Re:Meditation versus hypnosis

Re: Dr. Dreher's comment on hypnosis vs meditation: Many academic/research hypnotists do indeed suggest that hypnosis is a narrowing of attention. That is mostly due to the need to have a narrow definition of hypnosis which is standardized for laboratory research. Of course, any one who has really studied clinical uses of hypnosis appreciates that conscious attention can be redirected or even suspended altogether and results are still obtained, due to the hypnotic intervention.

But must meditation really be "a beautiful thing?" If one accepts things as they are, then one must accespt the ugly with the beautiful. Preference for one over the other will block one to experiencing "what there is." Only then will one understand that only our cognitive process creates ugliness and beauty. Just a we challange our patient's cogntive distortions, meditation practice can provide a setting where we can challange our own distortions.

So, yes, I believe meditation is different from hypnosis. Yet both are useful strategies for challanging fixed cognitive schema - albeit in different ways and with different results - and thus, optimally used for different purposes.

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