Dr. Pilar Jennings
A UNIQUE APPROACH
An extensive background in psychoanalytically oriented therapy and
Buddhist meditation brings a unique and inclusive approach to psychological healing.
WRITTEN WORK
To Heal a Wounded Heart
In this psychoanalytic memoir Dr. Jennings invites the reader into the treatment of her first patient. The client came from a radically different world, but shared a vulnerability, and a terror of being decimated by it, that Dr. Jennings came to understand as central to the human experience. She was a beginning analyst still working through her own childhood history, and her patient was a child whose suffering felt familiar. As this first treatment evolved, Dr. Jennings’ curiosity about the need for a spiritual component of traditional psychodynamic work grew stronger, and through that curiosity she began to play with the psychoanalytic “frame” in ways that surprised her. You will meet her Buddhist teacher in this story, in a personal way that reveals his earliest vulnerability and many ensuing losses.
Dr. Jennings wrote this book in the spirit of understanding the shared vulnerability of childhood so many of us wish we could safely access in adulthood without the risk of yet more suffering. Her hope is that this story will touch upon one’s own history, while finding a sense of resonance with everyone who has ever survived childhood and longed to reclaim its gifts of exquisite sensitivity that can only be found through the rediscovery of a wounded heart.
In her book Mixing Minds – The Power of Relationship in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism, Dr. Jennings focuses on how the two primary healing relationships – the religious teacher and his/her student, and the therapist and his/her patient – and also, what these healing traditions offer people in their efforts to improve their relational experience.
Pilar Jennings, PhD, is a psychoanalyst in private practice with a focus on the clinical applications of Buddhist meditation. She has been working with patients and their families through the Harlem Family Institute since 2004. She is a Visiting Lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, guest lecturer at Columbia University, and faculty member of the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science.
A warm and engaging speaker, Dr. Jennings is available for workshops and speaking engagements addressing topics related to spirituality and psychotherapy, creative clinical work with children, and healing from trauma.
