What is meditation? What do people hope to get from practicing it and what do they really get? How can the effects of meditation be explained? And what are the best approaches to researching the psychology of meditation so we can understand more? This volume provides state-of-the-art answers to these questions. Contrary to commonly accepted wisdom, meditation comes in huge varieties and the reasons why people begin to meditate (and stay with it) are also numerous and diverse. Even mindfulness, which is often (wrongly) used as a synonym for meditation, comes in many forms. This book first describes the varieties of meditation in detail and then succinctly summarizes the beneficial effects found in the avalanche of studies available, especially in clinical contexts, and also explores recently emerging topics such as negative effects and the impact of ethics and spirituality. The author expertly provides theories of four main traditional meditation approaches, which has never been done before in this form, and gives a critical overview of Western approaches to explain the effects of meditation. In conclusion, he makes recommendations on how to improve future meditation research. This book is of interest to meditation researchers, mental health practitioners, students interested in meditation and mindfulness, and to everybody who seriously wants to know more about the topic.

About the Author
Peter Sedlmeier is Professor of Psychology at the Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany. He mainly teaches research methods and cognitive psychology. Apart from the psychology of meditation, his current areas of interest include intercultural research, time processing, and computer modeling of cognitive and statistical processes. He has had an ongoing meditation practice for more than 20 years, mostly Zen, interspersed with some extended excursions into the Theravada world, and some experience in Yoga meditation and TM.

Reviews
Readers will receive succinct, articulate, well-written supportive data (cited) to help them create an expansive picture of meditation - its forms/types, timeline, and most significantly clinically and scientifically based perspectives and information that I have not seen gathered in one place before.:Nancy Eichhorn, PhD, in Somatic Therapy Today (December 2022); Appreciating the immense work behind such a great product, I believe that Sedlmeier's work has the potential to stand as a high-profile resource for studies in the realm of meditation in psychology. Throughout the book, the author's expertise is evident. This book liberally offers definitions, conceptual theories, and common measurement tools in mediation and mindfulness [and] provides a middle ground between the scientific and traditional approaches to meditation ... a unique and balanced endeavor.; Reviewed by Faly Golshan, Brain Health Lab, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, in British Journal of Psychology, 114 (2023);Readable, rigorous, and well-researched, this book reveals where the field is at today and lays out a roadmap for the research of tomorrow.;Reviewed by Kieran C. R. Fox, PhD, School of Medicine, Stanford University, CA, USA.



Book Information
ISBN 9780889375765
Author Peter Sedlmeier
Format Paperback
Page Count 294
Imprint Hogrefe Publishing
Publisher Hogrefe Publishing