Willoughby Britton, Jared Lindahl -- Does Meditation Have a Dark Side?
Brown University researchers Willoughby Britton (clinical psychologist) and Jared Lindahl (visiting assistant professor of religious studies) discuss their new study on the wide range of difficult experiences and challenges meditators face, moving beyond the common perception of meditation as purely beneficial.
Deep Dive Analysis
18 Topic Outline
Introduction to Meditation's Unwanted Effects Study
Willoughby Britton's Background and Research Motivation
Jared Lindahl's Academic Path and Study Involvement
Overview of the Varieties of Contemplative Experience Study
Seven Domains of Meditation Difficulties: Sense of Self
Addressing Listener Concerns About Meditation Safety
Factors Influencing Negative Meditation Experiences
Historical Context and Cultural Mismatch of Meditation Goals
Assessing Causality of Meditation-Related Difficulties
Practice Dosage and Intensity vs. Potential Difficulties
The Potential for Loss of Emotional Range
Informed Consumerism for Meditation Practitioners
Need for Enhanced Support Systems and Resources
Meditation Industry's Reaction to the Study
Responsibilities of Meditation App Providers and Coaches
Future Research: Neurobiological Mechanisms and Qualitative Data
Common Misconceptions About Meditation Difficulties
Challenges of Media Representation and Avoiding Twists
5 Key Concepts
Varieties of Contemplative Experience Study (VCE Study)
A research project by Willoughby Britton and Jared Lindahl at Brown University that interviewed 92 meditators and teachers about the wide range of difficult experiences and challenges faced in meditation practice. This study documented 59 categories of experiences across seven domains, challenging the perception of meditation as universally benign.
Influencing Factors (Meditation Difficulties)
These are variables that impact whether a practitioner experiences distress or impairment from meditation, or how they resolve negative experiences. Factors include early life history, medical/psychiatric history, types of practices, social support, relationship with teachers, and health behaviors.
Causality Assessment (Meditation)
A method adapted from regulatory agencies like the FDA and WHO to assess if meditation caused reported difficulties. It uses 11 criteria, such as subjective attribution, temporal proximity, consistency across occasions and people, de-challenge (effects stop when practice stops), and re-challenge (effects return when practice resumes).
Cultural Mismatch (Meditation Goals)
This refers to the discrepancy between the traditional monastic goals of meditation, which might include renunciation or intense equanimity, and the dominant motivations of modern practitioners in the 21st century, who often seek stress reduction, calm, or improved daily functioning.
Interaction-Based Model (Meditation Difficulties)
This framework suggests that meditation difficulties arise from a complex interplay of multiple factors, including aspects of the practice itself and individual practitioner variables. It avoids solely blaming either the practice as inherently dangerous or the individual for their experiences.
8 Questions Answered
The study found 59 categories of difficult experiences reported by meditators, categorized into seven domains (perceptual, affective, somatic, cognitive, motivational, social, sense of self), challenging the perception of meditation as universally benign.
Meditators can experience changes where thoughts or actions don't feel like their own, a feeling of not existing, or a loss of agency, which can be disorienting and impairing if enduring and not under control.
No, the research does not suggest stopping meditation, but rather encourages people to have more respect for the practice's power, be informed consumers, and choose practices and teachers that align with their goals.
Researchers used 11 criteria adapted from regulatory agencies like the FDA, including subjective attribution by practitioners/teachers, temporal proximity, consistency across multiple occasions and people, de-challenge (effects stop when practice stops), and re-challenge (effects return when practice resumes).
While many issues arise in intensive contexts, some difficulties, like re-experiencing traumatic memories or loss of emotional range, can emerge even with lower amounts of daily practice, and individual differences play a significant role.
Practitioners should be informed consumers, understand their goals for meditation, choose a practice and teacher that matches those goals, and be aware that personal history (medical, psychiatric, traumatic) can influence experiences.
Some knowledgeable teachers and clinicians are available, and researchers are working to create referral lists and support groups to help people overcome feelings of isolation and shame associated with negative experiences.
They should have mechanisms to track and report difficulties, provide social support, and ensure coaches are trained to identify specific issues and know when to refer to in-person clinical support.
12 Actionable Insights
1. Choose Practice Wisely
Before starting meditation, reflect on your motivations, goals, and understanding of well-being, happiness, and suffering, then choose a practice, teacher, tradition, and program that aligns with these personal goals to optimize results.
2. Be Aware of Difficulties
Individuals starting meditation should have a basic awareness of the potential range of challenging experiences that can occur, understanding that meditation is not always benign or a ‘warm bath’.
3. Consider Personal History
Practitioners should be aware that their personal history (medical, psychiatric, traumatic) can influence their meditation experiences and may require support beyond what a meditation teacher can provide.
4. Seek Social Support
Cultivate and utilize supportive communities and relationships when engaging in meditation practice, as these provide crucial support for appraising and responding to experiences, especially challenging ones.
5. Normalize Difficult Experiences
If you experience distressing or unusual effects from meditation, understand that you are not alone, it’s not your fault, and these are well-documented experiences, which can counteract feelings of shame and isolation.
6. Join Support Groups
If experiencing meditation difficulties, seek out support groups or communities where you can share your story with others who understand, finding comfort and support in shared experiences.
7. Distance from Transient Self
During meditation, consider taking a stance of distancing or de-identifying with transient thoughts, emotions, and body sensations, as this can be helpful for those overly identifying with certain things and experiencing distress.
8. Match Help to Framework
When difficulties arise, understand the meditator’s framework (e.g., spiritual, psychological) and let that guide where help is sought, to ensure appropriate support and avoid misdiagnosis or ineffective treatment.
9. Avoid Blame, Embrace Complexity
Do not assume meditation difficulties only affect specific groups or blame individuals; instead, recognize that experiences are unique, complex, and result from an interaction between practice and individual factors.
10. Teachers: Know All Difficulties
Meditation teachers should be very familiar with the 59 categories of challenging experiences described in the study’s codebook and be able to identify them to adequately manage or respond to student difficulties.
11. Apps/Teachers: Monitor Proactively
Meditation apps and teachers should implement mechanisms to track difficulties, ask specific, targeted questions (not open-ended ones), and not rely on meditators to voluntarily report negative effects.
12. Teachers: Broaden Experience Base
Meditation coaches and teachers should be aware that their personal experience may not cover the full range of potential difficulties, especially those related to individual differences like trauma history, to ensure comprehensive support.
6 Key Quotes
Most of us, I venture to say almost all of us get into meditation because we want the good stuff. We want to be more calm. We want to be more relaxed. We want to have less stress. We want to be less yanked around by our emotions.
Dan Harris
I think that, you know, the way that the meditation has been marketed has has been similar to kind of a warm bath, very benign and harmless. And I think that, you know, maybe the take home message is to have a little bit more respect for the power of these practices.
Willoughby Britton
The experiences themselves don't necessarily have intrinsic meaning and they're not all intrinsically adverse. Maybe there are a couple of exceptions to this where intense fear, suicidal ideation, these types of things were pretty universally treated as things that need some sort of remedy and it's not something that a practitioner should stay in for a prolonged period of time.
Jared Lindahl
I think that the dominant narrative of this being all good, all positive panacea is a very powerful one and one that, you know, people want that to be true. Then they don't really want to hear that there's another side to the story.
Willoughby Britton
One of the things that I learned about monitoring for adverse effects is that negative effects of treatment are a very different kind of thing than positive effects. And so people are not going to voluntarily tell you when they're having negative effects.
Willoughby Britton
It just pains me to see that people who have already been through so much by being in this research study are being, you know, blamed again. It's, it sort of reminds me of the, you know, Vietnam, uh, vets are like, you know, World War II vets who are blamed for having PTSD when in fact it's, you know, war causes trauma and, and not some kind of personality weakness.
Willoughby Britton