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FACE TO FACE | EASTERN HORIZON 35
The Buddha as a Doctor
By Dr Caroline van Damme
the Yuthok Nyingtig as well and I would wonder how that would
decided to study them. She hopes be possible to be nothing at first,
to be able to include traditional, and then someone in a later phase.
nature-based and spiritual I was therefore not satisfied with
knowledge on mental health in a the Christian doctrine, there were
modern-day medical practice. too many things that just didn’t
make any sense. I discovered
Buddhism as a teenager. I would
Caroline has very kindly responded go to the local library and read all
to Benny Liow’s questions about the available books on the subject.
Caroline Van Damme is an adult her interest in Tibetan medicine I was fascinated by the fact that
psychiatrist and family and as a Western-trained psychiatrist, Buddhism starts from one’s own
systemic psychotherapist. In 1995, influence of Buddhism on Tibetan mind and asks the questions from
she started to study neuroscience medicine, influence of karma on there. That made much more sense
at Brandeis University, USA, where illness and whether there are for me. Because of this interest
in the mind, I took neuroscience
she discovered a passion for the similarities between Western classes during my first two years
human mind and its relationship medicine and Tibetan medicine. in college and read many books on
to the brain. She transferred to the the relationship between the mind
Catholic University of Leuven in and the brain, from a scientific
Belgium to get a medical degree. Benny: Can you tell us about your perspective. Back then we were in
She became a psychiatrist in early interest and knowledge of the ‘90s, considered the decade of
2008. Since then, she has been Buddhism and how it has helped the brain. There was this idea that
you in your work today as a
working at the “Brussels Night Western-trained psychiatrist as because of scientific progress, we
Hospital”, specialized in the well as your practice of Tibetan would finally be able to uncover
all the secrets of our brains, and
psychosocial rehabilitation for medicine? therefore, our mind. We now know
patients suffering from chronic
that that is not the case, of course.
psychotic disorders. She shares Caroline: It’s hard to say when my
the vision that human beings interest in Buddhism started. It’s Meanwhile, I have become a
should be regarded in all their more my interest in the human psychiatrist. I chose to become a
aspects (biological, psychosocial, mind, or my own mind. How does doctor and a psychiatrist to try
spiritual and ecological), rather my mind function? What is my to understand the mind, but in a
than a purely medical aspect. In mind? Can it disappear? Or was it practical way, by trying to help
her continuous quest to better created one day, and before that it people suffering from mental
didn’t exist? illness. I had this naïve idea that
understand mental illness and the
if I could understand the ill mind,
human mind in general, she met
I was raised in a Christian-Catholic I would understand the healthy
Dr Nida Chenagstang in 2019, culture and went to a Catholic mind as well. This is also how I got
and became very inspired by his school. I would learn there that to specialize in the psychosocial
teachings in Sowa Rigpa and in God created us from nothing. And rehabilitation of people suffering
