A Teacher
John Welwood
Spiritual bypassing
The transmission
John Welwood was born on 12 March 1943 and died on 17 January 2019. An American clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, he became a leading figure in integrating Western psychotherapy with Eastern contemplative practice, particularly Tibetan Buddhism.
He studied existential and humanistic psychology, was influenced by Eugene Gendlin’s “focusing” work on the felt sense, and became a student of the Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa, an experience that shaped his lifelong effort to bring meditative awareness and psychological depth into a single path.
Welwood is best remembered for coining the term “spiritual bypassing” in the early 1980s, naming the widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to avoid facing unresolved emotional wounds, developmental needs, and relational difficulties.
His influential book Toward a Psychology of Awakening (2000) developed this critique alongside a constructive vision in which psychotherapy and spiritual practice support, rather than substitute for, one another, and in which intimate relationship itself becomes a path of awakening.
Across eight books he argued that genuine awakening requires honouring both the personal, embodied dimension of human experience and the transpersonal ground of awareness, refusing to let one eclipse the other.
What they gave
Spiritual bypassing: Named and analysed the misuse of spiritual practice to sidestep emotional and psychological work, a concept now central to contemplative psychology.
- Psychology-spirituality integration: Articulated a path in which Western therapy and Eastern meditation are complementary rather than competing.
- Relationship as practice: Framed intimate relationship as a primary arena for awakening and psychological maturation.
- Embodied awakening: Insisted that the personal, felt, somatic dimension must be honoured alongside transpersonal realisation.
In their words
The less you demand total fulfillment from relationships, the more you can appreciate them for the beautiful tapestries they are, in which absolute and relative, perfect and imperfect, infinite and finite are marvelously interwoven.
There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: Receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it.
Pure, unconditional love shines through when people put themselves—their own demands and agendas—aside and completely open to one another.
Who is it who is unhappy? The one who finds fault.
And while in one sense love conquers all, war nonetheless remains the governing force in world affairs.
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, Eugene Gendlin’s focusing-oriented psychology, and the humanistic-existential tradition.
- Taught / Influenced: the field of contemplative psychotherapy and a generation of clinicians and teachers integrating Buddhist practice with Western psychology.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- Journey of the Heart1990
- Love and Awakening1996
- Toward a Psychology of Awakening2000
- Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships2006