{"id":11130,"date":"2015-02-24T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harleytherapy.co.uk\/counselling\/?p=11130"},"modified":"2023-03-12T20:03:58","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T20:03:58","slug":"meditation-and-psychotherapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.harleytherapy.co.uk\/counselling\/meditation-and-psychotherapy.htm","title":{"rendered":"Meditation and Psychotherapy \u2013 Do They Work Together?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"meditation<\/a>

By: alan jones<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

by Andrea M. Darcy<\/span><\/p>\n

Meditation has come a long way in the last few decades. Now practised by business sorts and bohemians alike, it is used in schools, prisons, and major companies. Meditation was even introduced in Parliament<\/span><\/a> here in the UK.<\/p>\n

But is mediation really suited to be part of psychotherapy? What sort of meditation do psychotherapists use, anyway? And how can it boost your results from attending therapy?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What sort of meditation are we talking about?<\/h2>\n

Meditation wears many hats these days. From the transcendental meditation that was all the rage in the seventies, to traditional practises like zazen meditation and Qi gong and modern Western upstarts like \u201cheart rhythm mediation\u201d, it can all seem overwhelming and a bit ‘out there’.<\/p>\n

Psychotherapy, however, tends to use a practical and evidence-based<\/span><\/a> modern reworking of meditation<\/strong> called mindfulness<\/strong><\/span><\/a>. Originally started by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn in the late seventies as Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), it distills the elements of traditional Eastern relaxation practices into a format that best helps our modern lifestyles.<\/p>\n

The aim of mindfulness meditation<\/span><\/a> to help you be aware of your thoughts and bodily sensations in a way that helps you cope better with your emotions and challenges.<\/strong> The main tools it uses for this are breath awareness<\/span><\/a> and body scanning, which means drawing the attention to the body and noticing where there is a possibility to release held tension.<\/p>\n

How did meditation and psychotherapy meet? Aren’t they very different things?<\/h2>\n

\"Meditation<\/a>Originally, yes. A few decades ago, if a psychotherapist told his or her colleagues they were practicing Buddhist meditation, they might have met with raised eyebrows.<\/p>\n

Freud<\/span> <\/a>wrote that the feeling of \u201coceanic\u201d oneness meditators seek was nothing but<\/strong> \u201canother way taken by the ego of denying the dangers it sees threatening it in the external world\u201d.<\/p>\n

With the deepest respect to Freud, times have changed<\/strong>. And so has our understanding of the brain<\/strong> and the interaction between what we think, act, and feel.<\/p>\n

It’s now understood that modern day stress<\/span> can severely affect our thinking and our moods, and that meditation counteracts stress and helps us be more aware of what is going right in our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

What issues is mindfulness meditation in psychotherapy useful for?<\/h2>\n