About
I am a teacher, published author, and commentator. I hold a PhD in “Religion, Psychology and Culture” from Vanderbilt University where I am now a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department teaching classes such as “Spirituality” and Alternative Medicine and Mindfulness, Religion, and Healing. I previously taught classes for some years in Vanderbilt’s graduate Counseling program where I brought my research to topics such as Counseling Diverse Populations and Addictions.
This website is primarily for my writing which currently is largely within the field of religious studies. Writing has always been a passion of mine, however, and I also have an undergraduate BFA in screenwriting from New York University’s film school. Many twists and turns in my life after NYU, I began working in the mental health field in 2001 and am a practicing psychotherapist in private practice in Nashville, TN. If you want to learn more about my psychotherapy practice please click here. It was only after some years of working full time as a therapist that I became deeply fascinated by religious studies and started down an entirely new path.
Today, my research examines how psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic ideas shape the way that people are religious in the United States.
My first full length book project, entitled Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion, is now available from the University of North Carolina Press. Prescribing the Dharma maps the surprisingly diverse ways that psychotherapists have related to Buddhist traditions as a case study of how concepts of the “religious” and “not-religious” function in the lives of contemporary communities. My research has also appeared in peer-reviewed journals like The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, in popular publications like Psychology Today and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and I have presented my work both nationally and internationally. You can read more about Prescribing the Dharma and find a selection of some of my publications if you keep scrolling below.
Over the years, my interests have taken me to a number of different areas of the religious studies subfield called “religion and psychology.” I have previously done some research on the continuing debates about how Sigmund Freud viewed his Jewishness and looked at the uniqueness of "pastoral counseling" as a discipline in a more interconnected, religiously diverse world.
I’m currently working, however, on two new major book projects. The first is a historical study of how meditation retreats, and reports of so-called “meditation sickness,” came to forever transform the ways that psychotherapists frame their relationship to the “religious” or “spiritual” - and how this history ultimately radically complicates entrenched scholarly critiques of “therapeutic culture.” The second, interrelated to the first, consists of larger analyses of the ways that psychotherapists and psychologists have contributed to contemporary understandings of the term “spirituality” (e.g., the relatively new idea that “spirituality” refers to a quality that is neither “religious” or “secular”).
While my available writing is currently mostly focused on religious studies, I also anticipate returning to creative writing soon so stay tuned!
Prescribing the Dharma
Psychotherapists, buddhist traditions, and defining Religion
2019, University of North Carolina Press.
“An important, insightful, and timely contribution to understanding the ways that Buddhist practices have been adapted and transformed by the therapeutic community.”
“Bringing stories and tales from the field into his vivid book, Helderman intriguingly shows how psychotherapists have understood and incorporated aspects of Buddhism into their practices. Prescribing the Dharma will appeal to a wide range of readers both within and outside the academy.”
“Prescribing the Dharma may well go down as a classic in the field—Helderman has produced a work that provides a foundation, a conceptual frame, and sweeping coverage of how contemporary therapists have developed varying strategies for engaging Buddhism. I have been looking for such a book, and here it is.”
Reviews of Prescribing the Dharma
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
“A valuable contribution to understanding both psychotherapy and Buddhism in America. It should be read by scholars in these fields as well as by anyone who wants a ground-up perspective on how people interpret what counts as 'religion' and what difference this makes for how they present themselves and interact with others.”
Religious Studies Review
“An outstanding work. . .[it] provides indispensable insight for readers interested in not just the contemporary American context of how agents define religion, but also the complex and ever-changing engagement between (the construction of) science and religion.”
Journal Of Contemporary Religion
“A book that bridges in an impressive way disciplines, traditions, practitioners, history, and the contemporary. . .Its important contribution lies in highlighting the finely granulated ways in which our own understanding of the religious and the secular affects our daily lives, the decisions we make, and the approaches we hold dear.
Nova Religio
“Helderman is comprehensive and insightful in his study of Buddhism and psychotherapy, and this book, likely to be viewed as authoritative for years, is a must-read for anyone with interest in this interdisciplinary topic.”
H-Net Reviews
“Helderman's book is the most accurate, complete, and in-depth exploration of how Western psychotherapists therapize, filter, translate, personalize, adopt, and integrate Buddhism into their theories, lives, and practices yet written, and is likely to remain a classic for years to come.”
Contemporary Buddhism
“Prescribing the Dharma will be an invaluable and essential read for students, scholars and practitioners of Buddhism, psychology and psychotherapy, and of religious studies more broadly.
Journal of Buddhist Ethics
“Important and fascinating. . . . This book insightfully shows how the religious and the secular intertwine and articulate in new ways and how this intertwining carries weight and significance in people's lives and in our institutional and societal fabric.”
Tricycle: The buddhist Review
“Provides a sensitive, careful, and detailed description of what psychotherapists think about the relationship between Buddhism and clinical practice. . .Helderman’s dual identity gives him a unique angle on this topic, and he allows therapists the room to speak about their conflicted and nuanced thoughts in their own voices.”
Select Peer-Reviewed Publications
Drawing the Boundaries between "Religion" & "Secular" in U.S. Psychotherapists’ Approaches to Buddhist Traditions
2016, The Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84.4 (2016): 937-972
“The Conversion of the Barbarians": Comparison and Psychotherapists’ Approaches to Buddhist Traditions in the United States
2015, Buddhist Studies Review 32.1: 63–97.
Articles & Op-Eds
Heeding Erich Fromm’s Warning
Decades before the mindfulness boom, the influential psychoanalyst foresaw the potential benefits and misuses of Buddhist practice.
Not Just Mindfulness
Psychotherapists have engaged with Buddhist traditions for over a century. Mindfulness is one small part.
The Crusade Against Mindfulness
The debate over whether mindfulness practices are religious is now in the courts.
The Origins of Mindfulness and Informed Consent
Does informed consent require detailing the "religious" origins of mindfulness?
Mindfulness' "Religious Effects" and Clinical Ethics
Does informed consent require detailing the "religious aspects" of mindfulness?
Therapists' Curiosity About Buddhism Is Not a New Fad
Psychotherapists' interest in Buddhism is actually quite old.
Reinventing the (Dharma) Wheel
Studying therapists' interest in Buddhism in the past informs practice today.
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