Meditation Gone Wrong with Dr. Willoughby Britton

Dr. Willoughby Britton tells her journey from a meditation evangelical to a meditation skeptic. She discusses how stumbling into cases of people getting worse from meditation catalyzed her research examining meditators in distress, and also led her to create the non-profit Cheetah House, which provides evidence-based support for meditators in distress. She talks about the Varieties of Contemplative Experience study, which crafted an extremely thorough catalogue of the kinds of negative effects people can have from meditation—ranging from altered self-experience to energy-like somatic experiences. Aside from research, we also discuss some more practical, action-based advice for both preventing meditation-related adverse effects and what is helpful (and not helpful) if you happen to be experiencing negative effects. We also get into the intersectio ...