Meditation sessions are proving a hit for
members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists at their Annual
Meeting at Imperial College, London - with a growing number
claiming they are turning to the spiritual discipline to combat
anxiety and burnout.
Meditation workshops, run by the College’s
2,000-strong Spirituality Special Interest Group, are overbooked.
“It seems to be an indication of the need for spiritual
nourishment, something that College members are not finding easily
in the outside world,” says Dr Sarah Eagger, chair of the
Spirituality Group.
Dr Eagger, consultant psychiatrist at St
Charles Hospital, London, said her daily meditation practice was as
important in her everyday work as her medical training.
“A strong spiritual practice really comes into its own when you are
faced with a very distressed patient, while also coping with the
pressures of working in teams under immense stress, and then having
to spend hours filling in forms that make you feel that you are not
trusted. I am stressed enough as it is. Without meditation practice
to keep a still space inside, I would be suffering burn-out.”
Dr Andrew Powell, the founding chair of the
Spirituality Group, said: “There is a level of concern within the
profession about being trapped in a culture of measurement and
box-ticking. The result is that it’s becoming ever more difficult
to practice psychiatry, to contain the anxiety and concerns of our
patients, to maintain a common humanity and avoid getting caught up
in an ‘us and them’ mentality.”
However, many mental health practitioners
struggle to understand the relevance of spirituality to their work,
the meeting was told. Julia Head, specialist chaplain
at the Maudsley Hospital in London, told the conference that
spirituality is increasingly recognised as a vital part of good
mental health care.
“The National Institute for Mental Health in
England is just the latest body to acknowledge the limitations of
modern medicine by recommending that practitioners provide
spiritual support alongside physical treatments, including
medication,” said Dr Head who coordinates ‘recovery’ training
programmes for 300 mental health practitioners in the London
boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth.
“Practitioners should be encouraging hope, and
fostering a desire for change and the possibility of recovery. Yet
this idea of healing, as opposed to clinical treatment, is
something that is foreign to many practitioners,” she said.
‘They feel trapped in a culture where measuring clinical activity
is the priority. It takes them time to understand that in
order to support their patients’ recovery, they need to feel valued
themselves and to take time for their own nurture.’
The meeting was also told that the
evidence-base for the therapeutic value of meditation for a wide
range of health problems was significantly stronger than most
pharmaceutical products. A new meta-analysis of 823 randomly
controlled trials of meditation, conducted by the US National
Institute of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, showed the
clinical benefits of meditation across a wide range of physical and
emotional disorders.
“Meditation is a way of life rather than quick
fix achieved by paying for eight sessions or using gimmicks such as
incense, music and light,” Dr Avdesh Sharma, past president of the
Indian Psychiatric Association, said. “It doesn’t work
immediately. You need to practice it for several weeks before
the effects begin to be felt.”
Dr Sharma added: “If meditation was a drug,
we’d all want shares in it. It has a beneficial effect on most
physical health problems and is very effective for mental health
problems significantly reducing levels of depression and anxiety by
improving relaxation, oxygenation of the brain, insomnia and energy
levels.”
For further information, please contact Liz Fox or Deborah
Hart in the Communications Department.
Telephone: 020 7235 2351 Extensions. 6298 or 6127
References:
Annual Meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Imperial College, London, 1 - 4 July