Psychiatry-Meditation Or Medication -That
Is The Question
by Pradeep
Chadha
zone3
In some of the old texts of therapeutic hypnosis, there are
contraindications mentioned to hypnosis. In layman’s language it means
that hypnosis was not recommended for conditions like depression,
psychosis or schizophrenia. The reason given was that hypnosis makes these
conditions worse. There is no literature to reveal why this happened.
Many years ago when I learnt hypnosis, I wanted to know the what, how
and why of this phenomenon. It became evident to me in my work that
meditation and hypnosis had a lot in common. The imagery exercises and the
relaxed state were common to hypnosis as well as meditation. But there was
no literature on meditation that recommended any contraindications.
In my clinical practice, the answers came with many years of work. Many
years ago,a senior professor of psychiatry referred me a case of
schizophrenia. On our first meeting I asked this person, a young lady, to
do ten minutes of breathing exercise daily. Then I did not hear from her
for many weeks. Many weeks later she phoned to tell me that within a week
of doing the breathing exercises, she had become paranoid, despite being
on medication. She had to be admitted in a hospital and her medicines were
increased. I had learnt my first major lesson. Meditation DOES make
schizophrenia worse.
It took me many years to learn the what, how and why it happens. It is
now clear to me that when a person meditates, the body and the mind lose
their tension. As the person starts to relax, the patient starts to feel
and remember events and emotions that were locked up in the body. It is as
if the body and the mind are releasing emotional distress. The release is
also experienced physically, as in depression, for example. It is a
researched fact that when a depressed person relaxes, the symptoms become
worse. Clinically, if the person stays with the experience, the body gets
used to it and the person feels well after sometime.
Psychiatric drugs block the emotions that a person feels.
Antidepressants make a person ‘emotionally anaesthetised’. If the
medication is reduced, the sense of depression usually returns in a few
months. All psychiatric drugs play a similar role. By numbing the
emotions, the thinking and perception of the person are affected. The
‘illness’is said to be ‘controlled’ when this happens. At times drugs
become mandatory especially when the deterioration of the person’s mental
state is irreversible. This happens when the patient loses insight.
Meditation and medication have their own place in psychiatry. Though
not well explored, meditation can effectively prevent psychiatric
conditions to a large extent.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pradeep K Chadha is a psychiatrist who specialises in helping patients
with meditation and imagery using little or no medication. He is the
author of The Stress Barrier-Nature's Way To Overcoming Stress published
by Blackhall Publishing, Dublin. He is based in Dublin, Ireland.His
website address is http://www.drpkchadha.com/
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