On 8/10/2014 10:04 AM, [email protected] [FairfieldLife] wrote:
Meditation-Related Psychosis
>
I started reading the report and I think I understand what the author
means by psychosis, but I'm just not getting the connection with
"meditation", since that term remains undefined. I didn't see the
acronym "TM" mentioned, probably because that's not a term used in the
medical field and it's not even copyrighted mark registered in the U.K.
What exactly, is the author's definition of meditation?
Psychosis:
Psychosis occurs when a person loses contact with reality. The person may:
Have false beliefs about what is taking place, or who one is (delusions).
See or hear things that are not there (hallucinations).
Medline Dictionary:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001553.htm
>
Almost all of us posting to Fairfield Life are practising TM or at
some point practised TM. So we can conclude that the way we are now is
in some way related to TM practice. We are the poster-child for TM.
Normally selecting a poster-child for a particular agenda is a process
that is highly edited to show the particular agenda in the best light.
But here on Fairfield Life, it all comes out, and on forums where the
lack personal face-to-face confrontation can act as a dis-inhibitor,
it all comes out.
Whatever our disposition here, it is a reflection of TM practice to a
specific degree, and what comes out is not necessarily what a pro-TM
stance would like to see revealed in the light scrutiny. A small
percentage of people have serious problems related to TM and other
meditations. The percentage would be higher if more people continued
with the practice, but if, as a conservative estimate based on limited
data indicates, at best only about 5 percent to 10 percent of people
who learn meditation continue with it. So the number of people with
serious problems probably would be 10 to 20 times greater were
everyone regular with the practice.
It is estimated only about 1% of people who practice meditation have
really serious problems.
The following link to a web page is to a post of a psychologists's
Ph.D. thesis called Meditation-Related Psychosis. This paper only
tangentially mentions TM as it largely discusses the problem of mental
difficulties related to meditation of various kinds from a Buddhist
perspective. Since there has been a discussion here recently of mental
problems with TM in Fairfield, this paper provides an interesting
overview of how various Buddhist teachers handle the problems of
students cracking up as a result of meditation, and some of this
information could be valuable and applied to the situation in
Fairfield. The paper also gives a good digest of the the philosophy
and practices involved in the three main branches of Buddhism, which
most of us here are ignorant of. The author of the paper is a
practising psychologist in Colorado.
http://downthecrookedpath-meditation-gurus.blogspot.com/2012/03/meditation-related-psychosis-from.html
After reading this paper, which is very long, it occurred to me that
all meditation techniques are related, that the difference between
them is only the degree of mental focus and the object of attention.
For example TM has a certain degree of mental focus (coming back to
the mantra) and a certain degree of its opposite (take it as it
comes). Aside from what is the point of focus (a mantra, a word, a
phrase, an object, or breath, or the environment) the proportion of
focus or defocus is what distinguishes the different flavours of
meditation. Tightening up or relaxation if you will. The paper
indicates that problems arise if the meditator is too focused on
results, or if the practice is too focused, i.e., concentrative. Not
all non-TM practices are concentrative as the movement would have one
believe.
One interesting point is the behavioural training in these traditions
(morality if you will) is part of the traditional teaching. TM is
taught mostly stripped of its traditional Hindu morality baggage, and
this might also be a factor in why people practising TM and other
meditations become ungrounded and antisocial because the context in
which the techniques evolved is largely missing. This might explain
why the environment of the movement seems at times toxic or psychotic
because the normal 'civilised' behavioural environment has been
disrupted.
The following link is to a report from a person who claims to have
been a victim of TM, and whether or not you agree with this, this
person is a poster-child for TM. Note that the average poster-child
for TM is someone who learned TM and then stopped practising, and who
might at some future time start up again, or not, or try something else.
http://www.myownmind.com/TM%20Victim.cfm
The following is a link to a discussion of the potential connexion
between spirituality and psychosis.
http://nozeninthewest.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/psychotic-or-spiritual/
For myself, I never cracked up, but I had some very dark experiences
resulting from the spiritual path which directly stem from the
practice of TM but I was always able to find information outside the
TM purview that kept me grounded, so I do not regard TM with disdain
and still use the technique. In other words, over time, with regard to
movement advice, I began to trust my own judgement over the
movement's, and this worked out much better for me. After all, the
goal of self-sufficiency is to become your own authority.
It would go a long way if the movement tried to keep statistics on how
many continue with meditation, what techniques they are practising and
how long, and how they are ending up, and how well the advice given to
meditators actually works to handle problems. The mental attitude
toward this kind of data in the movement is not helpful.
