Scientific meditation research study / Master's thesis. The effects of meditation on the different aspects of well being and self view.

Dear Friends,

Your help is needed.

For my master’s thesis at the Vienna University, department for clinical and health psychology, I am carrying out a study on meditation.

The aim of the study is to investigate the effects of the meditation practice on different aspects of psychological well being and self-view.

This is an anonymous online study in English. Meditators and Nonmeditators are required for this study. This study will take around 15min. It would be very helpful if you can support me in filling out the questions.

Below the link to the study: https://www.soscisurvey.de/Selbstbild2022/

Many thanks for your support🙏❤️

Kind regards,

Max

 Hi Maxxu,  I'll open up some more because I like the way you talk - not looking for advice but happy to engage with you.  Forgive me as I wish to give some advice of my own but again because I like the way you speak and want to help.  My take is no doubt bias but could still help. Who is not bias ... perhaps that is our purpose to deal with such things. Any ways:

Nice to meet you. I won't wish you success (🙂) given your findings with such an ideal to which I have come to the same conclusion.  That said I find those terms always creeping back into my speech which says more about our conditioning.  Education is where it begins.   That said, I do wish you all the best with your personal endeavors.  I apologize that I am unable to fill out the questionnaire.  May I ask, did you design that questions?  I understand you will have to read many text books and give back answers to show that you have read everything and then be expected to repeat everything back in the order it was delivered; more or less  I hope that when you become a psychologist that you will develop your own understanding towards helping others rather than relying on those textbooks. I've been on the other side of psychology full time most of my life and I can tell you those practicing whatever whom rely on such findings to questionnaires and the text books that are altered to keep up with them do not end up being much help to those that really need it; those often being the true cost of other peoples success.  Jump through the hoops to be sure, I'm just saying that in my extensive gutter education that your not going to get the answers to helping those who become the by product of success (" money and sucess in career did not makes me a happy person") - and I agree for the my disclosed reasons.

It's all exciting when still at an age to soak all that excess of information up with all kinds of systematical approaches that can be called upon now having all the answers ... how tall, how heavy, what diet, what country, what demographic and so on.  Eventually you will find yourself unlearning it all so that you can actually be of help instead of just being a repeater in system where people are taught to respond.  Conditioned people make for easy clients in a conditioned workplace endorsed with conditioned practitioners who hang their conditioned certificates proudly of a conditioned wall.  Good working conditions - eh ... don't become one of those.  Do jump through the hoops but if you actually want to make a difference ... be prepared to buck the system.  Ensure you at the very least become a clinically approved (although you'll have to work harder to come up with your own way of helping people which again will see you unlearning much of it all)  ... is often the same with many professions, but 100% the case with and in the healing industrial zone.  Anything under clinically registered will see you also being churned up in a system as much as the byproduct you end up with.  Trust me I know.  General Practitioners (GP's) can practically overwrite a registered psychologist's hard work with a tick and flick.  Most of your supporting letters will not get the reignition they deserve.   So may times I have had that conversation with therapists who meant a lot to me.  If you manage to work your up to being clinically registered you will not have to sign off with specialists that are taught to fix people problems to type of medication and dose. You will be less restricted and more able to work with diagnoses according to the both the so called science and eventually and more important your experience and the skill you develop in listening to clients.  The latter way way more important that 'How Tall' - 'How Fat' and so on.  

I'm not suggesting science does not help, but your entering into a marketing industry that does way more damage than it does good.   Burn out rates are high when resisting the pressure to simply become a BOT to which you yourself seem to regonsize having read another post of yours elsewhere in the forum.  It's all sunshine and roses with accolades until someone actually wants to help within such great working conditions base on finely tuned programming. Yadda yadda ...   

I'm gladdened that you feel the way you do with all things excess and success.  I feel the same way too.  It's a hard pattern to break given the amount of focus on abundance and bliss.  Regrettably for me I find the wellness community to be as fallibly as the medical industry.  For this reason I rarely fit in and in most cases pushed to the side.  In fact I don't know how long I will last here but thus far have kept my posts pretty tame.  People run from discomfort as much as they are taught to reject negative feelings.  I also struggle to play along with social expectation or give way to peer pressure.  I've been kind of blessed with a very unique background that will ensure if there is such a thing as 'coming back' that I will be better prepared.  Actually that might negate the purpose of living at all where again the focus on making people accountable for both purpose and contribution equates to the same fallibility as excess and success. This be often be where the by-product of such conditioning are pressured to fit-in or be rejected as no more than undesirable states of low vibrations.  Alas this is how we end up with an imbalance with cliché answers -  It's all sunshine and roses from there.  🙂

My experience ... although I have to head out on my push bike to better focus later on.

The last 10 years since 2012 I have literally had close to one hundred and fifty psychotherapy sessions. Maybe more since I started having more of them.  I started my psychotherapy sessions to the tune of once every six weeks on a government subsidized plan.  Later this was changed to once every four weeks and then about three years ago when attacked in a road rage incident I ended up getting funding to meet with a psychologist once a week for over a year.   Now we have gone back to once every two weeks.  It's worth noting during this time I was attending with regularity as someone that knows how to make his sessions work.  Due to my previous experience before this last decade I had actually already had couple of previous decades in the system with a very complex story.  I did not receive my certificates (chuckles at that) labels which you wont find hanging on some wall, until I was in my 40s.  

You know I'd love to continue filling you in within the context of your propose vocation ... which Kudos to you ... sounds like it really is a vocation.  

But I really need to start cycling and grab some sun before it gets to high.  Catch up with another friend in the flesh who like me is often on the receiving end of your intended profession.  Unfortanley he tends to end up on it involutory.  Probably the biggest difference between me and him, but I respect the guy because I understand.  His mother recently dispatched herself tragic end which ended in a ball of flames.  The extend to which I extrapolate meaningful information is often rejected and banned in many places because it includes challenging information that makes the conditioned feel uncomfortable and thus termed as negative.  

I tend to like journaling.  Not sure how long I will be here. 

I'm at a cross roads myself and being mindful as can be with such revelations.   

I go get be some of that stuff for free that awaits out my front door and hope maybe we can chat another time but understand if too much.

Again ... wishing you all the very best.  Seems to be me you have nailed those terms that fail on so many. 

If you read any of my other posts you might note that my Dad hails from Singapore and lives in Australia.  He used to be a psychiatrist and work at one of the local mental health hospitals.  I could say Step Dad but not into that lingo.  He did his best.  At any rate he gave up psychiatry because the church we were all attending way back then. (Assembly of God during the 70s during a extreme period of evangelical tents popping up all over the country courtesy of America) Basically he was told/conditioned and agreed that psychiatry was the work of demons doing their bidding for Lucifer.  He become a GP in a country practice.  We kids were all shipped off to various homes for troubled children.  That's kind of that in a nutshell. The movies (projectors) they showed at church with people getting their heads chopped off if they did not take the mark of the best did not help.  They were pretty weird times that I don't think today's generation would know about if people like me did not write about them.  At least in terms of those kind of cults.

Just saying I got plenty of experience when it comes to psychotherapy. 🙂

Righto ... three smiley faces is enough for today and we don't want to traumatize anyone reading. hehe. 

Maybe catch up later?

Have a good evening/afternoon and all that. 

later... you can call me: 
~ Dave. 

Hey Maxxu - just letting you know I got your message and wanted to encourage you to try again.  It sucks when making a post and it not going through.  

I'm confident in what I say but will leave a link to a space I just paid for where I will take up less space.  I just want to reiterate what I said in PM by saying out here in the main, I think your going to make a great psychologist.  🙂

I'll check back in the event you manage to get a response through.  If not all good.  Just continue to use PM.  I doubt my presence and essence will make many connections here.  That's got nothing to do with self esteem.  On the contrary ... more a case of how I feel very passionate in all that I say.  I've pretty much reconciled with my family all round.  It's out my front door and in society that most of my family are met with resistance.  We do pretty good and utilize services in a effective way.  

Take care and all that ... really hope you get in a response before I go.

I'll pm that link as well as leave in the mental health section.  If this place had a journal sections I'd probably stay.  Funny how the universe works.  I kind of figured I'd just be passing through. 😉 

 Dear Dave,

Nice to meet you too

First of all thank you for sharing your experience with me.

Let me begin with answering your question about the study. I did not create the questions by myself. The questions are a collection of validated questions from different universities working on the field psychological well beings, social psychology, and mindfulness research. The two questions about the body weight and size are just control questions, only to check if the study result for self-view has influenced by the body size or not.

I agree with you that the textbooks are not sufficient to put someone in a position, that he or can really be a help of others. Also the certificates do not say anything. For me it is just a door opener. I secretly hope that the combination of my formal education as psychologist and my meditation practice and the teaching of my teachers can get me somedays in a position, where I can be really of help for my fellow. But it is still a good way to go

I am very sad to hear that you had bad experience with the people in the field. I can imagine that this makes the life even harder as it already is. It puts people in a helpless situation. And this is a situation, one can hardly  imagine, if not experienced by him/herself. Instead of being helped, one just loose the confidence and think, even the specialist cannot help me in that situation. I think like every occupation, they are good and bad practioners. It is important not to give up. I really do wish, that finally you will meet the right person, who is able to help you. I would be happy if we can stay in touch.

I hope you had a nice time cycling and enjoying the sun 🤠.

All the best🙏☘️

Max

You are most welcome and thank you for answering.  It does not happen often, but your nailed if to me.  That's exactly how the game is played.  

I appreciate the condolences.  Warmly received.  TY.  Allow me before I take my final leave to acknowledge those moments that made a positive impact on me.  I'll just say there was good experiences were good people in the field that made for good synergy.  Rapport is an art in a conveyor belt society that is a mutual experience that goes far beyond the scope of the written word.   

I struggle with words using more than most people can digest but that's OK.  I like taking the time to find mindful ones and care with how I hold each thought that comes from such things.  I will most likely continue being my own audience in a ... naval gazing ... capacity.   I'll just be sure to take my head out of my bum at the end of each session and reengage with those I love.  Humor is something I find helpful yet given that ferocity at which many authors and influences write about things, I do beleive this world is beyond repair.  That's why fixing and curing are as shallow as profiling.  However ... Sharing ... that's entirely another thing. 

Thanks for doing that so well.   I left a trail in PM without expectation as fading is also ok.  Some of the best experiences are those that come and go.   Attachments can quite limiting.   I only continually engage with the people where it's naturally mutual as opposed to economically driven.  As soon as it becomes about personal gain I'll naturally gravitate away.   This new space I found whilst not devoid of said algorithm is much is less about the profiling.  Less selling, promoting but to be sure a lot of outpouring which is find by me. 

Anyways ... have left contact details and pleased to say It was nice to make a real connection.

Thanks for the well wishing ... I go look at my naval now and make my first post. 

Peace be with you and yours.

~ Dave.