To Heal a Wounded Heart

“Wow. Pilar Jennings brings her readers deftly through the fascinating and impressive therapeutic adventures of the extraordinary six-year-old Martine, the wise and hilarious Lama Pema, and the abiding and reflective therapist, Pilar. This is a story of painful losses and their permanent imprints on our lives, contrasted with Buddhist teachings on impermanence, and the tension in Jennings’s own inner life between psychotherapeutic and Buddhist views of love and loss. Most of all, it’s a page-turner of a story. Don’t miss it.”—Polly Young-Eisendrath, PhD, author of The Present Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Discovery

“Tracing the steps and missteps of a young therapist entering the field, learning to marshal her strength, skills, perception, and most importantly her self-knowledge (which we all need if we are to come into our own as professionals), this masterful book is one I wish I’d had when I was first entering the ‘impossible profession.’”—Kirkland C. Vaughans, PhD, author of The Psychology of Black Boys and Adolescents

“A wonderful conjunction of the heart of Buddhism with the heart of psychotherapy. A sharing work that enriches the art of person-to-person being and healing.”—Michael Eigen, PhD, author of Faith

“[To Heal a Wounded Heart] illustrates how Buddhism and psychotherapy each respond to suffering and the process of healing differently: while Buddhism helps us tie our experiences to the collective, psychotherapy helps us excavate the stories and experiences that are uniquely our own.”—Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

Pilar Jennings, PhD, is a professor of psychiatry and religion at the Union Theological Seminary and a lecturer at Columbia University. She is also a visiting lecturer at Weill Cornell University School of Medicine in their newly implemented Integrative Health concentration. Through this program associated with the Nalanda Institute of Contemplative Science, Dr. Jennings teaches medical students about mindfulness and psychodynamic techniques to be utilized for their own stress reduction and for their patients’ increased well-being. She is also a psychoanalyst 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 the author of Mixing Minds- The Power of Relationship in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism.

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