ABSTRACT
The overlap between self-hypnosis and meditation is tremendous. The client noted he had heard and read in the newspaper about the scientific experiments showing meditation’s effectiveness for stress and felt it would be helpful for him. The client felt his general weariness and stress from lack of sleep had reached “crisis proportions” and something needed to be done. During therapy he maintained accurate and complete records of the homework assignments of areas monitored, practiced meditation exactly as instructed, and put a great deal of personal effort and energy into each concern we worked on. Before actually teaching meditation, the therapist should have made a careful assessment of the client’s feelings, hopes, and expectations. Meditation as a sole strategy might merely reinforce that behavior pattern. Scientists and psychotherapists have, for many in our culture, become a type of guru: priests of a technological and secular age.
