An Analysis of Research Trends on Meditation

Kim, Mun Young

Abstract

This study was done to analyze research trends and to suggest future perspectives for nursing research on meditation. The author reviewed 41 foreign research papers which had been published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology(JCC) between 1966 and 1986, The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology(JTP) between 1967 and 1987, and The Journal of Counseling Psychology(JCP) between 1965 and 1994. The analysis of the studies focused on the concept of meditation, the type of study design, type of research subjects, type of meditation, the results of study, and the applied type of counseling and psychotherapy. The results of the study are summarized as follows : (1) When the study designs were analyzed six categories were identified(Literature reviews, Experiments, Surveys, Comparative study, Qualitative study, Others), and the majority of the studies were found to be Literature reviews(36.6%), or Experimental studies(39%). The number of studies on meditation has increased since the 1970's. (2) Most studies approached meditation with Zen and Yoga(72.5%) which were called concepts of Indian meditation from 1970's to the later of 1980's. TM(Transcendental Meditation) was used in the 1970's. (3) On the type of meditation, most studies used Zen meditation which was called a method of Buddhistic meditation(43.9%). (4) On the studies of meditation effect, most were about psychological changes(48.5%), and psychological changes and physiological changes(37.1%). (5) On the types of the study subjects it was found that 15 studies dealt with literature, nine studies investigated college students, and eight studies investigated the meditator. (6) Most of study showed the results of the meditation effect to be positive(80%). On the basis of the above findings the following recommendations are made : (1) It's necessary to do a reliable and variable analysis of research trends on meditation. (2) There is a need to study the effects of meditation in order to clarify meditation application in counseling.