New Study Warns of a ‘Double Bypass’ Where Psychotherapy and Buddhism Meet

A new conceptual paper published in the journal Mindfulness argues that the marriage of Buddhist psychology and contemporary psychotherapy is one of the most promising developments in modern mental health science—and that it carries a hidden risk the field has largely failed to name. In an open-access article by meditation teacher Gregory Kramer and clinical psychologist Fabio Giommi, the authors introduce what they call the “double bypass”: two complementary forms of avoidance that can quietly derail both spiritual and clinical work. Spiritual bypass, a term coined decades ago by psychologist John Welwood, describes the use of spiritual practices to dodge painful psychological material. Psychological bypass, the authors’ own coinage, describes the mirror-image trap: an exclusive focus on ego repair and self-improvement that forecloses any genuine inquiry into the nature of self and the possibility of liberation.

The paper, which was conceptual in scope and rooted in the early Buddhist discourses of the Pali Canon, aims to do two things. First, it identifies the most fertile areas of convergence between Buddhist psychology and modern psychotherapy. Second, it proposes a framework through which the two traditions can cohere rather than compete. The linchpin of that framework is the Noble Eightfold Path of early Buddhist teaching, and specifically two of its eight factors: right view and right effort. Right view, in this reading, is the capacity to see mental constructions as constructions—recognizing that the self, the future, memories and relationship patterns are moment-by-moment fabrications rather than fixed realities. Right effort is the sustained, balanced application of the mind toward abandoning unwholesome patterns and cultivating wholesome ones. Together, the authors argue, these factors can frame psychotherapy itself as part of a whole-life path of moral, mental and wisdom development.

Three foundational understandings from early Buddhist psychology anchor the proposal. The first is that the self is fluxing and constructed. The Buddha’s analyses of the five aggregates and of dependent origination describe how each moment of cognition is conditioned by accumulated mental registrations, producing urges that grasp at pleasant contact and push away painful contact, and how this grasping fabricates an apparently solid “I” at the center of experience. The authors connect these ancient maps to contemporary constructs such as core beliefs in cognitive behavior therapy, maladaptive emotion schemas in emotion-focused therapy, and relational schemas in integrative approaches. What modern psychology calls self-image, in this frame, is a species of saṅkhāra—a volitional formation built fresh in each moment from prior constructing processes.

The second understanding is that release is possible. In the logic of dependent origination, if any link in the causal chain of self-construction ceases, the surrounding links lose their conditions and cease as well. Freedom, in the early texts, is a radical cessation of the blindness and hungers associated with the illusion of a permanent, separate self—described in the discourses as profoundly peaceful and rooted in an ethical life. The authors emphasize that neither therapist nor client needs to be fully convinced of such possibilities; what matters is openness to investigating them, which keeps therapy from being limited to ordinary symptom relief and allows a more refined happiness, based on the quieting of ignorance and craving, to come into view.

The third understanding is that the whole of life is the path. The Buddha proposed a comprehensive program of morality, mental culture and wisdom cultivated through both formal practice and in-life reflection. From this standpoint, ethics are not an add-on to therapy but a foundation: harmful behaviors rooted in selfishness generate remorse, worry and separation from clear seeing, all of which undermine mindfulness. The authors caution therapists against imposing moral values, but insist that the value of a moral life should not be excluded from the therapeutic conversation, citing the teaching that “taking care of others, one takes care of oneself; taking care of oneself, one takes care of others.”

Crucially, the paper does not rest on philosophy alone. It marshals a growing body of empirical work suggesting that the mechanisms it highlights are scientifically tractable. The Pattern Theory of Selflessness, published in Mindfulness in 2024 by Berkovich-Ohana, Giommi and colleagues, models the self as a dynamic, reorganizable pattern spanning embodied, affective, cognitive, narrative and social dimensions—and shows how meditation can loosen a rigid self-pattern. Related research links self-rigidity to psychopathology across diagnostic categories, positioning flexibility and perspective-taking as transdiagnostic targets. The S-ART framework of Vago and Silbersweig situates mindfulness effects in self-awareness, self-regulation and self-transcendence, offering neurocognitive entry points for contemplative claims.

On the craving front, habit-loop neuroscience and neuroimaging work led by Judson Brewer demonstrate that mindfulness interrupts cue-urge-action cycles and reduces activity in the posterior cingulate cortex, a hub of self-referential processing. Randomized trials of mindfulness-based relapse prevention and mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement show reduced relapse risk and recalibrated reward processing in addiction, echoing the Buddhist analysis of how right effort can unhook craving. Decentering—observing thoughts and feelings as passing mental events rather than truths about reality—has emerged as a validated mechanism in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, with meta-analyses confirming reduced depressive relapse and process studies showing that gains in decentering and self-compassion mediate outcomes. Scales measuring nonattachment and nonattachment to self show consistent associations with lower distress and higher well-being, providing measurable proxies for the Buddhist concept of non-clinging.

Yet it is the double bypass that gives the paper its edge. Spiritual bypass, the authors note, fears the pain of the world: it treats naming trauma, problematic attachments or social anxiety as an endless descent into personality illusions, and uses meditation to placate anger, loneliness and fear rather than to see clearly. Psychological bypass fears the pain of losing the world: it dismisses awakening as delusional wishful thinking and holds that a workable arrangement of personality is the best a human can hope for. Both, they argue, are motivated by fear and ignorance, and both sustain suffering—one shrinking from the first two Noble Truths, the other from the third. Contemporary models sharpen the diagnosis: Ontological Addiction Theory frames rigid identification with “me, mine and I” as a literal addiction, while developmental accounts such as Engler’s dictum that one must “be somebody before one can be nobody” warn that premature transcendence risks dissociation and narcissistic avoidance.

The practical implications are concrete. The authors recommend that Buddhist-informed psychotherapists ground their clinical work in personal contemplative practice, use competency frameworks such as the MBI:TAC for mindfulness teachers, engage in mindfulness-based supervision, and systematically monitor countertransference with structured steps of naming, normalizing, regulating and choosing a response. Instruments such as the Spiritual Bypass Scale, Nonattachment Scale, Experiences Questionnaire and Self-Compassion Scale can track both progress and risk. Acknowledging that meditation can occasionally produce adverse effects, the paper calls for careful screening, pacing, referral pathways and safety infrastructure. Finally, it lays out a research agenda: testing whether Buddhist-informed psychotherapy differentially shifts nonattachment, decentering and compassion; whether those shifts mediate outcomes and reduce both forms of bypass; and how therapist practice and training shape results, all within rigorous frameworks for complex interventions. The authors close with a challenge that transcends the clinic: because every moment of body and mind conditions the next, navigating the double bypass is not an academic exercise but a whole-life undertaking.

Subject of Research: A conceptual framework integrating early Buddhist psychology with contemporary psychotherapy to address spiritual and psychological bypass

Article Title: The Double Bypass: Cohering Psychotherapy and the Buddhist Path

Article References: Kramer, G., & Giommi, F. (2026). The Double Bypass: Cohering Psychotherapy and the Buddhist Path. Mindfulness. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-026-02967-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12671-026-02967-8

Keywords: Buddhist psychology, psychotherapy, spiritual bypass, psychological bypass, mindfulness, right view, right effort, decentering, nonattachment, compassion, contemplative neuroscience, Noble Eightfold Path