ABSTRACT
This chapter provides one perspective: a systems framework, involving several dimensions, which may be helpful in providing further clarity and precision when researching meditation, whether as a self-regulation strategy or as an altered state of consciousness. Most of the empirical research on meditation in Western settings has been concerned with looking at physiological and/or behavioral measures related to its use as a self-regulation strategy. From a psychoanalytic standpoint, meditation has been conceptualized as an "evocative" strategy which allows repressed material to come from the unconscious and facilitates controlled regression in the service of the ego. Behaviorally oriented individuals who use meditation in their research or practice view it primarily as a self-regulation strategy for dealing with clinical, health-related, and stress-related concerns. In teaching an individual meditation, the therapist needs to be sensitive to several potential resistances, as well as how s/he will deal with resistance within the framework of their chosen therapeutic orientation.
