Lotus Therapy

[groovedaddy]

The patient sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing, and after a while noticed that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father.

“I was able to be there, present for the pain,” he said, when the meditation session ended. “To just let it be what it was, without thinking it through.”

The therapist nodded.

“Acceptance is what it was,” he continued. “Just letting it be. Not trying to change anything.”

“That’s it,” the therapist said. “That’s it, and that’s big.”

This exercise in focused awareness and mental catch-and-release of emotions has become perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade. Mindfulness meditation, as it is called, is rooted in the teachings of a fifth-century B.C. Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. It is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysts in private practice and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/health/research/27budd.html?th&emc=th

[lisa58]

1. cool...

...much better way to deal with trauma

[gateley]

2. K&R nt

[importDavid]

3. This is my Lotus therapy...

Just as therapeutic!

[groovedaddy]

5. But a tad more expensive! n/t

[MichellesBFF]

8. Lotus Elise Therapy

You too...My husband does the same therapy...His is yellow...:evilgrin:

[Book Lover]

4. More from the article

Therapists who incorporate mindfulness practices do not agree when the meditation is most useful, either. Some say Buddhist meditation is most useful for patients with moderate emotional problems. Others, like Dr. Linehan, insist that patients in severe mental distress are the best candidates for mindfulness.

A case in point is mindfulness-based therapy to prevent a relapse into depression. The treatment significantly reduced the risk of relapse in people who have had three or more episodes of depression. But it may have had the opposite effect on people who had one or two previous episodes, two studies suggest.

The mindfulness treatment “may be contraindicated for this group of patients,” S. Helen Ma and Dr. Teasdale of the Medical Research Council concluded in a 2004 study of the therapy.

Since mindfulness meditation may have different effects on different mental struggles, the challenge for its proponents will be to specify where it is most effective — and soon, given how popular the practice is becoming.

[mikelgb]

6. I just unloacked the Lotus Balance Game on Wii Fit

[varkam]

7. One of the really cool things about mindfulness training...

is that it's so versatile. You can use it for damn near anything. Linehan originally develped her method (called Dialectical Behavior Therapy) for people with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is basically a cross between mindfulness and CBT. Since then it's starting to catch on in the psychotherapy world and people have found it to be useful for a wide variety of mental illnesses.

Cool stuff, indeed.