EP 351: Dr. Ira Helderman on Adverse Meditation Effects

The Classical Ideas Podcast · Jun 14, 2026 · 37m

Ira Helderman PhD, LPC (Adjunct Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture, Vanderbilt University; PhD, Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University, 2016) studies how psychotherapists' definitions of what is and is not religious shape their understandings of caregiving, health, and illness. His first book, Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion (University of North Carolina Press 2019), is the first comprehensive examination of the surprisingly diverse ways that psychotherapists have approached Buddhist traditions. Helderman publishes in…