현대인들은 스트레스, 불안, 우울, 분노 등의 부정적 정서들로 인해 고통받고 있고, 그 고통은 가족을 넘어 사회에까지 커다란 영향을 미치고 있다. 그래서 ‘수행’, ‘명상’은 커다란 주목을 받고 있다. 특히 명상에 기반을 둔 MBSR이나 MBCT와 같은 프로그램은 현대인들의 다양한 심리적 문제들을 해결하는데 도움을 주고 있다.
한편 동북아시아에서는 ‘간화선’이라는 독특한 수행방법을 발전시켜 계승해 오고 있다. 근래에 들어 심리치료적 관점에서의 간화선 연구도 국내에서 활발하게 진행되고 있지만 위빠사나와 비교할 만한 양적 연구가 성숙된 단계는 아니다. 필자는 2015년 2월까지 국내에서 발표된 간화선 관련 논문을 검색하였고, 333편의 논문 목록을 작성했다. 결과 심리치료와 관련된 연구는 6편에 불과했다. 6편 중에서도 실제 심리학적 방법을 통한 심리치료적 효과성을 검증한 논문은 3편뿐이었다. 그런데 이러한 경향은 국외의 경우도 마찬가지이다. 1979년 MBSR프로그램이 개발된 이래 명상연구는 남방 위빠사나 일변도로 진행되고 있다.
이렇듯 국내외에서 심리치료적 측면에서의 간화선 연구가 지지부진한 이유는 간화선이 갖는 내적 한계 때문일 것이다. 간화선은 화두를 명확하게 타파한 스승의 지도가 필수적이다. 그런 점에서 심리 프로그램이 되기에는 여러 제약이 따른다.
하지만 간화선은 다른 수행과 비교해도 손색없을 만큼 심리치료적 효과가 뛰어나다. 그러한 점은 국내의 선행연구를 통해서도 확인해 볼 수 있었다. 간화선이 갖고 있는 특징을 잘 살리면서, 심리학적 관점에서 이해의 지평을 넓혀 갈 때, 간화선은 우리에게 매우 의미있는 심리치료 방법으로 태어날 수 있을 것이다.
Ganhwaseon and Psychotherapy : Focusing on Current Research Trend Lee, Pilwon Dongguk University(Gyeongju) Today, we are faced with a variety of problems. The most severe one might be the psychological unhealthiness. Diseases due to stress and negative emotions such as anxiety, depression and anger affect not only the individual’s life, but also people around including family members, which eventually develop into a social problem. In this social atmosphere, ‘practice’ or ‘meditation’ began to receive unprecedented amount of social interest. Not only Vipassanā which is the traditional southern practice method, but also popularized programs such as MBSR or MBCT that applied Vipassanā are currently contributing to solving diverse psychological problems of modern people. Meanwhile, a unique practice method called ‘Ganhwaseon’ has been early developed in Northeast Asia to be succeeded to this day. Recently, research on Ganhwaseon from an aspect of psychotherapy is budding in Korea. However, quantitative research on Ganhwaseon(看話禪) is not yet comparable to other practice method such as Vipassanā. This paper examines the previous studies that contemplated on the psychotherapeutic effectiveness and characteristics of Ganhwaseon and confirmed the inherence of such characteristics in the tradition of Ganhwaseon. For this purpose, research papers related to Ganhwaseon that were ever published in Korea before February in 2015 were searched, which gave out a list of 333 papers. However, there were only six papers that involved psychotherapy. Among these six, only three were the papers that verified the psychotherapeutic effectiveness using psychological method. Meanwhile, there are very few papers regarding the psychotherapeutic effectiveness of Ganhwaseon in overseas as well. Ever since Doctor Jon Kabat-Zinn developed MBSR program in 1979, the psychotherapeutic effects of Buddhist contemplation has been proceeded merely focused on the practice in southern Vipassanā. The reason that there are scarce domestic researches on Ganhwaseon from an aspect of psychotherapy can be attributed to the inherent limits of Ganhwaseon. The biggest challenge of Ganhwaseon is that practice is impossible unless there is a teacher who had precisely cleared Hwadu. Moreover, Ganhwaseon requires a one-on-one approach for solving Hwadu(話頭) and checking between teacher and pupil. In that sense, there are several limitations for Ganhwaseon to become a public program. Nevertheless, Ganhwaseon has outstanding psychotherapeutic effects that stand comparison to any other performances. This can be confirmed in the literature review on the previous domestic studies. If we properly give life to the characteristics of Ganhwaseon and broaden a new level of understanding from a psychological aspect, Ganhwaseon can be reborn as a psychotherapeutic method that possesses a very significant meaning to us in these days.
Ganhwaseon and Psychotherapy : Focusing on Current Research Trend Lee, Pilwon Dongguk University(Gyeongju) Today, we are faced with a variety of problems. The most severe one might be the psychological unhealthiness. Diseases due to stress and negative emotions such as anxiety, depression and anger affect not only the individual’s life, but also people around including family members, which eventually develop into a social problem. In this social atmosphere, ‘practice’ or ‘meditation’ began to receive unprecedented amount of social interest. Not only Vipassanā which is the traditional southern practice method, but also popularized programs such as MBSR or MBCT that applied Vipassanā are currently contributing to solving diverse psychological problems of modern people. Meanwhile, a unique practice method called ‘Ganhwaseon’ has been early developed in Northeast Asia to be succeeded to this day. Recently, research on Ganhwaseon from an aspect of psychotherapy is budding in Korea. However, quantitative research on Ganhwaseon(看話禪) is not yet comparable to other practice method such as Vipassanā. This paper examines the previous studies that contemplated on the psychotherapeutic effectiveness and characteristics of Ganhwaseon and confirmed the inherence of such characteristics in the tradition of Ganhwaseon. For this purpose, research papers related to Ganhwaseon that were ever published in Korea before February in 2015 were searched, which gave out a list of 333 papers. However, there were only six papers that involved psychotherapy. Among these six, only three were the papers that verified the psychotherapeutic effectiveness using psychological method. Meanwhile, there are very few papers regarding the psychotherapeutic effectiveness of Ganhwaseon in overseas as well. Ever since Doctor Jon Kabat-Zinn developed MBSR program in 1979, the psychotherapeutic effects of Buddhist contemplation has been proceeded merely focused on the practice in southern Vipassanā. The reason that there are scarce domestic researches on Ganhwaseon from an aspect of psychotherapy can be attributed to the inherent limits of Ganhwaseon. The biggest challenge of Ganhwaseon is that practice is impossible unless there is a teacher who had precisely cleared Hwadu. Moreover, Ganhwaseon requires a one-on-one approach for solving Hwadu(話頭) and checking between teacher and pupil. In that sense, there are several limitations for Ganhwaseon to become a public program. Nevertheless, Ganhwaseon has outstanding psychotherapeutic effects that stand comparison to any other performances. This can be confirmed in the literature review on the previous domestic studies. If we properly give life to the characteristics of Ganhwaseon and broaden a new level of understanding from a psychological aspect, Ganhwaseon can be reborn as a psychotherapeutic method that possesses a very significant meaning to us in these days.
