…wrong method of meditation?
Can meditation make mental illness worse or cause it in some cases?
Good question. Dr. Chopra was still traveling last I heard. I would be interested to hear his opinion.
Apparently it can go both ways. The right kind of meditation in the right amount can be used to treat certain mental illnesses, and some practices can make some conditions worse. I would guess that practices that have a calming effect on the neurology are generally safer than practices involving visualizations or strong emotions.
Mindfulness meditation has been used successfully to treat depression, but there have been a few cases of patients getting worse (whether correlation implies causality or not is probably TBD…but just like different people reacting differently to same medication, people are probably likely to have individual reactions to meditation too). Visualization practices are probably not a good idea to use on people with schizophrenia, but some practitioners suspect that people with mild schizophrenia can probably be stabilized with the right practices.
My guess is that a prudent precaution for anyone who has, or might be developing, mental health problems, would be to get OK from mental health care practitioner first, and practice under supervision.
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Deepak Chopra 4 years ago.
