Some of the most consistent findings suggest that the counselor&s;s use of accurate empathy is directly related to the positive growth of the client. C. R. Rogers probably comes closest to an ideal description of what empathy means in counseling. Accurate empathy has been difficult to measure with any degree of reliability. In another very comprehensive study of empathy, it was decided that the...
E. Maupin had ordinary subjects focus on breathing for several sessions. These subjects’ meditation experiences were rated on a five-point scale by “blind” judges. A discrete altered state of consciousness is a radically different way of handling information from the physical, intrapersonal, and interpersonal environments, yet the discrete altered state of consciousness may be as arbitrary as...
The main reason that the Rorschach was useful as a validating instrument was that we used it as a measure of cognitive and perceptual change, not as a personality measure, as it is so often used. The Rorschach was administered individually in the traditional manner by a half-dozen Rorschach clinicians, only one of whom was familiar with the hypotheses of the experiment to minimize experimenter...
Meditation, if it is to be considered an empirically effective clinical strategy, needs to be subjected to the same scientific scrutiny as any other psychotherapeutic strategy. One of the primary weaknesses in meditation studies thus far has been the lack of a clear theoretical rationale linking the independent variable and the selection of the dependent variable. Careful consideration should...
Meditation of one type or another can be found in a wide variety of cultures and traced back for at least two and a half thousand years. The wide spread of popularity of transcendental meditation has been helpful since it comprises a simple, rapid, highly standardized training procedure which readily lends itself to experimental investigation. The responses to meditation are most readily...
The most conspicuous trend is that messianic research appears to be on the decline. In the early 1970&s;s meditation research tended to be conducted by new meditation converts who at times seemed more committed to furthering their cause than to objective research. The design involves comparing transcendental meditation (TM) to no treatment and to a control treatment carefully constructed to...
This chapter provides one perspective: a systems framework, involving several dimensions, which may be helpful in providing further clarity and precision when researching meditation, whether as a self-regulation strategy or as an altered state of consciousness. Most of the empirical research on meditation in Western settings has been concerned with looking at physiological and/or behavioral...
The analysis of relationships between behavior therapy and meditation is best preceded by a clarification of the understanding of these two terms. Behavior therapy is neither a school or theory of psychotherapy nor a set of therapeutic techniques. It is a set of metatheoretical assumptions leading to an approach to the understanding and modification of behavior in social learning theory terms...
The hemispheres of the brain are thought to be specialized with respect to the manner in which they process information. In view of this it is possible to explore the way information is processed during the performance of a specified task by identifying the relative activity of the hemispheres. The hypothesis, that meditation is characterized by a gestalt, holistic and spacial cognitive style...
The weakening of the repression barrier that occurs in sleep and in other altered states of consciousness, such as free association during the process of psychoanalytic therapy, may be produced in a relatively simple fashion during transcendental meditation. An impressive aspect of this phenomenon is that, during the meditation, the intense emotional affect that would ordinarily accompany this...
This chapter describes a study done at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to determine what, if any, are the negative effects of transcendental meditation (TM). It summarizes an experiment conducted at SRI to determine whether people who adopted the practice of TM were a self-selected population or whether a relatively disinterested random sample of volunteers could realize the benefits claimed...
In this chapter, the authors present the results of their experiments in detail and discuss some of the electrographic characteristics in which the mental state in Zen-sitting will be reflected. In clinical practice, electroencephalogram often becomes a good neufophysiological method to find out the disturbance of consciousness. According to the instructions of Zen meditation, the regulation of...
Neuropsychological findings suggest that mindfulness state (meditation state) can be shown as higher state of consciousness, which differs from relaxation state (requires much more energy) and alertness (domination of parasympathetic activation). At the higher level of meditation (low demand for energy), there occur increased activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), left insula and...
A sense of gratitude is a powerful and positive experience that can promote a happier life, whereas resentment is associated with life dissatisfaction. To explore the effects of gratitude and resentment on mental well-being, we acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging and heart rate (HR) data before, during, and after the gratitude and resentment interventions. Functional connectivity...
BMJ OpenJuly 10, 2017Catherine Mak, Koa Whittingham, Ross Cunnington et al.
Introduction: Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common childhood physical disability, with life-long impacts for 1.77 in 1000 children. Although CP is primarily a physical disability, children with CP have an increased risk of experiencing cognitive difficulties, particularly attention and executive function deficits. Impairment in cognitive abilities can lead to subsequent impairment in...
BACKGROUND: Maintaining a sense of self-care while providing patient centered care, can be difficult for practitioners in palliative medicine. We aimed to pilot an "on the job" mindfulness and compassion-oriented meditation training for interdisciplinary teams designed to reduce distress, foster resilience and strengthen a prosocial motivation in the clinical encounter. METHODS: Our objective...
LEARNing LandscapesJuly 5, 2017Karen A. Berezowski, Chris Gilham, Daniel Bruce Robinson2 citations
This article reports on results from a narrative inquiry into the experiences of four students who completed an elective yoga course as part of their high school program in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to understand the participants' stories of their yoga experiences. Overall, students were able to express and give examples of how yoga made them...
BackgroundDialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) skills have become increasingly used to treat several psychiatric conditions, including major depressive disorder (MDD). The aim of the study was to investigate the efficacy of an intervention that combines emotion regulation and mindfulness skills of DBT to prevent depression relapse/recurrence.MethodsA total of 75 individuals (79% females; mean...
This chapter explores some of the differences and similarities of meditation practices that have grown out of different traditions. In recent years psychological meditation treatment programmes have emerged, which, to varying degrees, all employ meditation practices, frequently repackaged under the umbrella name Mindfulness, and often combined with methods from the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy...
Recent research into mindfulness in education supports introduction of this practice into the classroom. This qualitative descriptive study explored mindfulness with young children, as perceived by their teachers. Four primary teachers were interviewed using open-ended and semi-structured questions, allowing them to share their experiences of implementing mindfulness in their classrooms. Using...