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The
safety of the Transcendental Meditation Technique (TM)
By Jaan Suurküla M.D. These studies give an especially good idea of the safety of TM. 1.
Clinical observations of pre-psychotic cases learning TM
People in a psychiatrically most fragile state, that is people who are
on the verge of psychosis (so called pre-psychosis), especially shizophrenia
are very unstable. Very small destabilizing influences are required to
precipitate a full psychosis. Therefore they are the most sensitive
indicators of the safety of any mental technique. The psychiatrist Dr. Harold Bloomfield had accidentally found that
some prepsychotic patients improved remarkably due to TM. Therefore he
decided to make a systematic study in order to asses the usefulness of TM as
a preventive measure. On a voluntary basis, pre-psychotic patients at a psychiatric clinic
were referred to a TM-teacher, associated with the clinic, for learning the
technique. A trained TM teacher, a mental health expert and a psychiatrist
worked closely together in the care of the patient including appropriate
adjustments of the technique. The result was that the 22 patients, who volunteered to learn TM,
recovered from the pre-psychosis state. In no case the condition
deteriorated. The need for medication seemed, according to Dr. Bloomfield, to
be lower than for those who did not learn TM. Also his general impression was
that they required shorter in-patient care than those who did not learn TM
(Bloomfield 1974). Comment
Although this was not a scientific study, these clinical observations
by a distinguished specialist provide valuable information. This is because
according to psychiatric experience, very small psychologically disturbing
influences may be sufficient to make such a condition deteriorate into
full-fledged psychosis. If TM would have had even a minor destabilizing
effect, this would have been revealed as a deterioration
in most, if not each, of the cases after learning the technique. 2.
National survey of the occurrence of serious mental problems in meditators
In To be able to estimate the safety it was found out how big each of
these subpopulations was. The occurrence of acute need for psychiatric
inpatient care in each of the subpopulations was then divided with the total
size of the subpopulation. It was compared to the average occurrence of such
problems, which was about 5% in the whole grown up population. During the
enquiry period altogether 335.000 persons were admitted to psychiatric
inpatient care. Results
The study resulted in two remarkable findings. One was for TM and the
other for Sensitivity Training. For other techniques no significant findings
appeared. Among those who had undergone Sensitivity Training there was a
remarkably high occurrence of acute psychiatric disorders compared to the
occurrence in the general population. The National Board of Health and
Welfare decided to recommend that this kind of therapy should not be allowed. For TM a radically opposite situation was the case. At that time about
35.000 people had learnt TM during a period of a few years. Statistically,
the predicted occurrence of mental conditions in meditators requiring
inpatient care was 5% of 35.000 = about 1.700 admissions. However, the inquiry found only eight persons who were subject to 10
admissions during the inquiry period. This means an occurrence of
10/35.000 compared to the expected 1.700/35.000, see the diagram below. Dr.
Jan-Otto Ottosson, Professor of psychiatry and medical councillor of the The
National Board of Health and Welfare, consequently stated that "the
occurrence among (TM) meditators of admissions to in-patient mental care is
thus 150-200 times lower than in the general population."
(Personal Communication 1977).
The National Board of Health and Welfare consequently concluded that
TM was safe. Comment
This exceptionally low occurrence of admissions among TM-meditators is
especially remarkable as, at that time, TM was popular among people who had
mental problems or were in a psychological crisis. Therefore it could have been
expected that the occurrence among meditators of such problems would have
been higher than the average of 1.700 even if TM had not had an adverse
effect. However some people without scientific training have maintained that
nonetheless, TM caused psychosis at least in these ten cases (and actually
made headlines about it in The occurrence of two events in close sequence (temporal connection),
does not necessarily mean that one causes the other (causal connection). Statistical studies of this kind can never prove any causal connection
in individual cases. They can only indicate if there is a larger or smaller
occurrence than expected. The extremely low occurrence of admissions of TM
meditators strongly supports the conclusion that the ten cases were temporally
and not causally connected to TM practice. That is, it was
inevitable, considering the large numbers of TM-practitioners,
that some cases had to happen to fall ill, not because of TM but just
because they were strongly predisposed to do so anyway at this time. To demand that there should not have been a single case of admissions
among meditators, would mean to demand that TM should have prevented all of
the at least 1.700 expected persons to fall ill. - It is highly remarkable
that TM appears to have done so in a considerable number of cases. Thus, to maintain that the occurrence of ten TM cases needing acute
psychiatric care indicates some, though minimal, harmfulness of TM is
scientifically completely unjustified. This result complies well with the observations of Dr. Bloomfield as
it is likely that a significant number of mentally unstable and possibly even
a number of prepsychotic persons were among those who learned TM even though
TM-teachers are instructed to teach such cases only after the consent of the
responsible physician or psychologist (pre-psychotic cases are sometimes able
to hide their problem even to trained professionals). 3. Considerable improvement of an especially unstable mental
condition: ADHD
A recent study reported that School
Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) improved to a
great extent within 4 months of practicing TM, including 50% reduction of
stress level, improved emotional stability and considerable improvement in
the integration of brain function, as indicated by improved EEG coherence in
all EEG frequencies (Grosswald S, 2009), see image below and click on it for
enlargement and explanation:
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