I’m back visiting my son for Thanksgiving in Santa Barbara. The first time I was there, a little over 2 ½ years ago, I wrote Threshold Haiku upon entering his house. Here’s a new haiku, which starts where the previous one ends, inspired by those pillars of jasmine plants.
Late Autumn in Santa Barbara
Pillars of jasmine
Stand dormant for the winter
Waiting to blossom
Ken Chawkin
Santa Barbara
Nov 20, 2018
Associated Press reported on a DoD-funded TM study published November 15, 2018 in The Lancet Psychiatry. The AP report, Meditation helps vets with post-traumatic stress disorder, broke the news. It was picked up in hundreds of news outlets across the country and around the world. It’s the kind of promising good news the press like to report. The Washington Post published this story about the ground-breaking study. So did The New York Times. The Sun published a picture of Maharishi with The Beatles: Meditation techniques used by Beatles in 1960s could benefit veterans with PTSD. The Military Times, Army Times, Marine Times all published the AP story.
Other news services also published encouraging reports. AFP: Meditation helps conflict veterans with PTSD: study, which includes a personal testimonial from one of the subjects. The Hans India and Deccan Chronicle ran the AFP report. The London Economic, TLE: Transcendental meditation ‘could combat post traumatic stress disorder in war veterans’. Helio: Transcendental Meditation as effective as prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD. MedicalResearch.com interviewed Dr. Nidich: Transcendental Meditation May Help Veterans with Resistant PTSD. Will continue to update with other major news reports.
The Lancet Psychiatry included an accompanying editorial by Vernon A Barnes: Transcendental Meditation and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Medscape Medical News reported on the study and quoted from the Barnes editorial: Meditation May Best Gold Standard Therapy for PTSD.
On Jan 3, 2019, APA’s Psychiatric News published this study under Clinical and Research News: Transcendental Meditation May Be as Effective as Exposure Therapy for PTSD.
In the National Center for PTSD, on page 2 of their December 2018 issue of Clinician’s Trauma Update, there is a report on this study: Transcendental Meditation for PTSD, and another one.
MUM Achievements posted this review in their January 27, 2019 • ISSUE 463: New Study on TM and PTSD Published in The Lancet Psychiatry.
Check out this infographic comparing different meditation techniques.
David Orme-Johnson summarized the study on his Facebook page.
Dear Friends,
Today the best study to date on the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM) on PTSD was published in The Lancet Psychiatry, a leading journal in the field. The study compared TM with prolonged exposure therapy (PE), which is the current treatment of choice for treating PTSD. PE involves having the veterans re-experiencing their trauma through remembering and engaging with situations that remind them of it, in the hope that repeated experiencing of the stimuli associated with the trauma will eventually diminish the patients stress responses to them. PE is very painful for the Vets to go through.
The study was a “non-inferiority clinical trial”, meaning that the objective was to see if TM was at least as good as PE. TM was at least as good. Both TM and PE were significantly better than a Health Education (HE) for PTSD patients, with TM more significantly so (TM, p=.0009; PE, p=.041). 61% of those receiving TM showed clinically significant improvements compared to 42% of those receiving PE and 32% of those receiving HE.
Below is a link to an abstract on the journal website.
All the best,
David Orme-Johnson
Nidich, S., Mills, P. J., Rainforth, M., Heppner, P., Schneider, R. H., Rosenthal, N. E., Salerno, J., Gaylord-King, C., Rutledge, T. (2018). Non-trauma-focused meditation versus exposure therapy in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder: a randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Psychiatry, Online First
Federal Government Affairs and Policy Development Leader Stephen Scroggs PhD published on August 29, 2019 this excellent LinkedIn article: Transcendental Meditation Offers Promise as a Clinical Treatment Option for PTSD.
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