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Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma

I have recently had a lot of exposure to the world of Clinical Mindfulness (CM), which generally and stereotypically involves PhD/MS/MD-types who have very little experience in meditation, lots of exposure to the world of clinical mindfulness research (which generally ignores or discounts what we here would call basic attainments, not to mention high attainments) and movements such as the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction traditions, but they are teaching meditation practices to lots of people/patients, some of which will actually get into interesting territory, with the big trouble generally starting if and when some cross the A&P, and now find themselves in territory the PhD/MS/MD-type doesn't recognize, as they have never been there.

This has caused a whole ton of thoughts about how to bridge the gap between "them" and the technology, skill sets, paradigms, and expertise of "us", the Hardcore Dharma (HD) people, realizing that some may fall into both camps (you have my sympathy), or, failing that, at least offer some service or support or something to those who have been thus affected.

The problems are vast, and a short list here being:

1) massive ignorance on both sides: we have no idea what the CM people are doing, what they are teaching, that there are so many of them teaching so many people, what language, techniques and concepts they use, and the CM people have little to no idea that what they are doing seems like kindergarden to us, and dangerous kindergarden, as it can lead to the A&P and the rest without guidance or, worse, with bad guidance. They have no idea what we know and do and consider normal and expected, and this ignorance is massive, deep and nearly reflexive. Simultaneously it is hard for some of us on this side to not automatically dismiss the CM world as being like the worst stripped down mush regardless of the fact that they really do help some people.

2) massive egos: they are quite certain they are doing the latest and greatest, they have degrees, training, certifications, and are paid well. We have massive direct experience and amazing abilities, ancient techniques, deep lineages, and the like. Our badges are unrecognizable to the other side, and theirs seem meaningless to us.

3) massive terminological barriers: we tend to use obscure dharmic terms based on ancient Indian languages, and they tend to use obscure medical terms based on ancient Mediterranean languages. Theirs seem superficial and woefully inadequate for "real practice" to us, and ours seem like some New Ager's pipe dream babble to them.

4) massive paradigm barriers of various sorts: they don't believe the stuff we do is possible, and we don't generally realize that the doses they use, which we would generally think of microscopic, can actually do useful things for some people. They like fMRI's and p-values, and we can just go: "Yeah! that was this (insert "weird" term for attainment here)!" and we feel comfortable with that and think it is normal.

How to bridge these things?

I can imagine a group of people writing the Hardcore Dharma Manual for Clinical Mindfulness People, using their terms and making up Greco-Latin equivalents to the Sanskrit and Pali terms we throw around so easily, with DSM-style diagnostic criteria, as well as recommended therapies based on presenting symptoms.

I can imagine referral services, groups of accomplished HD practitioners who have somehow established themselves as resources that practicing CM clinicians could send their patients to if they met certain defined criteria based on having certain key experiences, such as rapturous vortex-like energetic phenomena followed by profound panic, etc, which they would be likely to misdiagnose and not handle as well as someone who knew that territory would (my unscientific biases being obvious here), sort of like a more refined version of the Spiritual Emergency Network that I believe is now defunct but functioned for some period. How would one get certified to be one of these referral services in a way that people who are used to PhD's and other letters could make sense of? Could you bill insurance companies for it? Liability coverage? Covering Board? Standards of Care? Diagnostic Criteria? Agreed on methods of treatment? Treatment clinics/retreat centers? JHACO certification? ;)

Just as in emergency medicine there are little urgent cares and little community emergency departments all over, and there are a few large University/Community Level-One Trauma Centers/Heart/Stroke/Tertiary Care Centers, just so there are a lot of clinical mindfulness teachers and only a few people with great depths of meditation competence. In this way, it would make sense if the little CM centers could realize that there were times to refer people to the specialized HD groups for those patients who got into what to them would be the really weird/complex stuff and for us would be the bread and butter of what we do every day. If we could provide clear criteria when referral would make sense and a way to identify the places/persons to refer them to in some way that became accepted as normal, that would be amazing.

When my mind goes down that thought-track and tries to imagine how this could actually manifest in the world, what paradigms, institutions, regulations, structures, committees, boards, business models, and the like would actually happen and what they might look like, it is easy to get overwhelmed by the challenges, but that doesn't mean it can't be done, it would just take a strong and capable group and a lot of time.

I thought I would throw this out there to see what people might think of all of this. I think that the stuff we do here has the capacity to help people if it could be packaged right, and by right I mean a way that translates it while maintaining the depths of its power and scope as it currently stands at the very least.

The day when the A&P has an ICD9/10 code, we will have arrived. Imagine all the things that would have to change for that to happen! Daunting and yet, it is hard not to dream of things like this, as they seem so obvious and normal from this vantage point.

I think that this, done well, could have massive practice implications for a very large number of people, and actually would be hard to have it done worse than it currently is.

Any takers?

Daniel

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/6/11 9:49 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
hehe that was a fun post to read. i guess a bit of ego-stroking with all the talk of "massive direct experience" and "amazing abilities". (heh only after re-reading it did i see that was purposefully done under the "massive egos" section.)

as i was reading, even before i got to this part:
Daniel M. Ingram:
...using their terms and making up Greco-Latin equivalents to the Sanskrit and Pali terms we throw around so easily...

i figured some common terminology could be helpful. so i'd be willing to try that as i really like words.

i'm not familiar with the words they use, though.. and i'm not sure what words we use that sound weird. like all the insight stages have been translated to plain english (Knowledge of: Mind and Body, cause and effect, 3 chars, arising and passing, fear, misery, etc...). i guess instead of "NS" we could just say "cessation of perception and consciousness", or CPC. "fruition" and "cessation" are english words anyway.

granted they would all sound weird if i didn't know them so well, but the weirdness is in their unfamiliarity, not that they are translated from pali words.

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/6/11 12:08 PM as a reply to Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem.
Medical professionals feel more comfortable using complex, obscure words for simple things.

For instance:

You can't write on a chart: "the ankle was red and swollen", instead, it would be common to see, "area of lateral malleolus was erythematous and edematous."

In the same way, double vision becomes diplopia, staggering becomes ataxia, and the list goes on an on.

There simply aren't greco-latin terms for much of what we do, and without them, clinical professionals will probably have hard time, as it just won't sound right, and much of the business of medical language is sounding medical, otherwise you could just say the ankle was red and swollen, but you can't. I am only being the slightest bit facetious here. It is a real problem.

You can't say energetic phenomena, as that would imply that there was some scientific basis for energy moving. You certainly can't say Kundalini phenomena. There are a whole host of issues for similar experiences. Even more simple words we use routinely, such as "afterglow", would ring oddly to the medical ear. Some are better, such as "entrance and exit phenomena", our descriptions of the frequency of vibrations, and the like. Not just professionals, but patients, insurance companies, lawmakers and the like all expect it to sound right to make them feel it is on the up and up.

There needs to be a term for seeing lights and the like that is neither "hallucinations" nor "visions" and makes it more neutral, as otherwise it just sounds like we are crazy, when we, generally, aren't. ;)

There needs to be a HD to CM dictionary and glossary just to begin to have the conversation, I think. This would be a bold project. Anyone interested? Some of this work may have already been done and I just don't know about it. This can't have been the first time the question was raised...

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/6/11 12:29 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
oh, i get what you mean. you're looking to complicate them, in some sense =P. i know what you mean, though. like there's a term for something in the brain which is literally "black stuff" or "black mass", but it sounds super fancy in latin. and "tachycardia" literally means "fast heart", etc.

i'll try it out and post bits here. i can see why this report would look odd to most doctors and patients and lawmakers: "the subject perceived the universe as if he were moving rapidly through a rotating torus, which then collapsed on itself and all of reality blinked out and came back. diagnosis: subject has attained stream-entry, eliminating 3 of the fetters."

can you recommend a good source to start reading up on CM?

Daniel Ingram:
There needs to be a HD to CM dictionary and glossary just to begin to have the conversation, I think. This would be a bold project.

no guarantees as to how much time i'll invest in this, but it looks like something that could be fun for a bit, and maybe it'll help others by offering a starting point

also, as a tie-in to your actualist practice, maybe it's a good idea to investigate this desire to help these misguided patients! not to say it's a bad idea or you shouldn't do it, but what are your motivations for doing so? (e.g. when i first got into actualism i was telling everyone how it's the greatest thing and how they should do it. but me wanting them to do it was just a reflection of me wanting myself to do it and succeed at it.)

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/6/11 12:31 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel M. Ingram:


This has caused a whole ton of thoughts about how to bridge the gap between "them" and the technology, skill sets, paradigms, and expertise of "us", the Hardcore Dharma (HD) people, realizing that some may fall into both camps (you have my sympathy), or, failing that, at least offer some service or support or something to those who have been thus affected.


Was the part I bolded more of a guess, or do you actually know people who fall into both camps? If you do know people who fall into both camps, they might be really into what you're talking about here.

This is probably something you've been thinking about a while, so I'm wondering if you have written any sort of concise treatise on what your goals are, how they may be implemented, who can be involved, etc. I'm assuming people in the medical field are really keen on having things written down in a standard proposal format. Appeal to their sensibilities/ways they go about implementing ideas a bit. People from "the other camp" may be more likely to pay attention if you approach it in that way. Even though all of this seems very down to earth and obvious to us, you're right that it is still considered experimental and abstract to most people. To that end, are there any research outlets at universities you could approach that are more open to exploratory/experimental concepts? Who knows, maybe you could even land a grant from them.

Steph

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/6/11 1:55 PM as a reply to Steph S.
There are a few people doing things with something like this paradigm, such as Willoughby Britton at Brown and Jud Brewer at Yale.

I have started writing a few things, but I write them, then dismiss them, write them, dismiss them, as somehow it doesn't sound right, and I don't have what it takes to make the gap feel any less wide to my ear, at least at this point. If I did, I would have just done it.

Anyway, this is the sort of visionary dreaming that is probably a bit like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Sci Fi novels from the 40's, or so it seems to me, but I may be needlessly underestimating the potential for things to progress.

I still think that starting linguistically, so there is at least a common set of terms with which to begin to sort this stuff out, would be of value.

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/6/11 5:01 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
That's a hugely interesting idea. I think that there's definitely something in that, something important and it'll be interesting to see what sort of ideas come up on here.

The linguistic side of things is exactly what I've been looking at lately, how different systems describe the same phenomena and suchlike so to consider how to make the terms we use in a solid diagnostic criteria, understandable to the 'uninitiated', is fascinating.

I think you may have started something here, Daniel.....again emoticon

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/8/11 4:37 AM as a reply to Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem.
I'd suggest reading through some of Deepak Chopras books, particularly How to Know God. He is by far the best I've seen at integrating medicine (including psychoneuroimmunology, newer stuff like neuroplasticity and research on happiness), spirituality and religion (primarily the core, non-dogmatic aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity). Here's the deal with Chopra: he's popular and he sells CDs. So that immediately triggers some weird reactions in people who have molded their whole ego around being anti-materialist, or anti-populist. His work also triggers weird reactions is hardcoreists and intellectuals (those who have molded their egos around 'being learned' or 'being strict and severe with practice' ) and such people may describe his work a little 'low brow', but I think that's unfair and inaccurate - there's plenty of useful stuff in his books. The only thing I'd say is of little value is the way he describes meditation practice, which is lacking in detailed instruction of what to do when concentrating on your breath or chanting "so-hum" just doesn't work for you. Chopra has a foot in both camps already, and as a doctor, Daniel, I'm surprised you haven't contacted him already. Or have you?

Guys like Kabat-Zinn annoy me. Their books are as dull as dishwater. This is what I assume you mean by CM, yes? If a person's words reveal where he is at on the spiritual path (as I believe they do), then Kabat et al. are not even at first base. I'm not talking about the content because the content is fine. The tone however reveals a 'grayness' and boredom with life. Contrast this with....

A guy I came across recently is Adyashanti and wow, the guy can communicate! As one critic commentated "he speaks directly from Being itself". Now I can't do this myself, and no one I've ever seen on this website can do it, but just have a look at some of his teachings and see if you can't feel of his experience. He is able to convey tricky ideas with great subtlety and distinction. He takes familiar ideas and presents them is such a skillful way that they actually jolt you into greater awareness, the way a well-written poem or koan might. To me that is a rare and valuable skill. He doesn't use much Sanskrit terminology, which is great because I have no interest in learning new language, particularly when a new language is likely to mean i miss the critical subtleties in translation. Warning: he is anti-hardcore, and his reason for having this stance this is very compelling!

-Multiple edits-

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/7/11 12:15 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Hi Dan--
I'd point you in the direction of Dan Siegel MD. He's a clinical psychotherapist (I suppose a psychiatrist, technically, with the MD? dunno) and researcher. He's up to date on topics like neuroplasticity and neuroscience in general (he may be a neuroscientist too; I'm not sure if he does his own brain research or just comments on others').

One of the most interesting aspects of his work (to me) is that he discovered a lot of basically dharmic stuff through his psychological and neuroscience research without knowing what he'd stumbled across. After publishing a book called (I believe) "The Mindful Parent" people in the CM and meditation scenes assumed he was talking about our "mindfulness" based on what he wrote in the book; but he'd just pulled the phrase out of the dictionary to describe what he was finding, and wasn't aware of the term's connotation in the dharma/meditation scene, as he had zero connection to that scene at the time. He followed the pointer though and found a teacher, began meditating, and got involved in the scientific-study-of-meditation scene.

I don't know his stance on radical baseline shifts in experience (attainments)-- he's linked up with a pretty mainstream, Zenny form of dharma which is probably a bit closed lipped about that stuff. But he seems to be quite capable of critical thinking and an open minded researcher. Moreover, he's incredibly well informed about the interweaving of neuro-biological, relational, and experiential facets of human development, so I don't think he would reject out of hand the notion of Paths and so on, but would probably be incredibly interested in getting some Pathers in an fMRI, as well as other research situations, and would likely view meditative development as on a continuum with "normal" development, insofar as it has experiential, neurological, and relational dimensions which can be measured with respectively appropriate instruments.

I think he would be particularly intrigued by the notion that meditation has dangers, and that certain forms of meditation are counter-indicated in certain folks at certain times.

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/7/11 2:05 PM as a reply to . Jake ..
And on the Dark Night/adverse effects of of practice here's an interesting link:

http://alohadharma.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/research-on-negative-effects-of-meditation/

Very interesting section of the video at 12.10 in which she mentions the strong correlation, in folks who encounter dissolution and have an adverse reaction to it (bad dark night), between the length of time they spend spinning in those reactions and losing daily functionality and their lack of contact with a teacher who is familiar with the fact that ego-dissolution can precipitate such adverse reactions. She gives the example of a woman who has a powerful dissolution experience on a retreat with Ruth Denison and then faces 9 years of impaired function until encountering Shinzen Young, who helps her resolve her DN (presumably to SE although not mentioned.) Interesting to see where such research could go in terms of promoting "informed consent" among meditators.

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/8/11 7:49 PM as a reply to . Jake ..
Jacob Henry St. Onge Casavant:
And on the Dark Night/adverse effects of of practice here's an interesting link:

http://alohadharma.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/research-on-negative-effects-of-meditation/

Very interesting section of the video at 12.10 in which she mentions the strong correlation, in folks who encounter dissolution and have an adverse reaction to it (bad dark night), between the length of time they spend spinning in those reactions and losing daily functionality and their lack of contact with a teacher who is familiar with the fact that ego-dissolution can precipitate such adverse reactions. She gives the example of a woman who has a powerful dissolution experience on a retreat with Ruth Denison and then faces 9 years of impaired function until encountering Shinzen Young, who helps her resolve her DN (presumably to SE although not mentioned.) Interesting to see where such research could go in terms of promoting "informed consent" among meditators.


Okay, I looked at this and it's frightening. I guess, though that we could check and see how many people going on retreats in other traditions--Christianity, for example--have psychological problems after the fact. But on the whole, the clip bothered me because the teachers involved are not untrained know-nothings (although I really don't know much about Ruth Denison--the thing that bothers me is the problem came up at IMS, and those people in general are responsible).

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5/8/11 8:41 PM as a reply to Jane Laurel Carrington.
Yes, I see the same problem at the college I am getting a BA in psychology at. It's an alternative school with many transpersonal courses, and much meditation in the courses. But there is very little awareness about this sort of thing. It gets pretty frustrating at times.

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/9/11 12:42 PM as a reply to Willoughby Britton.
THe mind and life dialogue/institute people has people that are familiar with both camps. Meaning they are associated with people that have phds, are hardcore practioners and are in some way involved with or highly familiar with the mainstream mindfulness stuff.

There are researchers in eastern Europe that are far more sympathetic to the more obscure language of the east. I think (but might be mistaken) that the people who developed the Buyenko breathing method are eastern european. I know some other research on breathing methods have also been done there.

Naropa university should have many researchers that understand both camps.

What about the language shinzen young uses in the science for enlightenment CD? I haven`t heard it but knowing him it should be well thought out. If you could get him involved in this discussion I think he would have a lot to contribute.

What about asian researchers. A LOT of qigong research has been done in CHina. In Japan Dr. Motoyama has done research on the chakras I think.

IT does not relate directly to the Vipassana/mindfulness communication problem but I think there correlating chakra activity with processes in the body should not be as hard as one might think. I saw a drawing once that showed large nerve plexuses at teh areas where the seven main chakras are supposed to be. In addition there are seven major glands close by these locations (and presumably connected to the nerve plexuses. One could presumably talk about chakra activity as increasing or decreasing activity in these plexuses and glands. I read about a study done in India on under and over active thyorids (extremely over and under active) and yoga. With yoga sequences specifically designed to affect the throat area both under and overactive thyorids were brought into much more balanced activity. As the yogic texts describes the throat chakra as being placed here and describes similar symptoms of over and under active thorat chakras as over and under active thyroids and the asanas said to balance the throat chakra also balances hte thyroid you have an interesting connection there. I am convinced similar connections can be made through research between all the chakras and glands.

What about the language used in transpersonal psychology? Any help there?

There is a meditation organisation in Norway called ACEM that has been trying to secularize the language of meditation for 30-40 years and is run by a doctor. It is basically TM without the maharashi language and beliefs (they branced out of TM). You could write them an email and ask if they have any input (all norwegians speak good english).

Swami Rama wrote a book where he looked at the differences between yogic attainments and shifts in perception vs psychosis. I think he might have some perspectives that could help.

I read somewhere that psychiatrists in Thailand where really annoyed that their clinics where being filled up with people who got issues after attending retreats. Considering the immense number of people in Thailand who do meditation intensives at some point in their lives there must be huge (relatively speaking) numbers of such people in Thai mental hospitals. Write some emails to Thai mental hospitals and ask if they have any input on the relationship between the language of meditation and western psychiatric language in describing meditation induced mental problems.

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5/12/11 12:10 PM as a reply to Crazy Wisdom.
Hi all,

I'm the guy that runs alohadharma, where the video is. I'm also one of those poor folks that Daniel describes as being in both camps: I'm a clinical psychologist (a post-doc) and a meditation teacher who focuses on a hardcore approach.

It is shocking how many people in my field prescribe meditation like it were some sort of snake-oil cure-all without realizing the consequences of intensive practice. Teaching "mindfulness" has become a part of almost every therapy group and clinical protocol, for just about every kind of problem. I do blame people like John Kabot-Zinn and those like him for promoting a distorted picture of what mindfulness is and selling it like it were good for everything
(check out The Myth of Mindfulness).

However, there is a bright spot here. About two months ago I decided to give a presentation to the senior staff at the hospital I work at on this topic. Their reaction wasn't "you're a crazy religious nut", instead it was more like, "why haven't we heard about this before?". Now I'm getting asked about it all the time by psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers who have been pushing meditation for years. People are trying to get a better understanding about it, rather than protect their turf, which is a great thing. There is a professional conference here in Honolulu in a few months and I'm considering doing a similar presentation there to get the word out even more, and I'm going to be at the Buddhist Geeks conference in June and am thinking about getting a roundtable discussion together on this topic.

Another bright spot: I think psychologists are ripe to learn about this not only because of my personal experience but because the model that we use to describe it (the progress of insight), fits well with how psychologists think about things. Psychologists are developmental in their mindset (at least the good ones are) and understand things in terms of processes, stages and growth. Presenting a stage model to them will be no problem at all.

However, we do need better language for the stages. Part of the problem is that we have no scientific theory of what is happening in those states and stages. We have a religious theory, but we need one that is secular...

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5/12/11 8:48 PM as a reply to Ron Crouch.
This smells like a really good opportunity for research. Maybe a nice followup study of people who participated in a clinician-administered mindfulness intervention? That would be a simple first step ... with that you could get some preliminary data, maybe sufficient justification for a proper prospective cohort with enrollment at the start of the mindfulness intervention (regular surveys, in-person if possible, and maybe some fMRI). I'd imagine that once you are able to provide data that there is a problem, the community will open to more discussion of it.

I agree that it is increasingly important to bring the two perspectives together. A case in point: the VA is starting to fund trials of mindfulness interventions in Iraq/Afghanistan veterans with PTSD. PTSD is scary enough on its own. Can you imagine a veteran with PTSD getting stuck in a dark night? Whatever they do to try to escape that additional hell will, to put it very dryly, drive up the adverse event rate for mindfulness interventions.

RE: Clinical Mindfulness and Hardcore Dharma
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5/13/11 10:14 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Fascinating topic - I'm just a grad student but here's my take on the various aspects of it:

If you dig around in the CM psych literature you come across terms like 'metacognitive awareness' and 'cognitive defusion' which are thought to be the underlying mechanism that is helpful with depression, GAD, etc. Essentially this consists of disembedding from discursive thought, and to a lesser extent from sensation. You could say that this relates to Mind and Body but is it the same thing? As Daniel says, we're talking about a microdose in hardcore dharma terms.

Moreover, you would expect to see metacognitive awareness increase as an outcome of *any* of the psychotherapies (cognitive, psychoanalytic, Gestalt, etc. etc.) For example, in classical psychoanalysis you have free association - a kind of dynamic mindfulness of thinking and causality - an insight technique? Note that people are not routinely dropping into the A&P after experiencing these therapies, although of course it's remotely possible. With regard to the scenario of a PTSD sufferer dropping into the A&P after practicing mainstream clinical mindfulness - I'd be interested to know the extent to which this is happening. It needs to be balanced with the fact that these practices are apparently relieving a lot of real suffering.

There is a psych literature on adverse outcomes from meditation - it needs expanding and should be required reading for anyone involved in CM. I'm surprised to hear that the Spiritual Emergency Network has gone under - I think one of my profs was involved in it. Clearly this is the kind of initiative that's needed.

Absolutely agreed that JKZ is a turgid writer. Siegel is a bit better I guess. For my money, the most interesting psych take on mindfulness comes from Steven Hayes and his Acceptance & Commitment Therapy/Relational Frame Theory. In particular, RFT could probably give a plausible account of how noting practice works - it may be a promising theoretical framework for Daniel's project.

With regard to terminology, I think that there are useful 'clinical' terms that are underused in the dharma community- hypnogogic imagery, dissociation, suggestion, extinction and cognitive defusion come to mind.

Warm regards

Paul

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5/13/11 10:38 AM as a reply to Paul Anthony.
First, and this is guessing - when the mainstream mindfulness movement discovers real concentration meditation, we will start to see a lot more negative (and positive) effects. The development of jhana, as i believe Daniel says in MTCB, gives a lot of power to an insight practice.
Meanwhile, in my own experience, the clarity and equanimity one can reach in concentrated states (and after) can be a great help in dealing with difficult personal issues, which might make it attractive to therapists.
So that's my guess for one possible "trigger event" for things to start going really wrong (and hopefully also really right).

Second, while googling for some studies on this, i ran into this dissertation: Neale: Mindfulness Meditation - an integration of perspectives from Buddhism, Science and Clinical Psychology (2006), which talks about both insight stages and adverse effects of meditation. Seems to be rather nice, from our perspective, so i wanted to make you people aware of it.

Third - i'm nowhere near qualified to really help with this, but i really hope we can start to see a more serious understanding of deeper meditation in psychology.

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5/13/11 11:06 AM as a reply to Villum (redacted).
One way to get people to do research on a topic you want at the masters level is to give small very scholarships to people for writing about a topic you want. I have seen grants at arround 700 dollars being offered to students writing about certain specific topics in their master thesis at my old university so I think this actually works pretty well. So many students don`t really know what they want to write about and if someone comes up witha good tiopic and will even pay them a tiny bit they will often choose to write about that topic.

This opens up the possibility for even not very wealthy people to inlfuence research to a modest degree. Since without such a scholarship the student probably would not write about the topic what you actually get in retrun for such a small sum of money is an netire years worth of work by a master students if the student is doing a two year program where one year is entirely devoted to the thesis. That is very cheap labour. So if you are a dharma lawyer or dharma doctor or anything else that pays good money maybe you could spare 1-3000 dollars ayear on having several people do EXACTLY the reserach you want to have done. If you make really good money as a broker or buisness lawyer or something and have plenty of money to use, say a 100 000 dollars, you could have an army of master students doing the research you want. It can be like your own little research institute or think tank.

You can also get some of this done for free. The fact is so many students are so lost when it comes to finding something good to write about giving them good well formulated and original ideas about research topics can often be enough to make them choose it as a topic. You could make a wepage with ideas and material for doing research on your chosen topics and then advertise the webpage by providing links to it in threads in student forums, forums where students in teh relevant fields will often parttake and by sending writing to countless psychology and medical departments and students organisations for psychology and medical students.

Sure the quality of the research won`t always be the best or the most recognized but it will form the basis for future research on higher levels.

Also, if your reaserch ideas are very, very good and you can formulate them in a way an acomplished researcher in your chosen field would understand and you talk to them about it, they might just do the research because it is interesting an beneficial for their careers. Researcher already steal ideas from each other all the time because of lack of ideas so it isen`t all that difficult.

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5/13/11 2:04 PM as a reply to Crazy Wisdom.
Incidentally, does anyone have a bibliography of (quality) research into these kinds of things (adverse effects of meditation, advanced meditative techniques, et.c.?)

Otherwise, starting to assemble (or improve) one might be a good idea? It's probably gonna be needed for most of the things suggested here.