Meditation as a Form of Psychotherapy
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Meditation as a Form of Psychotherapy INTRODUCTION Although meditation practices have been in use for over 3000 years they have only been introduced into Western society in the last half a century (Walsh 1995). Before the 1960's meditation was rarely practiced and was widely misunderstood, labelled as "an attempt at psychological and physical regression. . . a sort of artificial schizophrenia" (Alexander et al 1946, cited in Walsh 1995: 388) by a well known psychiatrist. Recently, however, psychologists have become aware of the psychotherapeutic aspects of meditation. These aspects have proven to be so beneficial that meditation has even been controversially labelled by some as a form of psychotherapy (Walsh 1995). HOW MEDITATION FITS INTO THE DEFINITION OF 'PSYCHOTHERAPY' Contraversy over the labelling of meditation as a form of psychotherapy both arises and is resolved in the ambiguous nature of psychotherapy itself. The general definition of psychotherapy could be classed as: A...

