Naikan therapy--an experiential view

Naikan therapy is a form of directed meditation practised in Japan with reported positive effect on some neuroses, psychosomatic disorders and delinquency problems. It aims at reconstructing the client's view of his past in order to reshape his attitudes and behaviours in the present. Experiential research supplements the usual outsider participant observer perspective with personal experience in roles that exist within the setting—in this case the researcher became a patient and then a therapist as well as an outside observer.

Genetic studies among endogamous groups of Saraswats in Western India

Three groups of Saraswat Brahmans in Western India and a group of Goan Catholics ethnologically related to Saraswats were studied for various genetic markers. Saraswats have higher A than B with an Rh(D)-negative incidence ranging from 10 to 17%. All the groups have low incidence of G-6-PD deficiency (up to 1%). Incidence of thalassaemia trait ranges from 1 to 6%. Gm(1) was present in 85-87%. Intergroup differences suggest genetic closeness between the various groups with genetic distance ranging from 0.8 to 1.5. Genetic relationship between Goan Catholics and Chitrapur Saraswats confirms the ethnological and historical evidence of relationship between the two groups.

Meditation and consciousness: an Asian approach to mental health

According to Abhidhamma, a classical Asian phenomenology of consciousness, through meditation a set of "healthy" mental properties reciprocally inhibits an "unhealthy" set. In light of Abhidhamma and empirical findings, applications of meditation are suggested for inducing an optimal mode of responsiveness to environmental demands, and as a complementary adjunct to psychotherapy.

On research in Zen

Zen is one of several mental or spiritual disciplines that have become the object of recent scientific interest and theory. The authors discuss several aspects of Zen, such as the psychophysiological effects of meditation and the general impact of enlightenment, that are potential areas of fruitful research. They stress, however, that researchers can gain true understanding of the different perception and experience of reality to which Zen gives access only by practicing Zen meditation themselves. Without such understanding, the planning and interpretation of research will inevitably be in error and a resource of the greatest potential value misused.

Psychophysiological correlates of meditation

The scientific research that has investigated the physiological changes associated with meditation as it is practiced by adherents of Indian Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, and Zen Buddhism has not yielded a thoroughly consistent, easily replicable pattern of responses. The majority of studies show meditation to be a wakeful state accompanied by a lowering of cortical and autonomic arousal. The investigations of Zen and Transcendental Meditation have thus far produced the most consistent findings. Additional research into the mechanisms underlying the phenomena of meditation will require a shifting from old to new methodological perspectives that allow for adequate experimental control and the testing of theoretically relevant hypotheses.

Psychotherapy in India: past, present, and future

If psychotherapy is defined as "interpersonal method of mitigating suffering" then many psychotherapeutic systems have existed in India a long time. Unlike Western systems, these have lacked a clinical bias but have provided a more global framework. The future of psychotherapy in both East and West lies in discovering a conceptual framework with universal validity within which ad hoc therapies--for symptom relief, personality development, or interpersonal adjustment--can be developed.

Psychiatric sequelae to a civil disturbance

On 13 May 1969, intercommunal rioting broke out between the Malay and Chinese sections of the population of Kuala Lumpur and continued for a full week. Subsequently a state of emergency was proclaimed, parliamentary government was suspended and the country was placed under the rule of the National Operations Council (a council of top ministers, civil servants and the chiefs of the armed forces and police) which ruled by edict.