, London: Methuen.
Ainsworth, M., Blehar, M., Waters, E., and Wall, s. (1978)
Patterns of attachment: assessed in the strange situation
and at home, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ainsworth, M. (1982) 'II Attachments across the lifespan'. Bulletin of New York Academy of Medicine, 61:
791-812.
Bowlby, J. (1988) A Secure Base - Clinical applications
of attachment theory London: Routledge.
Brazier, D. (2001) The New Buddhism -A Rough Guide
to a New Way of Life London: Robinson.

13

Dramatherapy Vol 28 No 2 Autumn 2006 'From Bowlby to Buddha'

Burlingham,D. and Freud, A. (1944) Infants without

families London: Allen and Unwin.
Chodron, P. (1994) Start Where You Are At-How to accept
yourself and others London: Harper Collins
Homey, K. ( 1950) Neurosis and Human Growth New
York: W.W.Norton
Karen, R. (1994) Becoming Attached - First Relationships
and how they Shape our Capacity to Love Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kurtz, R. (1990) Body-Centred Psychotherapy - The
Hakomi Method CA: LifeRhythm.
Levine, S. (1979) A Gradual Awakening- A Guide to
Greater Awakening Dublin: Gateway.
Morrison, V. (1990) Enlightenment from the Album
'Enlightenment' Caledonia productions Ltd.
Napthali, S. (2003) Buddhism for Mothers NSW,
Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Nhat Hanh, T. (1988) The Heart of Understanding
Berkeley: Parallax Press
Nhat Hanh, T. (1993) Call Me By My True Names: The
Collected Poems ofThich Nhat Hanh Berkeley: Parallax
Press.
Nhat Hanh, T. (1998) The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
- Transforming suffering into peace, joy and liberation
London: Rider.
Rumi (1995) Selected Poems - translated by Coleman
Banks London: Penguin.
Winnicott, D. (1971) Playing and Reality London:
Tavistock.
Yalom,I. (2001) The Gift of Therapy London: Piatkus

14