zazen and psychotherapeutic presence zen meditation or zazen has attracted the interest of many psychotherapists the teachings and practices of the soto zen tradition are understood as encouraging important areas of both psychological and spiritual development zen like the relational psychoanalytic theories encourages its practitioners to become aware of the fundamentally distorted aspects of an overly individualistic view of human experience as a spiritual practice zazen increases the practitioners tolerance and appreciation of the wholeness that buddhists refer to as emptiness as a psychological practice it helps us to be more flexibly and intimately present with our patients an effective therapeutic process even of the most secular type will often contain elements of the meditative process of zazen and failure to actualize this in psychotherapy can have a negative impact on our ability to understand and help our patients