What does the current literature inform us about using meditation ...

[dejastew]

What does the current literature inform us about using meditation for the treatment of anxiety disorder?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Mindfulness involves meta-cognition. What is meta-cognition?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[Alyson.hiatt@yahoo.com]

Answer to Question 1

Mindfulness based approaches have indeed been used for the treatment of these disorders. For example, Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues (Kabat-Zinn, Massion, Kristeller, Peterson, Fletcher, Pbert, et al., 1992; Miller, Fletcher, & Kabat-Zinn, 1995) found that anxiety disorder participants in their 8-week group Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR) reported significantly reduced anxiety and panic symptoms. The majority of participants continued to engage in meditation practice at 3-year follow-up, and significant symptom reductions were still present at that time.

Answer to Question 2

As Bishop et al. (2004) note, mindfulness involves self-regulation of attention and meta-cognition, in other words, sustaining attention and thinking about one's thinking. Harris (2008, p. 40) shows us how we can go from having a thought that I am X to I'm having a thought that I am X to I notice that I am having a thought that I am X. Sometimes these thoughts are stressful or disturbing. Going from I am incompetent to I'm having a thought that I am incompetent to I notice that I am having a thought that I am incompetent goes from a simple stressful cognition to a more complex and less stressful meta-cognition.