Already Free

“Both psychotherapy and Buddhism seek to provide freedom from suffering,” writes Bruce Tift, “yet each offers a completely different approach to this intention.”

Each way of working contains valuable tools to help us heal, grow, and find happiness—but how can we know which one to choose when these methods appear to contradict each other? Already Free opens a fresh and provocative dialogue between these two profound perspectives on the human condition.

In Already Free, therapist and Buddhist practitioner Bruce Tift examines how psychotherapy’s “Developmental” approach of understanding the way our childhood experiences shape our adult selves both challenges and supports the “Fruitional” approach of Buddhism, which tells us that the freedom we seek is always available. Here he offers unique wisdom and imminently practical guidance on:

  • Therapy and meditation—the strengths and limitations of each practice, and how you can use them together effectively
  • What is freedom? How our assumptions about personal liberation often undermine our ability to experience it.
  • How we can stop generating unnecessary anxiety for ourselves without numbing our emotions
  • Why we use “neurotic organization” to limit our life experience, and how to challenge this self-perpetuating process
  • Cultivating a healthy state of mind regardless of our history or current circumstances
  • Uncovering and untangling codependent dynamics, the four evolving stages of relationships, and much more

See reviews and purchase the book on Amazon and Sounds True.

Editorial Reviews

“A fresh, penetrating, and thought-provoking exploration of how therapeutic process and spiritual realization are not only compatible, but necessary to each other in order to make the full human journey in our modern world. Already Free represents the cutting edge in the contemporary conversation about healing and awakening and their relationship.”
—Reginald A. Ray, author of Touching Enlightenment

“In Already Free, Bruce Tift shares his experience in helping people discover how to hold and transform fear and other difficult internal patterns. Valuable for anyone seeking personal growth, Bruce’s work also introduces his reader to some of the ways Buddhist teachings and contemporary psychology can complement each other.”
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and The Kindness Handbook

“Elegantly weaving together insights from Buddhism and psychotherapy, Bruce Tift addresses some of the most important inner work we can do—embracing our own condition, shadow as well as light, with unconditional kindness. The freedom in Already Free is not a freedom from anything, but the freedom to live fully and well. Recommending exercises and offering practical advice, Tift masterfully shows us how to accept inner forces that seem in opposition, move beyond struggle and self-absorption, and claim a life in which nothing is excluded.”
—Parker J. Palmer, author of Healing the Heart of Democracy,Let Your Life Speak, and A Hidden Wholeness

“In Greek mythology, Tiresias was a blind seer who mapped the unseen truth of our journey. In Already Free, therapist Bruce Tift is a clear, wise, and honest seer who uses 35 years of practice to reveal deep understandings about how we relate to our experience, anxiety, and struggle. At once, Bruce Tift holds a mirror to our life as emotional creatures, while opening a window to the depth of being that is ever near. This book is fresh, real, and useful.”
—Mark Nepo, author of Reduced to Joy, The Endless Practice, and The Book of Awakening

“With this book, Tift immediately joins the rank of elite writers on the rich interplay between psychology and Buddhism. Every page offers an insight delivered with intelligence, sensitivity, and the authority of personal experience. Distilling a lifetime of learning and clinical expertise, this is a rare gift from a virtuoso, a masterful Operator’s Manual for life—for how to remove suffering and live authentically. Beautifully written, immensely practical, and infinitely wise, this book is destined to become a classic. Read it. It can change your life.
—Andrew Holecek, author of The Power and the Pain

“This book shows us more than how Buddhism can meet psychotherapy. It deftly integrates the two traditions. We find here a source-book of practical ways to be both psychologically healthy and spiritually enlivened.”
—David Richo, author of The Power of Grace