By Lakshmi
Today, I wanted to talk about Dialectics because it’s a great example of how mindfulness has been incorporated into psychology—specifically through a theoretical approach called Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT.
The founder of DBT is Dr. Marsha Linehan, a psychologist who was originally Catholic and trained as a theologian. Later, after studying Buddhism and learning from a Zen teacher, she came to the realization that rather than always trying to find meaning in life’s struggles, sometimes it’s more helpful to simply accept them.
She developed a practice called Radical Acceptance, which means you don’t have to like what’s happening—or condone it—but you do accept the moment as it is.
Some key concepts in dialectics are:
- Two opposite things can be true at the same time. So it’s important to honor both sides when points of view differ.
- Change is the only constant.
- Acceptance and change go hand in hand. Acceptance usually needs to come before change. For example, in mental health, it’s important to accept problems like depression or anxiety—we don’t want to deny symptoms. But at the same time, change is also necessary—you may have to shift behaviors or take steps to get better.
Marsha Linehan developed this approach from her own personal suffering, especially to deal with a symptom called “splitting”, where people think in extremes—black or white, all good or all bad.
This often comes from inconsistent caregiving in childhood. For instance, if a child has a caregiver who is both loving and reliable but also makes them feel unsafe, the child’s brain may not know how to handle that contradiction. So instead, it splits things into categories—safe or unsafe, good or bad.
We can see this in our own lives, too. It’s hard to hold contradictions. Maybe you have a boss who supports you and is also a total demanding leader. Or take AI—it can be a helpful tool and potentially destructive. It’s hard to wrap your head around both being true at the same time.
This is where mindfulness can help. It allows you to sit with that discomfort and acknowledge that two things can be true. One simple tool is replacing the word “but” with “and”. For example:
I’m grateful for my family, and sometimes they drive me up the wall.
That small shift helps us make space for complexity—it reminds us that we don’t have to cancel out one truth to acknowledge another.
The mindfulness practices we do here help strengthen that capacity. They teach us to stay present with reality as it is—not how we wish it would be—and to hold both sides of a situation without judgment.
So when life feels messy or contradictory, instead of getting stuck in either/or thinking, we can pause, breathe, and say:
Both of these things are true—and I can handle it.
Photo by Dave
If you are interested, here is her training manual book.
Hakone Zendo 