MEDITATION IN PSYCHOTHERAPY FORUM ARCHIVE
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Observations about meditation and therapy
Meditator · 03/23/01 at 2:18 PM ET
Several thoughts. I enjoy reading this board. I have been practicing my own quirky form of meditation for years, at first with a group and now alone. I've used both psychotherapy and meditation to facilitate change in my life. I have found the support of psychotherapy, the relationship, very helpful, but not necessary the therapy. Supportive therapy certainly has made me a happier and stronger person. However, psychotherapy seems to try to lay down a thought pattern that can feel just as wrong as my current troubling thoughts, feelings, and behaviors--even at its best. Meditation has transformed me. I had an experience in meditation that brought about a change in my mood, perspective, and behavior instantly after praciticing meditation quite seriously for several years. I wish that I knew how to bring about and maintain that state of mind--forever. Yet, I retained much of what the experience brought about. And, today, I still use meditation to bring about clarity and change. There's a truth about what comes in meditation that isn't always present in what psychotherapy attempts to lay down on me. I have read a lot of books on meditation, most if not all from a Budhist perspective. Yet, it seems to me, from talking with others who practice meditation, and from observing, that there are many practices that bring about a meditative state, and that the Budhist type of meditation is much closer to cognitive therapy than purely experiencing a meditative state of awareness and the new perspective it brings. However, from discussing meditative experience with other people, there seems to be as much difference between the actual experience of meditation as there are meditators. I'd really be interested in reading other's thoughts on this.
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