The Third Wave of Meditation and Mindfulness Research and Implications for Challenging Experiences: Negative Effects, Transformative Psychological Growth, and Forms of Happiness

Research on meditation and mindfulness has progressed through two waves: the first focused on clinical benefits, the second on methodological rigor and potential negative effects. A third wave is now needed to investigate transformative psychological growth from advanced meditation, where challenging experiences may be essential for development. Defining negative effects is difficult from contemplative perspectives. The authors distinguish objective from subjective happiness and define a negative effect as something that contributes to overall unhappiness in both senses. This framework integrates psychological and contemplative views, arguing that what seems negative may be part of meditative growth.

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Abstract

Abstract Research on meditation and mindfulness in relation to challenging effects can be understood as consisting of at least two waves: The first wave focused on the efficacy of mindfulness and more broadly the clinically positive effects of meditation. The second wave mainly focused on increasing methodological rigor and uncovering underlying mechanisms. Research on the different kinds and prevalence of potential negative effects was also initiated in this second wave. We propose that future research needs to include the investigation of processes of transformative psychological growth that lead up to and result from advanced meditation and involve complex relationships between positive and challenging effects. Such research is part of a third wave of meditation research, which mainly focuses on advanced meditation. The central point of our argument is that “negative” experiences may be essential to meditative growth. However, it is difficult to define what a negative effect is when considering traditional contemplative perspectives. To conceptualize negative effects, we distinguish between objective and subjective happiness and define “negative effect” as that which overall contributes to both objective and subjective unhappiness. The resulting view represents a common-ground framework that incorporates both psychological and contemplative perspectives.