To Heal a Wounded Heart : The Transformative Power of Buddhism and Psychotherapy in Action

Early on in her clinical practice, psychoanalyst Pilar Jennings was presented with a particularly difficult case: a six-year-old girl who, traumatized by loss, had stopped speaking. Challenged by the limitations of her training to respond effectively to the isolating effect of childhood trauma, Jennings takes the unconventional path of inviting her friend Lama Pema—a kindly Tibetan Buddhist monk who experienced his own life-shaping trauma at a very young age—into their sessions. In the warm therapeutic space they create, the young girl slowly begins to heal. The result is a fascinating case study of the intersection of Western psychology and Buddhist teachings. Pilar’s story is for therapists, parents, Buddhists, or any of us who hold out the hope that even the deepest childhood wounds can be the portal to our capacity to love and be loved. Interweaving both Buddhist and psychoanalytic wisdom, this book uses the unlikely relationship between a psychoanalyst, her child patient, and a Tibetan Buddhist Lama to explore healing and resilience in the face of pain and injustice in childhood. The book centers around the story of three unlikely friends who formed a family: a silent six-year-old African-American girl born to an HIV-positive mother, a Tibetan Buddhist lama who as a six-year-old escaped the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and a Peruvian-Scottish psychoanalyst whose colorful family-of-origin fell apart in a weirdly handled divorce. Through a strange sequence of events, the three came to know each other in a psychoanalytic program that brings therapy to the inner city. A central theme is the invisible forms of pain and injustice suffered in childhood. But this is only half the story, since the inspiring reality is that children push for wellness. And they dont give up easily. Regardless of the magnitude of trauma endured, children keep trying to get things right. They dont like feeling unknown, to themselves or others. Through this story, the ways in which Buddhism and psychoanalysis address this human struggle to recognize ones own suffering in the face of another, and our common push for wellness, are revealed through the growing relationship between these three unlikely friends.