2 main categories of meditation
- concentration meditation - focus on 1 stimuli (image, breath..)
goal - engance focus - awareness meditations - cearefully explore the ongoing flux of moment-to-moment experience.
goal is to cultivate clear sensitive awareness and to use it to explore the nature of mind and experience.
breath meditation
relax in a comfy position and focus on ur breathing. count breaths from 1 to 10 but start from the beggining when distracted
acceptance is aboout
a) accepting your circumstances and future,
b) accepting internal experience in this very moment
b) (and then moving on)
what is the Goal of ACT
Increase psychological flexibility to:
(1) effectively deal with suffering
(2) lead a meaningful life
5 issues that came with the success of comtemplative practices
- Mindfulness ≠ entirety of contemplative practices,
- Contemplative practices are part of a holistic context, when practiced in isolation its more accessible but less benefitial
- Contemplative research tends to focus on easily measurable outcomes
- contemplative therapies aimed to benefit oneself and others, driven by compassion and altruism, today overlooked
- professionals are rushing to become contemplative therapists without adequate training and experience, risking ineffective integration into psychotherapy practice
consciousness
contemplative psych dont consider our waking state as optimal, more effective states can be acessed via training (waking dream)
motivation
metamotives—such as self-actualization, self-transcendence, and self- less service
name 3 stages of human development
peripersonal, personal, transpersonal
transpersonal experiences
state of consciousnes in which individuals sense of self expands beond the personal or individual to encompas wider aspects of existence such as interconectedness with others the world, even the cosmos
identity
through conteplative training individuals recognize deep identity which has 3 aspects
1. recognition of oneself as blissful pure consciousness
2. is the recognition that all people possess this same consciousness, that we are united with them, and care for them
3. our self-concepts and images and all the constructs created by them are artificial
what higher capacities (5) can contemplative practices foster
- emotional transformation
- cognitive advancement
- motivational redirection
- calming the mind
- development of wisdom
3 root causes of suffering
delusions, cravinns and aversion
visualization excercise
visualize an image of a black ring with a black dot in the middle on a white background. Make the image as clear as you can, and try to hold the image clear and stable for one or two minutes. If you become distracted, recreate the image and continue to try to hold it steady
What are the stages of practice (process of psychotherapy) 6
Stage 1 - recognizing how little control we have over attentional/cognitive processes
Stage 2 - recognizing habitual patterns
Stage 3 - investigation psychological processes (eg. thoughts, motivation, perception)
Stage 4 - emergence of variety of exceptional abilities
Stage 5 - transpersonal experiences —> produces identification with others and compassionate concern
Stage 6 - stabilization —> peak experiences become plateau and transient capacities become permanen
What are the 4 mechanisms of psychotherapy
- Calming the mindmeditation does this by creating a relaxation response
- Enhanced awareness internal observation and watchfulness of the moment
- Disidentification = process by which awareness precisely observes and therefore ceases to unconsciously identify with mental content such as thoughts/feelings —> instead of identifying with a thought, he recognize it as merely a thought
- Rebalancing mental element; increase healthy and decrease unhealthy mental content categories
What 4 exceptional abilities that arise because of contemplative practices does growing research offer support for
- Attention and concentration
- Emotional maturity
- Equanimity (= capacity for maintaining calm and mental equilibrium in the face of provocative stimuli)
- Moral maturity
What are 7 important parts of contemplative treatment
a
- Ethical behavior, say only what’s true and what is helpful
- Transforming emotions: use wise attention to cultivate beneficial emotions
- Transforming motivation: explore the experience of crowing
- Develop concentration and calm: do one thing at a time
- Cultivate awareness
- Develop wisdom: reflect on our mortality
- Generosity and service: transform pain into compassion
seven central kinds of practices to cultivate corresponding qualities of mind and behavior.
- Ethics; unethical behavior stems from and strengthens destructive qualities of mind; ethical behavior does the opposite
- Emotional transformation; reducing problematic emotions and cultivate positive emotions
- Redirecting motivation along healthier paths
- Training attention; essential for psychological well-being and maturation
- Refining awareness by making perception (internal and external) more sensitive and accurate
- Wisdom; deep, nuanced insight and understanding of oneself and the issues of life + practical skills of responding effectively/benevolently
- Altruism and service as a means to and an expression of psychological well-being and maturity``
What are the 6 components of the model of ACT
a
- Acceptance vs experiential avoidance = opening up to difficult feelings
- Defusion vs fusion = relating differently to unhelpful thoughts, seeing them as what they are; just words
- Present moment awareness vs lack of contact with the present = bringing your attention to the here and now both inner and outer world
- Self as context vs self as content = using the part of yourself that can observe your thoughts, feelings and sensations
—> these are mindfulness skills- Values vs lack of contact with values = knowing what is important to you, how you want to spend your time
- Committed action vs inaction, impulsivity or avoidance = taking action guided by your values, despite difficult thoughts or feelings
—>** these are commitment skills**
What are the assumptions of classic CBT vs contemplative
CBT;
- symptoms are a problem
- change thoughts, feelings and behavior change accordingly
- goal; reduce symptoms
- focus on content of thoughts
Contemplative;
- suffering is part of normal life
- controlling thoughts and feeling increases suffering —> instead of focusing on changing thoughts, it focuses on accepting them
- goal: work toward life goals
- focus on process of thinking
Acceptance
= willingness to allow feelings and thoughts, accepting inner experience in this very moment and then moving on —> not avoid, control, judge, pull away
What are 5 central assumptions of contemplative psychologies
- Our usual state of mind is significantly uncontrolled, underdeveloped and dysfunctional (bad news)
- The full extent of this “normal” dysfunction goes unrecognized for two reason; we all share this dysfunction and it is self-masking (= it distorts awareness and conceals itself)
- This mental dysfunction creates much of our psychological suffering
- Contemplative practices can be used to train/develop the mind (good news)
- These claims can be tested for oneself
What two things are contemplative psychologies based on?
Bad news; ordinary state of mind is less controlled, developed and functional then we recognize, results in suffering
Good news; we can train/develop our minds, results in mental capacities, well-being and maturity
