Impact of mantra recital, etc.

[William F. Sands]

Regarding M. Witzel's posting below:

Witzel: His [Benson's] claims therefore should be seriously compared with
those mentioned on the list, whether consisting of just 1 or some 500
studies...


WS: His claims have been seriously compared with others on the list. One
result can be found in the following paper:

Eppley, K., Abrams, A., Shear, J., Differential effects of relaxation
techniques on train anxiety: a meta-analysis, Journal of Clinical
Psychology, vol. 45, 1989, pp. 957-975.

to summarize: 104 trait anxiety studies were  compared. Data was entered on
a large number of variables, such as population, experimental design, demand
characteristics, experimenter's attitude, source of study, duration, hours
of treatment, attrition, pre-test anxiety level, etc. Transcendental
Meditation, other meditation, progressive relaxation, and other relaxation
were compared for all outcomes and all independent outcomes.  Transcendental
Meditation had significantly (p<.005) larger effect size (2 to 3 X) than the
other groups, which were not significantly different among themselves. This
study included  research on Benson's relaxation response.

Very best,

--
William Sands, PhD


From: Michael Witzel <witzel at FAS.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 21:51:14 -0400
Subject: Re: Impact of mantra recital, etc.


Re: Dr.  Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and of the Mind/Body
project
(  http://www.mindbody.harvard.edu/   ) ...

.... I heard it from the H[orse]'s mouth last Friday in a local conf. about
Shamanism.
Benson has no prejudice/preconceived idea about any religion/technique and
has worked with several of them.

His claims therefore should be seriously compared with those mentioned on
the list, whether
consisting of just 1 or some 500 studies...

(The results mentioned by some go squarely against his express stress on
reptetion of *any* syllable/word)

And  (difference in) research methods should be highlighted as well.






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