INTRODUCTION: The primary aim of this study was to examine the role of patient characteristics in predicting response to treatment in a sample of HIV-positive patients receiving 12 weekly sessions of a CBT-based pain management protocol. METHOD: A pre/post test single group design was used. Pain-related functioning was assessed at baseline and 12 weeks post-treatment using the Pain Outcomes Questionnaire-VA. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: Multivariate regression analysis showed that higher baseline levels of pain-related anxiety were related to greater improvement in pain-related functioning at post-treatment, and non-Caucasian participants reported a greater response to treatment when compared to Caucasian participants. Attendance to CBT treatment sessions focused on progressive muscle relaxation and cognitive reconceptualization of pain were also related to treatment outcome. CONCLUSION: Non-Caucasian patients reporting higher levels of pain-related anxiety may respond particularly well to treatment. Treatment sessions focused on progressive muscle relaxation and cognitive reconceptualization of pain may be particularly helpful.

J Behav Med. 2009 Aug;32(4):340-8. Cucciare MA, Sorrell JT, Trafton JA. Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University School of Medicine, 795 Willow Road (152), Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA. cucciare@hotmail.com

by Bernie Siegel, MD

As doctors we are not trained to communicate and understand the power of our words as they relate to a patient's ability and desire to survive. It is also not only doctors but all the authority figures in our patient's lives that affect their ability to survive and the outcome of their disease. Parents, teachers, clergy and physicians change lives with their words. It is hypnotic for a child or patient to hear an authority figures words. As I am always sharing, wordswordswords can become swordswordswords and we can kill or cure with either words or swords.

Up to the age of six a child's brain wave pattern is similar to that of a hypnotized individual. To quote a woman, whose mother only gave her failure messages and dressed her in dark colors, and who as an adult has more trouble with her mother's words than she does with cancer. "My mother's words were eating away at me and maybe gave me cancer." We know from recent studies that loneliness affects the genes which control the immune system. So as doctors we need to ask the right questions and know what a patient has experienced and is experiencing in their lives. Can you imagine treating Christopher Reeve's wife for cancer without knowing her family history?

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Ligia obtained her B.A. from the University of Miami in Psychology and Religious Studies and a Masters Degree in Religious Studies and Gerontology from Florida International University. She also has a graduate certificate in Loss and Healing from St. Thomas University, a certificate in Thanatology and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Grief Counseling. Besides being a speaker, she is an author, coach, counselor and consultant. She is an adjunct professor of Kaplan University, Florida International University and Miami Dade College where she teaches courses on Ethics, Religion and Death and Dying.

For more information visit www.LigiaHouben.com

The study purpose was to test the effectiveness of a psychological intervention combining cognitive-behavioral therapy and hypnosis (CBTH) to treat radiotherapy-related fatigue. Design: Women (n = 42) scheduled for breast cancer radiotherapy were randomly assigned to receive standard medical care (SMC) (n = 20) or a CBTH intervention (n = 22) in addition to SMC. Participants assigned to receive CBTH met individually with a clinical psychologist. CBTH participants received training in hypnosis and CBT. Participants assigned to the SMC control condition did not meet with a study psychologist. Main Outcome Measures: Fatigue was measured on a weekly basis by using the fatigue subscale of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT) and daily using visual analogue scales. Results: Multilevel modeling indicated that for weekly FACIT fatigue data, there was a significant effect of the CBTH intervention on the rate of change in fatigue (p < .05), such that on average, CBTH participants' fatigue did not increase over the course of treatment, whereas control group participants' fatigue increased linearly. Daily data corroborated the analyses of weekly data. Conclusion: The results suggest that CBTH is an effective means for controlling and potentially preventing fatigue in breast cancer radiotherapy patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

Health Psychol. 2009 May;28(3):317-22. Montgomery GH, Kangas M, David D, Hallquist MN, Green S, Bovbjerg DH, Schnur JB. Department of Oncological Sciences, Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

by Edward J. Longo

Defeat Premature Aging, Gain Physiological Dexterity, Weight Control, and Positive Transformation

Exercising, whether aerobic, or anaerobic, on any level tends to create a mellowing, calming parasympathetic response. It is that natural high that causes the release of endorphins, or natural opiates, to enter the blood stream. Exercise also releases hormones that have been known to slow down, and even reverse the aging process. Combined with deep breathing, even minimal exercise can influence the physical body, thereby preventing it from aging too soon. Physiologically, the person who exercises will eventually become so invigorated it would seem as though an exorcism has actually been performed. Although I am a practicing hypnotherapist I have spent many years using body building methods and developing exercise regimens in the past. Over the years I have incorporated them to inspire my clients to exercise. This logical explanation, while never expressed in writing my new novel before now, was the reason for coming up with the title called EXERCISE / EXORCISM.

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OBJECTIVE: To provide a descriptive overview of the clinical trials assessing meditation practices for health care. DESIGN: Systematic review of the literature. Comprehensive searches were conducted in 17 electronic bibliographic databases through September 2005. Other sources of potentially relevant studies included hand searches, reference tracking, contacting experts, and gray literature searches. Included studies were clinical trials with 10 or more adult participants using any meditation practice, providing quantitative data on health-related outcomes, and published in English. Two independent reviewers assessed study relevance, extracted the data, and assessed the methodological quality of the studies. RESULTS: Four hundred clinical trials on meditation (72% described as randomized) were included in the review (publication years 1956-2005). Five broad categories of meditation practices were identified: mantra meditation, mindfulness meditation, yoga, t'ai chi, and qigong. The three most studied clinical conditions were hypertension, miscellaneous cardiovascular diseases, and substance abuse. Psychosocial measures were the most frequently reported outcomes. Outcome measures of psychiatric and psychological symptoms dominate the outcomes of interest. Overall, the methodological quality of clinical trials is poor, but has significantly improved over time by 0.014 points every year (95% CI, 0.005, 0.023). CONCLUSIONS: Most clinical trials on meditation practices are generally characterized by poor methodological quality with significant threats to validity in every major quality domain assessed. Despite a statistically significant improvement in the methodological quality over time, it is imperative that future trials on meditation be rigorous in design, execution, analysis, and the reporting of results.

J Altern Complement Med. 2008 Dec;14(10):1199-213. Ospina MB, Bond K, Karkhaneh M, Buscemi N, Dryden DM, Barnes V, Carlson LE, Dusek JA, Shannahoff-Khalsa D. University of Alberta Evidence-Based Practice Center, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. mospina@ualberta.ca

by Vincenzo Altepost

The first contemplation is the easiest. Meditation lets us naturally experience a condition of deep peace. A person with problems always has a restless mind. Meditation provides us with a natural, medicine free, experience of calmness. Morning and evening meditation allows us to relax our restless mind at least twice a day. This natural tranquillity makes us gain distance from our problems, which shift to become duties. With a quiet mind, we have a higher capacity to cope with our emotions, being more and more able to face our duties. The quality of the experiencing our own life is influenced by and dependent on our identification mechanism. Our identification depends on our experiences. We tend to identify ourselves in relation to our experiences. Each experience has three aspects:

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Noted artist, author and healer, Ernesto Ortiz has devoted his life to exploring and communicating the language of the heart, primal movement and deep inner spaces. Over the past 25 years, Ernesto has taken thousands of people on a journey from physical and emotional inertia to the freedom of ecstasy, from the chaos of the chattering ego-mind to the blessed emptiness of stillness and inner silence.

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Currently, there are no neurobiological markers of clinical response for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) used in clinical practice. We investigated the neural pattern of activity to implicit processing of sad facial expressions as a predictive marker of clinical response. Sixteen medication-free patients in an acute episode of major depression underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scans before treatment with CBT. Nine patients showed a full clinical response. The pattern of activity, which predicted clinical response, was analysed with support vector machine and leave-one-out cross-validation. The functional neuroanatomy of sad faces at the lowest and highest intensities identified patients, before the initiation of therapy, who had a full clinical response to CBT (sensitivity 71%, specificity 86%, P = 0.029).

Neuroreport. 2009 Mar 31. Costafreda SG, Khanna A, Mourao-Miranda J, Fu CH. Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, De Crespigny Park, London, UK.

Recent research has suggested that a number of environmental factors may be associated with a tendency for susceptible individuals to report mildly anomalous sensations typically associated with "haunted" locations, including a sense of presence, feeling dizzy, inexplicable smells, and so on. Factors that may be associated with such sensations include fluctuations in the electromagnetic field (EMF) and the presence of infrasound. A review of such work is presented, followed by the results of the "Haunt" project in which an attempt was made to construct an artificial "haunted" room by systematically varying such environmental factors. Participants (N=79) were required to spend 50 min in a specially constructed chamber, within which they were exposed to infrasound, complex EMFs, both or neither. They were informed in advance that during this period they might experience anomalous sensations and asked to record on a floor plan their location at the time of occurrence of any such sensations, along with a note of the time of occurrence and a brief description of the sensation. Upon completing the session in the experimental chamber, they were asked to complete three questionnaires. The first was an EXIT scale asking respondents to indicate whether or not they had experienced particular anomalous sensations. The second was the Australian Sheep-Goat Scale, a widely used measure of belief in and experience of the paranormal. The third was Persinger's Personal Philosophy Inventory, although only the items that constitute the Temporal Lobe Signs (TLS) Inventory sub-scale were scored. These items deal with psychological experiences typically associated with temporal lobe epilepsy but normally distributed throughout the general population. Although many participants reported anomalous sensations of various kinds, the number reported was unrelated to experimental condition but was related to TLS scores. The most parsimonious explanation for our findings is in terms of suggestibility.

Cortex. 2009 May;45(5):619-29. Epub 2008 Jun 5. French CC, Haque U, Bunton-Stasyshyn R, Davis R. Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, London, UK.

by Barbara Goulding, RM

I would like to start off by talking about touch healing with Reiki energies. There are various positions used by the healer or practitioner to use in a healing session. Many practitioners would choose to use the touch method as it's more personal and gives the energy a direct contact with the client. The typical session starts out at the top of the client's head and works it's way down the body as directed by the energy needed by the client and sometimes by the practitioner. The typical session lasts 45 minutes for a full body healing session. How long the sessions are would be determined by the practitioner and considering the needs of the client involved. There are sessions that can be done from a chair with the client in an upright position and the healer works at the shoulder level during that session. Other sessions are done on a Reiki or massage table where the client is laying down on their back and the healer works from the top of the head and down the length of the client to the feet. In either case it is up to the client to decide what is most comfortable for them.

I prefer to use the hands-off method of healing as it's good for those who have a fear of another person being in their body space. The energy works with the body's auric system or etheric body and flows to where it is needed most anyway. The healer then works their hands two inches above the client and is guided either by the energies or intuition as to where to move the hands to next. The method does not matter in either case because the healing energies go to where they are needed by the client and that is what is done in all sessions.

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Full Title:The effectiveness of a stress coping program based on mindfulness meditation on the stress, anxiety, and depression experienced by nursing students in Korea.

This study examined the effectiveness of a stress coping program based on mindfulness meditation on the stress, anxiety, and depression experienced by nursing students in Korea. A nonequivalent, control group, pre-posttest design was used. A convenience sample of 41 nursing students were randomly assigned to experimental (n=21) and control groups (n=20). Stress was measured with the PWI-SF (5-point) developed by Chang. Anxiety was measured with Spieberger's state anxiety inventory. Depression was measured with the Beck depression inventory. The experimental group attended 90-min sessions for eight weeks. No intervention was administered to the control group. Nine participants were excluded from the analysis because they did not complete the study due to personal circumstances, resulting in 16 participants in each group for the final analysis. Results for the two groups showed (1) a significant difference in stress scores (F=6.145, p=0.020), (2) a significant difference in anxiety scores (F=6.985, p=0.013), and (3) no significant difference in depression scores (t=1.986, p=0.056). A stress coping program based on mindfulness meditation was an effective intervention for nursing students to decrease their stress and anxiety, and could be used to manage stress in student nurses. In the future, long-term studies should be pursued to standardize and detail the program, with particular emphasis on studies to confirm the effects of the program in patients with diseases, such as cancer.

Nurse Educ Today. 2009 Jul;29(5):538-43. . Kang YS, Choi SY, Ryu E. Department of Preventive Medicine, Institute of Health Science, School of Medicine, Gyeong-Sang National University, 92 Chilam-dong, Chinju 660-751, Republic of Korea.

by Ernesto Ortiz LMT, CST

Bamboo is one of the must multifaceted plants in our planet. It has earned its reputation from its noble and soft appearance as well as its perseverance under harsh conditions. In the Orient, bamboo symbolizes strength, fertility, youth, prosperity and peace.

Bamboo is certainly one of the most versatile plants. It has spiritual, mythological and many practical applications. It is eaten, used in home construction and decoration, as well as for the creation of utensils and herbal remedies.

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Although the systematic study of meditation is still in its infancy, research has provided evidence for meditation-induced improvements in psychological and physiological well-being. Moreover, meditation practice has been shown not only to benefit higher-order cognitive functions but also to alter brain activity. Nevertheless, little is known about possible links to brain structure. Using high-resolution MRI data of 44 subjects, we set out to examine the underlying anatomical correlates of long-term meditation with different regional specificity (i.e., global, regional, and local). For this purpose, we applied voxel-based morphometry in association with a recently validated automated parcellation approach. We detected significantly larger gray matter volumes in meditators in the right orbito-frontal cortex (as well as in the right thalamus and left inferior temporal gyrus when co-varying for age and/or lowering applied statistical thresholds). In addition, meditators showed significantly larger volumes of the right hippocampus. Both orbito-frontal and hippocampal regions have been implicated in emotional regulation and response control. Thus, larger volumes in these regions might account for meditators' singular abilities and habits to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability, and engage in mindful behavior. We further suggest that these regional alterations in brain structures constitute part of the underlying neurological correlate of long-term meditation independent of a specific style and practice. Future longitudinal analyses are necessary to establish the presence and direction of a causal link between meditation practice and brain anatomy.

Neuroimage. 2009 Apr 15;45(3):672-8. Luders E, Toga AW, Lepore N, Gaser C. Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7334, USA.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Although the literature on complementary therapy, including music, is vast, there are few studies conducted in a scientific fashion exploring physiologic mechanisms. This review summarizes recent evidence on the effects of music on the hypermetabolic response of critical illness. RECENT FINDINGS: Music may restore some of the distorted homeostasis observed in ICU patients, as well as reducing pain and the need for sedation. Music likely reduces alterations in the hypothalamic-anterior pituitary-peripheral hormone axes that produce cortisol and growth hormone. Music may also increase growth hormone levels, which can induce decreased production of cytokines such as IL-6 by white blood cells. Further, ovarian steroid secretion may paradoxically protect women by increasing baseline circulating stress hormones, providing an opportunity for music therapy to intervene effectively. Dopaminergic neurotransmission has been implicated as a means by which music can modulate the central nervous system. SUMMARY: Music may play an important role as an adjunct therapy in critical care. However, further studies are necessary to elucidate how music can be further integrated clinically and the precise underlying mechanisms of its beneficial effects.

Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2008 Nov;11(6):790-4. Nelson A, Hartl W, Jauch KW, Fricchione GL, Benson H, Warshaw AL, Conrad C. Tufts University, School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

by Deidre Madsen, OM

TGI (TRANSFORMATIONAL GUIDED IMAGERY) = QUANTUM ENERGETICS - TODAY'S HEALING TOOL OF CHOICE!

Are you ready to become pain-free? Do you suffer from any of the following?

Body Aches and Pains
Deep-Set Fears
Withdrawing from the World
Emotional Unbalance
Dis-ease
Menopause and Peri-Menopause
Emotional Scarring
Childhood Traumas
Confused or Overwhelmed in Life
Addictions
Lost and Abandoned
Out of Balance or Out of Sync with Life
Phobias
Unchecked or Out-of-Control Anger
Traumatic Loss and Grief
Depression
Disconnected from Self/Spirit/Soul
Other? Fill in the blank _________

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by Tim Brunson DCH

Transformation is the act of nullifying dysfunctional or unwanted patterns and replacing them with functional and desired ones. For transformation to occur, both processes must be considered. One without the other will assure failure. For instance, the strength of neuro-physiological patterns related to smoking must first be disempowered. Then the clinician or a person doing self-treatment will quickly notice that the opportunity for success will be greatly improved when they replace them with more powerful ones having a more pronounced emotional/feeling intensity. Indeed, neurophysiologists specializing in Transcranial Magnetics (TCM) realize that the virtual lesions that they create in the brains of their virtual patients will quickly get filled in by surrounding neurons or brain functions (Walsh & Pascual-Leone, 2003). Likewise, when an unwanted neuro-physiological pattern loses its strength there is a natural tendency for it to reappear – or be replaced with another dysfunctional one such as overeating – should it not be quickly replaced with a stronger one of the subject's choosing.

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The neural mechanisms underlying the antinociceptive effects of hypnosis still remain unclear. Using a parametric single-trial thulium-YAG laser fMRI paradigm, we assessed changes in brain activation and connectivity related to the hypnotic state as compared to normal wakefulness in 13 healthy volunteers. Behaviorally, a difference in subjective ratings was found between normal wakefulness and hypnotic state for both non-painful and painful intensity-matched stimuli applied to the left hand. In normal wakefulness, non-painful range stimuli activated brainstem, contralateral primary somatosensory (S1) and bilateral insular cortices. Painful stimuli activated additional areas encompassing thalamus, bilateral striatum, anterior cingulate (ACC), premotor and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. In hypnosis, intensity-matched stimuli in both the non-painful and painful range failed to elicit any cerebral activation. The interaction analysis identified that contralateral thalamus, bilateral striatum and ACC activated more in normal wakefulness compared to hypnosis during painful versus non-painful stimulation. Finally, we demonstrated hypnosis-related increases in functional connectivity between S1 and distant anterior insular and prefrontal cortices, possibly reflecting top-down modulation.

Neuroimage. 2009 May 19. Vanhaudenhuyse A, Boly M, Balteau E, Schnakers C, Moonen G, Luxen A, Lamy M, Degueldre C, Brichant JF, Maquet P, Laureys S, Faymonville ME. Coma Science Group, Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Belgium.

by Ligia M. Houben, MA,CT,CG-C,ACCP, CH

In life we encounter many transitions. Some of them involve losses and therefore grief. But....what is grief? It is the expression of our suffering when someone or something dear to us is no longer at our side. So what happens to us? Is it normal to grieve? For how long? Although I would like to tell you exactly how long your grief will last....I can't....each person has his or her own "clock" and each grieving process is unique. What I can tell you is that your attitude toward what has happened to you can really make a difference in your life and the lives of others.

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Dr. Siegel, who prefers to be called Bernie, not Dr. Siegel, was born in Brooklyn, NY. He attended Colgate University and Cornell University Medical College. He holds membership in two scholastic honor societies, Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha and graduated with honors. His surgical training took place at Yale New Haven Hospital, West Haven Veteran's Hospital and the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. He retired from practice as an assistant clinical professor of surgery at Yale of general and pediatric surgery in 1989 to speak to patients and their caregivers.

In 1978 he originated Exceptional Cancer Patients, a specific form of individual and group therapy utilizing patients' drawings, dreams, images and feelings. ECaP is based on "carefrontation," a safe, loving therapeutic confrontation, which facilitates personal lifestyle changes, personal empowerment and healing of the individual's life. The physical, spiritual and psychological benefits which followed led to his desire to make everyone aware of his or her healing potential. He realized exceptional behavior is what we are all capable of.

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by C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D.

In 1973 when I met Jack Schwartz, one of the best known intuitives of that time, he introduced me to his I.S.I.S, a pair of half egg-shaped eye cups with blinking lights, alternating left to right. Jack assured me that using these flashing light goggles regularly would enhance one's ability to see the human "aura." He had arranged frequencies in the beta, alpha, theta and delta range. I bought a dozen devices and had an electronic expert convert them to simultaneous flashing for both eyes, as I recognized the potential benefit for deep relaxation in my chronic pain and very stressed patients.

Over the next few years I explored a wide variety of methods of applying the photostimulator and in 1975 I encountered the Schneider Brain Wave Synchronizer (BWS), introduced in the early 50's. There were half a dozen articles from that decade on the benefits of BWS on labor, decreased need for anesthesia in surgery, and even on lowering blood pressure. Nothing had been published since those days, as tranquilizers had taken over! Incidentally, the BWS was developed to assist hypnotherapists induce a trance.

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The growing acceptance of consciousness as a legitimate field of enquiry and the availability of functional imaging has rekindled research interest in the use of hypnosis and suggestion to manipulate subjective experience and to gain insights into healthy and pathological cognitive functioning. Current research forms two strands. The first comprises studies exploring the cognitive and neural nature of hypnosis itself. The second employs hypnosis to explore known psychological processes using specifically targeted suggestions. An extension of this second approach involves using hypnotic suggestion to create clinically informed analogues of established structural and functional neuropsychological disorders. With functional imaging, this type of experimental neuropsychopathology offers a productive means of investigating brain activity involved in many symptom-based disorders and their related phenomenology.

Trends Cogn Sci. 2009 Jun;13(6):264-70. Epub 2009 May 8. Oakley DA, Halligan PW. Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK; School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, UK.

Full Title: EEG dynamics of experienced Zen meditation practitioners probed by complexity index and spectral measure.

Changes in the electroencephalogram (EEG) characteristics in experienced Zen meditation practitioners (n = 23) during 40 minutes of meditation were compared with those in the matched controls (n = 23) taking a rest for 40 minutes. Averaged complexity index ([image omitted] ) evaluation and spectral analysis were measured in three intervals: the first, middle and the last 5-min segments of Zen meditation or relaxing rest. Significant increase in frontal alpha-1 (8-10 Hz) and occipital beta power was found during meditation as compared with the EEG under the rest, whereas an average increase of theta power was observed in the controls. In meditation, brain dynamics exhibited high [image omitted] , which correlated with more beta activity. Control subjects showed no significant change in [image omitted] level. This distinction became more significant during the last 5 minutes of meditation over most electrodes. Deeper meditation state has been reported as having implications of increased beta power that can be more prominent by the approach of [image omitted] estimation. Our results substantiate the idea that long-term training with Zen-Buddhist meditation induces changes in the electro-cortical activity of the brain.

J Med Eng Technol. 2009;33(4):314-21. Huang HY, Lo PC. Department of Electrical and Control Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China. hsuany.ece88g@nctu.edu.tw

Original Title: Pediatric oncologists' views toward the use of complementary and alternative medicine in children with cancer.

Pediatric oncology patients commonly use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), yet approximately only 50% of these patients discuss CAM with their oncologist. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to assess barriers to CAM communication in pediatric oncology. DESIGN/METHODS: A 33-question survey was sent via electronic mail to 358 pediatric oncologists in the United States. RESULTS: Ninety pediatric oncologists completed the survey. Ninety-nine percent of pediatric oncologists think it is important to know what CAM therapies their patients use. However, less than half of pediatric oncologists routinely ask their patients about CAM. This is primarily because of a lack of time and knowledge. Many physicians think some forms of CAM may improve quality of life, such as massage (74%) and yoga (57%). Over half of physicians thought that dietary supplements, herbal medicine, special diets, vitamins, and chiropractic might be harmful to patients. CONCLUSIONS: Pediatric oncologists believe it is important to know which CAM therapies their patients use; however, they are not asking about them owing to lack of time and knowledge. To improve communication about CAM, increased physician education is needed. In addition, physicians should identify patients using potentially harmful CAM therapies. Furthermore, CAM research in pediatric oncology should focus on those modalities physicians believe may improve patient quality of life.

J Pediatr Hematol Oncol. 2009 Mar;31(3):177-82. Roth M, Lin J, Kim M, Moody K. Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital at Montefiore, Bronx, NY 10467, USA. mroth@montefiore.org

In this article, we describe the clinical applicability of loving-kindness meditation (LKM) to individuals suffering from schizophrenia-spectrum disorders with persistent negative symptoms. LKM may have potential for reducing negative symptoms such as anhedonia, avolition, and asociality while enhancing factors consistent with psychological recovery such as hope and purpose in life. Case studies will illustrate how to conduct this group treatment with clients with negative symptoms, the potential benefits to the client, and difficulties that may arise. Although LKM requires further empirical support, it promises to be an important intervention since there are few treatments for clients afflicted with negative symptoms. (c) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol: In Session 65: 1-11, 2009.

J Clin Psychol. 2009 Mar 6;65(5):499-509. Johnson DP, Penn DL, Fredrickson BL, Meyer PS, Kring AM, Brantley M. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.