Mindfulness and Trauma: Some Striking Similarities
The traumatic experience and the meditative experience differ in many respects. For instance, it is possible to suggest that while a sense of helplessness is the most important feature of the traumatic experience, meditation does not involve a similar sense of helplessness. Furthermore, while trauma...
| Published in: | Anthropology of consciousness |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
American Anthropological Association
[2018]
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| In: |
Anthropology of consciousness
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| Further subjects: | B
sense of time
B sense of ownership B Sense of self B Mindfulness B sense of agency |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The traumatic experience and the meditative experience differ in many respects. For instance, it is possible to suggest that while a sense of helplessness is the most important feature of the traumatic experience, meditation does not involve a similar sense of helplessness. Furthermore, while trauma is shocking and horrifying, meditation is considered to be constructive and efficient in reducing stress and improving welfare. Yet, with this in mind, by comparing interviews with twelve senior meditators on the one hand and interviews with survivors of traumatic experiences from other qualitative studies of mine on the other, this paper suggests that essentially both phenomena are rooted in the same mechanism: the collapse of the intentional structure. More precisely, in both cases, the intentional structure collapses and, as a result, the gap between Me versus Not-Me diminishes: in that case, one loses the first-personal bodily egocentric perceptive upon the world. |
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| ISSN: | 1556-3537 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Anthropology of consciousness
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/anoc.12086 |