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MEDITATION AS PSYCHOTHERAPY |
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by Jonathan C. Smith Clinical process researchers (Orlinsky and Howard 1978; Parloff et al. 1978) have devoted 20 years to looking at two skills that contribute to change in therapy—therapist empathy and client experiential insight (or experiencing level). We can learn much from the direction this work has taken. Put simply, empathy can be seen as the ability to detect and reflect what another is feeling whereas experiencing is the ability to become aware of and share one’s own feelings. One line of investigation has examined whether client growth is associated with his or her level of experiential insight as well as the level of therapist empathy. Evidence appears to strongly support both notions. Another path has considered the conditions necessary for the development of insight and empathy. Of particular interest to us is that both lines of research have emphasized skills over techniques. Unlike meditation researchers, those studying empathy and experiential insight have shown little interest in teaching therapists a specific ‘empathy technique’ or clients a specific ‘insight technique’. Empathy and insight are complex skills that call for sophisticated strategies of investigation. In two recent books (Smith 1985, 1986) I propose three meditative skills: focusing, letting be, and receptivity. Focusing is the ability to attend to a restricted stimulus for an extended period. Letting be is the ability to put aside unnecessary goal-directed and analytic activity. And receptivity is the willingness to tolerate and accept meditation experiences that may be uncertain, unfamiliar, and paradoxical. These skills may well be displayed in a meditation session. One diverts attention from hectic everyday concerns to, say, the simple flow of breath. One focuses. One puts aside attempts to force a particular pattern of breathing or analyse the breathing process, and so on. One maintains a stance of letting be. And one dispassionately accepts whatever changes may transpire such as images, unexpected feeling states, and the like. One remains receptive. Absorption refers to the disposition to display episodes of total attention ‘during which the available representational apparatus seems to be entirely dedicated to experiencing and modeling the attentional object, be it a landscape, a human being, a sound, a remembered incident, or an aspect of one’s self’ (Tellegen and Atkinson 1974, p. 274). Inspection of the Tellegen Absorption Scale reveals many items that appear to call for specific meditative skills, particularly focusing (example: ‘When I listen to music I can get so caught up in it that I don’t notice anything else’) and receptivity (‘I sometimes “step outside” my usual self and experience an entirely different state of being.’) The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (Cattell, R.B., Eber, H.W. and M.M. Tatsuoka, Handbook for the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. Champaign, Ill.,1970 ) is a popular omnibus inventory of personality. Two of its scales are of particular interest to us: factors A and M. Those scoring high in factor A, or ‘sizothymia’, are ‘reserved, detached, critical, cool, aloof’, and ‘stiff’. Emotionally they are ‘flat’ or ‘cautious’. They tend to be critical, precise, and sceptical, and like working alone with things or words rather than with people. In interpreting this factor, Cattell (19571 hypothesizes it reflects a ‘steadiness in purpose and a high level of interest in symbolic and subjective activity . . . a secondary result of blocking of easy interaction with the changing external world’. Factor A could be argued to reflect a type of focusing ability (steadiness in purpose, blocking easy interaction with external change). Those scoring high in factor M, or ‘autia’, tend to be unconventional and interested in ‘art, theory, basic beliefs’ and ‘spiritual matters’. However, their most important characteristic is what Cattell variously describes as a tendency to be ‘imaginatively enthralled by inner creations’, ‘charmed by works of the imagination’, and ‘completely absorbed’ in the momentum of their own thoughts, following them ‘wherever they lead, for their intrinsic attractiveness and with neglect of realistic considerations’. Cattell has speculated that fundamental to autia may be a capacity to dissociate and engage in ‘autonomous, selfabsorbed relaxation’. In sum, factor M contains many characteristics one might associate with focusing (a tendency to be enthralled, absorbed, etc.), letting be (following the momentum of one’s own thoughts), and receptivity (neglecting realistic considerations). The Fitzgerald (1966) Experience Inquiry is described as a measure of ‘openness to inner and outer experience’. Those who score high are claimed to be ‘not bound by the conventional modes of thought, memory and perception; they are sensitive to the possibilities and subtle nuances of experience which elude others; they are at home in the midst of conceptual disorder and complexity’ and they ‘seek change and novelty’. The test is made up of items derived from the following categories: tolerance for regressive experience, tolerance for logical inconsistencies, constructive use of regression, capacity for regressive experiences, altered states, peak experiences, and tolerance for the irrational. It is a test that appears to reflect meditative receptivity. In a study involving teaching 4 weeks of Zen breath-counting meditation to 16 Master’s level students in counselling, Lesh (1970b) found that subjects scoring highest at pretest on the Experience Inquiry are most likely to report experiences of calm, concentration, alertness, satisfaction, and emotional insight while meditating. A number of studies have found that students who drop out of TM tend to appear highly defensive on the Tennessee Self Concept Scale (Smith 1978) and other measures (Otis 1974a). They also score higher on measures of psychoticism (Smith 1978), have serious problems (Otis 1974a), and are emotionally disturbed (Kanas and Horowitz 1977). Although a variety of interpretations are possible for this pattern, one can speculate that highly disturbed individuals may simply find it difficult to focus, maintain a stance of passivity, or receptively tolerate unusual experiences. They may also experience distracting adverse effects (Davidson and Goleman 1977; Otis 1984). Many chronically tense
individuals find devoting 15 to 20 minutes to a single set of relaxing
images an unfamiliar and even discomforting task. Imagery requires a
moderate level of receptivity.
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