Hi Don!

Thanks so much for your insightful comment. You bring valid points, and this makes me realize that I definitely should acquire more knowledge on the subject. I totally wasn’t aware that mindfulness was an effective technique to deal with borderline personality disorder, in fact I’ve always heard that BPD was extemely hard/impossible to treat!

To be clear, I do think that meditation can help with mental health issues, and perhaps in some cases, even be curative. As I’m not a trained psychologist/doctor though, I err on the side of caution when teaching. I’ve seen people come to meditation classes looking to “cure” their depression to get off their meds, and that’s a big no-no for me. But you’re right, a lot of people, including those with mental health issues, can benefit immensely from meditation practice. That’s why we teach it, don’t we? 🙂

I’ve added Siegel’s book to my to-read list. Thanks for the recommendation.

By the way, I’ve just taken a look at your website : I love the breathing videos (and I must say I’m biased towards Pachelbel’s Canon).

Thanks again for your comment, and happy to meet a fellow TMI teacher 🙂

I was not sure of the validity of your case (in fact, mindfulness is one of the core skills taught in what remains the best – or one of the two best – treatments for one fo the most serious psychiatric illnesses (often more recalcitrant than schizophrenia) borderline personality disorder.

But toward the end you gave an important caveat – that meditative practices can be very powerful when used by trained mental health workers in conjunction with other approaches. Yes, that makes sense and actually fits with my experience (I’m a clinical psychologist with more than 20 years experience, and 42 years of a regular sitting practice).

I quite frequently recommend patients with serious mental issues to refrain from meditation practice and focus on very practical things. But sometimes such patients need mindfulness, but absolutely as only part of a rich program of development and social-emotional learning.

You might find it very interesting to look at Dan Siegel’s latest book, “Aware,” in which he details astonishing results from his ‘wheel of awareness.” He puts simply being aware (in Culadasa’s language, the “still point” that emerges spontaneously at the 8th stage) in the cener of the wheel, and all we’re aware “of,” on the rim.

Though he doesn’t use the same language (unfortunately he uses the left brain right brain metaphor, largely based on McGilchrist’s work – but from what Culadasa wrote to me when I directed him to Iain McGilchrist’s work, McGilchilrist’s metaphor of left and right brain is essentially the same as selective attention and peripheral awareness.

Looking from the “hub” of the wheel – resting in teh calm, stillness of pure aware-ing, one may attend to the rim with narrow focus selectiv attention or wide focus peripheral awareness.

Siegel claims to have helped a bipolar teen elimnate all medication and ALL symptoms. He hasn’t claimed it’s a cure for bipolar but it is highly suggestive. In any case, it still is in line with your closing point, that Siegel did this as a trained professional. Nowhere is Siegel even distantly suggesting that anybody can use the wheel of awareness to cure cancer or schizophrenia!!

Very interesting article, I thoroughly enjoyed it.