Hypnosis and meditation: Towards an integrative science of conscious planes

by Amir Raz (Editor), Michael Lifshitz (Editor)

Overview

Research over the past decade has helped to demystify hypnosis and meditation, bringing these practices into the scientific and clinical mainstream. Yet, while hypnosis and meditation overlap on many levels, few scientific accounts have explored their complementary rapprochement. Despite cultural and historical differences, hypnosis and meditation share common phenomenology, cognitive processes, and potential therapeutic merits. This book provides a synthesis of knowledge concerning the bridging of hypnosis and meditation. The authors adopt a trans-disciplinary approach considering cultural, historical, and philosophical perspectives to elucidate contemporary questions in cognitive, neurobiological, and clinical science. The book explores the relationship between hypnosis and meditation in five progressive sections: Part 1 investigates historical, cultural, and philosophical issues to contextualize the scientific study of contemplative practices. Part 2 presents a range of views concerning the similarities and differences between hypnosis and meditation. Part 3 explores the psychological and cognitive mechanisms at work. Part 4 integrates recent brain imaging findings to unravel the neural underpinnings. Finally, part 5 examines how juxtaposing hypnosis and meditation can enhance clinical applications. Hypnosis and Meditation is a valuable resource to both specialists as well as interested lay readers, and paves the road to a more unified science of how attention influences states of brain, body, and consciousness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191076916
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	04/07/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Professor Raz earned his Ph.D. in Brain Science from the Interdisciplinary Center for Computational Neuroscience at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of the late Professor Shlomo Bentin. He then went on to a post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Michael Posner at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he took on a faculty position thereafter. He then joined the faculty at Columbia University in the City of New York and later became the Canada Research Chair at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Michael is a doctoral student investigating the science of contemplative experience in the Raz Lab at McGill University. His research centers on comparing approaches to the transformation of consciousness - ranging from meditation to hypnosis, placebos, and psychedelics. Working from the vantage of neurophenomenology, Michael aims to synthesize knowledge of various contemplative practices to advance the science of attention, consciousness, and meta-cognition. Michael's work is supported through a Vanier Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and a Mind&Life Institute Francisco J. Varela Research Award. He completed a master's degree in the Integrated Program of Neuroscience at the Raz Lab, and an undergraduate degree with honors in psychology and minors in philosophy and world religions - both at McGill University.

Table of Contents

Foreword, Janet Gyatso
Foreword, Irving Kirsch
Section I - Introduction
1. Contemplative experience in context: Hypnosis, meditation, and the transformation of consciousness, Michael Lifshitz
Section II - Philosophical, historical, and cultural perspectives
2. Thinking about trance over a century: The making of a set of impasses, Anne Harrington
3. Visualization as mental cultivation: Expanding our understanding of meditation, Thupten Jinpa
4. Tranforming experience through Chod: Insights from hypnosis research, Quinton Deeley
5. Varieties of tulpa experiences: The hypnotic nature of human sociality, personhood, and interphenomenality, Samuel Veissiere
Section III - Similarities and differences
6. Hypnosis and meditation: A neurophenomenological comparison, Jelena Markovic and Evan Thompson
7. Hypnosis as self-deception; Meditation as self-insight, Zoltan Dienes, Peter Lush, Rebecca Semmens-Wheeler, Jim Parkinson, Ryan Scott, and Peter Naish
8. Hypnosis and mindfulness: Experiential and neurophysiological relationships, Lynn C. Waelde, Jason M. Thompson, and David Spiegel
9. Meditation: Some kind of (self)-hypnosis? A deeper look, Charles Tart
10. Towards a science of internal experience: Conceptual and methodological issues in hypnosis and meditation research, Vince Polito and Michael H. Connors
Section IV - Cognitive mechanisms
11. Increasing cognitive-emotional flexibility with meditation and hypnosis: The cognitive neuroscience of de-automatization, Kieran Fox, Yoona Kang, Michael Lifshitz, and Kalina Christoff
12. Mind-wandering and meta-awareness in hypnosis and meditation: Relating executive function across states of consciousness, Benjamin Mooneyham and Jonathan W. Schooler
13. Reformulating the mindfulness construct: The cognitive processes at work in mindfulness, hypnosis and mystical states, John Vervaeke and Leonardo Ferraro
14. Absorption in hypnotic trance and meditation, Ulrich Ott
Section V - Neural underpinnings
15. Towards comprehensive neurophenomenological research in hypnosis and meditation, Etzel Cardena
16. Influencing conflict in the human brain by changing brain states, Yi-Yuan Tang and Michael I. Posner
17. A unified theory of hypnosis and meditation states: The interoceptive predictive coding approach, Graham Jamieson
18. Hypnosis, hypnotic suggestibility and meditation: An integrative review of the associated brain regions and networks, William J. McGeown
Section VI - Clinical applications
19. Suggesting mindfulness: Reflections on the uneasy relationship between mindfulness and hypnosis, Michael Yapko
20. Self-transformation through hypnosis and mindfulness meditation: What exactly is being transformed?, Norman Farb
21. Meditative and hypnotic analgesia: Different directions, same road?, Fadel Zeidan and Joshua Grant
22. Hypnosis and mindfulness meditation: A psychoanalytic perspective, Tony Toneatto and Erin Courtice
23. When worlds combine: Synthesizing hypnosis, mindfulness, and acceptance-based approaches to psychotherapy and smoking cessation, Steven J. Lynn, Joseph P. Green, Victor Elinoff, Jessica Baltman, and Reed Maxwell
Section VII - Conclusion
24. Hypnosis and meditation as vehicles to elucidate human consciousness, Amir Raz
Afterword, Dan Brown

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Gary B Kaniuk, PsyD (Cermak Health Services)
Description: This book describes various aspects of hypnosis and meditation, comparing and contrasting them, and presenting the cognitive/neural underpinnings and clinical applications.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide "a synthesis of knowledge bridging hypnosis and meditation," adopting "a trans-disciplinary approach considering cultural, historical, and philosophical perspectives to elucidate contemporary questions in cognitive, neurobiological, and clinical science."
Audience: The book targets both specialists and lay readers. Amir Raz is on the faculty of McGill University and is senior investigator at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, and Michael Lifshitz is a doctoral student at the Montreal Neurological Institute. The contributors represent an international authorship.
Features: An introduction explores the overlap between hypnosis and meditation and follows with a history and description of trance in the past century. The book describes similarities and differences between hypnosis and meditation, noting that absorption or focused attention is common in both practices and both enhance cognitive and neural flexibility. A discussion of the neural underpinnings notes that research suggests that there is a relationship between hypnotic suggestibility and neuroanatomy/functional connectivity. The book discusses a variety of clinical applications while pointing out that it is not easy to put the spiritual practice of mindfulness meditation under a research microscope to see how effective it really is. The authors provide an interesting psychoanalytic understanding of hypnosis and meditation. The book ends with a brief conclusion that both hypnosis and meditation index consciousness.
Assessment: This book compares and contrasts hypnosis and meditation from a number of vantage points. It explores their philosophies and histories, as well as their cognitive and neural foundations. This book will appeal to a general audience, as well as professionals in the field.

Doody's Review Service

"This book compares and contrasts hypnosis and meditation from a number of vantage points. It explores their philosophies and histories, as well as their cognitive and neural foundations. This book will appeal to a general audience, as well as professionals in the field." -Doody's Health Science

From the Publisher