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- Therapy Vs. Meditation (And Why Both May Be The Answer) - Dr. Tucker Peck
Therapy Vs. Meditation (And Why Both May Be The Answer) - Dr. Tucker Peck
An answer to an age old debate
Scott Britton
July 18, 2025
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“Meditation is a thing I will do until I die. And therapy is a thing I do when I need it.” (19:35 in this cast)
Dr. Tucker Peck is a clinical psychologist and meditation teacher who brings a unique perspective to the intersection of Western therapy and Eastern contemplative practices. With a PhD in clinical psychology focused on meditation research and decades of teaching experience across the globe, Tucker offers a grounded approach to combining psychological work with spiritual development.
I've been getting this question a lot from listeners lately: "Should I do therapy or should I meditate?" It's usually asked with the assumption that you have to pick one path or the other. People seem to think therapy and meditation are competing approaches to wellbeing where one is better than the other.
In this conversation, Dr. Tucker makes a compelling case for why forcing yourself to choose between these approaches might be exactly what's keeping people stuck. His perspective as someone who has mastered both worlds offers a refreshing take on an old debate.
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This episode is great for:
Anyone who's tried meditation and found their problems getting louder instead of quieter
People in therapy who feel like they've hit a ceiling in their progress
Spiritual practitioners who've encountered psychological roadblocks
Anyone wondering if they should choose therapy or meditation
Ideas that really stuck out to me:
Therapy and meditation are fighting different battles. Therapy is what Dr. Tucker calls the path of being somebody. It’s about becoming a better version of yourself through understanding patterns, processing trauma, and developing practical skills. Meditation is the path of being nobody. It is letting go of the constructed self and changing your relationship to experience itself. Each side thinks the other is missing the point because they're literally playing different games.
The meditation-only approach can sometimes have a blind spot making your psychological issues louder, not quieter. This isn't meditation failing. It's working exactly as designed. Meditation increases sensory clarity which makes unconscious psychological material impossible to ignore. This is a feature, not a bug.
The therapy-only approach hits a predictable ceiling. You can solve all the major life problems, process the trauma, fix the relationships, and still not feel fundamentally at peace. Without introspective skills often developed through meditation, you can't work on why your mind isn't set up for sustained wellbeing even when everything is going well. As Dr. Tucker puts it, asking the average American "What are you feeling right now?" is like asking them complex trigonometry questions.
Most spiritual scandals happen because people use emptiness as a hiding place. He points out how renowned spiritual teachers using mindfulness and equanimity to avoid seeing their own psychological blind spots rather than illuminating them. Meditation without psychological awareness can often become sophisticated spiritual bypassing.
Focus on mental processes when you can and mental content when you have to. Use meditation as your default because it's more robust. Changing your relationship to problems helps with all forms of suffering. Switch to therapy when you're losing behavioral control, when the same issues keep cycling without resolution, or when your practice turns to mud.
Meditators become incredible therapy clients, and therapy becomes exponentially more effective with introspective skills. The combination isn't just additive it's multiplicative in its effects.
The future might require technological acceleration of consciousness development. Dr. Tucker's work with focused ultrasound represents a fascinating frontier where technology could dramatically speed up processes that traditionally take years of practice. As he notes, conventional meditation paths require enormous time and privilege making them inaccessible to most people. If consciousness evolution is crucial for addressing global challenges, we may need innovations that can produce in minutes what currently takes months or years of intensive practice.
Instead of forcing people to choose between these approaches, Dr. Tucker offers a practical framework for when to use each tool. Start with meditation's process-oriented approach as your foundation since it addresses the root of how you relate to all experiences. But shift to therapy's content-focused work when the same psychological material keeps cycling without resolution or when particular issues are blocking your ability to practice effectively.
These aren't competing approaches. They're complementary tools for different aspects of the same journey. You need to become a healthier somebody AND learn to let go of the somebody altogether.
Both movements are necessary for complete human flourishing.
I hope you enjoy this conversation!
- Scott
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Episode Transcript
Show Notes
00:00 - The Intersection of Therapy and Spirituality
05:48 - The Pitfalls of Solely Pursuing Spirituality
11:46 - The Role of Introspection in Therapy
17:35 - The Concept of Sainthood in Spiritual Practice
25:43 - Exploring Jhanas and Spiritual Practices
38:23 - Innovative Approaches to Meditation
46:05 - Surrendering to the Laws of Physics