ABSTRACT
Many claim that meditation is effective in the treatment of many ailments associated with stress and high blood pressure, and in the management of pain. While there are many popular books on meditation, few embrace the science as well as the art of meditation. In this volume, Shapiro and Walsh fill this need by assembling a complete collection of scholarly articles--Meditation: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives.
From an academic rather than a popular vantage, the volume takes the claims and counterclaims about meditation to a deeper analytical level by including studies from clinical psychology and psychiatry, neuroscience, psychophysiology, and biochemistry. Each selection is a contribution to the field, either as a classic of research, or by being methodologically elegant, heuristically interesting, or creative. Original articles cover such topics as the effects of meditation in the treatment of stress, hypertension, and addictions; the comparison of meditation with other self-regulation strategies; the adverse effects of meditation; and meditation-induced altered states of consciousness.
Concluding with a major bibliography of related works, Meditation offers the reader a valuable overview of the state and possible future directions of meditation research. Today, in the popular media and elsewhere, debate continues: Is meditation an effective technique for spiritual and physical healing, or is it quackery? Meditation: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives weighs in on this debate by presenting what continues to be the most complete collection of scholarly articles ever amassed on the subject of meditation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|47 pages
Introduction
part II|312 pages
The Psychology of Meditation
part A|17 pages
On Therapeutic Effects of Meditation
part B|147 pages
Meditation as a Clinical Self-Regulation Strategy
part B1|21 pages
Meditation and Stress Management
part B2|26 pages
Addictions
part B3|14 pages
Hypertension
part B4|61 pages
General Psychotherapeutic Applications for the Client and the Therapist
part B5|23 pages
Additional Findings: Normal Subjects
part C|142 pages
Meditation as Altered States of Consciousness
part C1|42 pages
Attentional/Perceptual Issues
part C2|98 pages
Experiences During Meditation
part III|171 pages
Physiology of Meditation
part A|48 pages
Physiology of Meditation: Review Articles
part B|58 pages
General Metabolic and Autonomic Changes
part C|52 pages
Electroencephalographic Changes
part D|7 pages
Sleep
part IV|133 pages
Additional Developments in Clinical and Research Aspects of Meditation
part A|18 pages
Refining the Independent Variable: Clinical Improvements
part B|25 pages
Meditation: For Whom, Which Subject Population, and for Which Clinical Problem?
part C|85 pages
Comparison with Other Self-Regulation Strategies
part C1|49 pages
Theoretical Comparisons
part C2|33 pages
Research Comparisons
part V|25 pages
Views of the State-of-the-Art
part VI|4 pages
Epilogue