This research offers a contribution to the study of mental health by integrating insights from Abhidhamma, an advanced system of Buddhist philosophy and psychology developed within the Theravāda tradition. Unlike mindfulness, which has gained broad clinical application, Abhidhamma remains underexplored outside scholastic circles. It offers a precise, phenomenologically grounded analysis of momentary experience, conditioned by interacting material and mental factors, which themselves function as a type of cognitive subconscious. This project proposes the concept of saddhā (faith or trust) as a promising case study for connecting contemporary attachment theory, particularly the concept of secure attachment and internal working models (IWMs), with the broader Abhidhamma project of analyzing and transforming mental experience. Similar to secure attachment, saddhā in the Abhidhamma system is a wholesome mental factor rooted in clarity and firm confidence in the Buddha, his teachings (dhamma), and the monastic community (saṅgha). While the two approaches differ in foundational assumptions—attachment theory presumes a stable self and values interpersonal bonding, whereas Abhidhamma denies selfhood and criticizes any form of attachment—they converge on the same emotional experience of security. This research introduces saddhā as a Buddhist analogue to secure attachment, reframing IWMs as dynamic, trainable configurations. Abhidhamma suggests that basic underlying schemas of experience can be improved and treated, within the conception of the individual as a causally generated and changing entity. By applying Abhidhamma’s fine-grained analysis of mind, it offers a novel framework for understanding resilience and transformation that advances the relational and behavioral frameworks favored within current psychological models by connecting them to first-person experience.

Supervisor: Prof. Eviatar Shulman