4.3 (c): A Model for Clinical Application

[Full title: 4.3: The Practice Method of Dhyāna (c): A Model for Clinical Application]

Considerable data is available, documenting the various biopsychosocial benefits that accrue from the practice of Vipassanā meditation. It indicates the vast the rapeutic potential that Vipassanā has. For instance, many case report studies have been recorded on the positive effects of Vipassanā in different psychosomatic disorders such as chronic pain, headaches, bronchial asthma, hypertension, peptic ulcer, psoriasis, etc., and so also in different disorders including alcoholism and drug addiction. Beneficial aspects of Vipassanā have also been studied in special population groups such as students, prisoners and police personnel, besides individuals suffering from chronic pain and various mental disorders. ^[1]

However healing-not disease cure, but the essential healing of human suffering-is the purpose of Vipassanā. Suffering springs from ignorance of one’s true nature. Insight, truth experiential truth-alone frees one.^[2] “Know thyself” all wise persons have advised. Vipassanā is a practical way to examine the reality of one’s own mind and body to uncover and solve whatever problems lie hidden there, to develop unused potential and to channel it for one’s own good and the good of others.^[3]

All people need healing, most particularly healers. “Physician heals thyself” is a well-known phrase. Freud and Jung insisted that analysts be analyzed. The very vulnerability and compassion that sets the healer on a lifelong journey to heal, coupled to the constant exposure to human suffering, requires a treatment of its own. Vipassanā is acceptable and relevant to healers of diverse disciplines because it is free of dogma, experientially based and focused on human suffering and relief. With its practice, healers are able to deepen their autonomy and self-knowledge, at the same time augmenting their ability to be a professional anchor to others in the tumult of their lives. Vipassanā is verily the path of allhealing, including self-healing and other-healing.^[4]

The clinical utility of Vipassanā is more likely to be in terms of providing a general psychological pattern of positive mental states rather than a response to any particular problem. Generally, the conventional psychotherapies are generated as treatments for the latter. Many therapists,^[5] who are themselves meditators, teach “Anapana” a preparatory step in the training of Vipassanā, to their clients. The clients may be suffering from various neurotic, psychosomatic and personality disorders including addictions, and Anapana is taught as a supplementary form of treatment, with a good clinical response.

Before commencing the formal training in Anapana, the therapist explains to the patient its potential benefits, particularly relaxation. This helps reduce the patient’s apprehension and enables him or her to cooperate and participate actively in the treatment. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that the physical environment is one that will facilitate relaxation; the room should be quiet and free from interruptions and the patient’s couch should be reasonably comfortable.

The patient is asked to lie comfortably on the couch, close his eyes and observe, that is, cultivate awareness, of his respiration at the entrance of his nostrils-whether in-breath or out-breath, deep or shallow, fast or slow; natural breath, bare breath and only breath. When his mind wanders, the patient is asked to passively disregard the intrusion and repeatedly focus his attention on his breath, without getting upset or disturbed about the drift of his mind.

Two things happen. Firstly, his mind gets concentrated on the flow of respiration. Secondly, he becomes aware of the relationship between his mental states and the flow of the respiration that whenever there is agitation in the mind-anger, hatred, fear, passion, etc.-the natural flow of respiration gets affected and disturbed. He thus learns to simply observe and remain alert, vigilant and equanimous.

The patient is advised to continue practising the technique on his own, twice daily-in the morning and in the evening, each session lasting for about thirty minutes. The therapist reviews the progress of his patient from time to time, simultaneously counseling and motivating him to undertake a regular ten-day Vipassanā meditation course. The patient is thus encouraged to continue to strive for his personal autonomy, that is, to take personal responsibility of his own health and well-being.

In short, Vipassanā’s ability to tranquillize the human mind, changing its turbulence to calmness with increased vitality, makes it a positive mental health measure and an excellent human potential development method. The meditator becomes free to live for higher values, richer goals: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and peacefulness. Vipassanā thus leads people from narcissism to mature, social love, to a life of altruists and this personal transformation becomes the catalyst for social change and development.

More scientific research needs to be pursued on the role of Vipassanā, both as a self-regulation strategy for specific psychotherapeutic and psychophysiological aims and as a discipline and way of life for deep self-exploration and transformation. The various psycho-physiological changes with Vipassanā ought to be studied with the aid of modern sophisticated instruments. Also, long term prospective studies on meditators, besides multicentred controlled clinical trials of this technique, need to be conducted to clarify which individual types and health disorders respond to and benefit from the practice of Vipassanā. Such endeavours will make “Health for AW” a more realistic proposition.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

“Vipassana Research Institute: A Reader International Seminar on Vipassana Meditation,” December 1986, Igatpuri, India, 1986, p. 22.

“Vipassana Research Institute: A Reader: Seminar on Vipassana Meditation, Relief from Addictions, Better Health,” November 1989, Igatpuri, India, 1990, p. 185.

“Vipassana Research Institute: A Reader: International Seminar on Vipassana Meditation and Health,” November 1990, Igatpuri, India, 1990, p. 33.

[2]:

Fleischman P.R., “Vipassana Meditation: Healing the Healee” and “The Experience of Impermanence,” Vipassana Research Institute, Igatpuri, India, 1991, 3-15.

[3]:

Hart W., “The Art of Living in Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka,” Harper and Row, New York, 1987, p. 14.

[4]:

Ibid.

[5]:

“Vipassana Research Institute: A Reader: International Seminar on Vipassana Meditation and Health,” November 1990, Igatpuri, India, 1990, p. 187.