Matching meditation technique to people...

I'm thenking about now about how best to offer opportunities to learn meditation into the life of Northumbria University. So it was interesting to see this report Finding right meditation technique key to user satisfaction. The main thrust of it is this: "Because of the increase in both general and clinical use of meditation, you want to make sure you're finding the right method for each person,"

Basically, the research found that people stuck with it if they took to it. There's going to be more research needed to fine tune what's involved in preferences. Those us involved in spiritual direction and prayer guiding are -many of us- used to encouraging people to consider what works for them. I'm wondering whether patterns could be discerned that might work with different personality types or whether it would be cultural backgrounds ore something else that would prove to be the key factor in what 'works' for different people.


In the mean time, I'm thinking that it may be good to flag up to learners that there are a handful of different approaches and they might need to experiment a bit. I'd already been considering that there should be a short 'course' in which different things could be tried out. But if anyone would like to leave a comment about research or even informal observations of what kind of people take to which kind of approach, I'd be most interested.


I have suspicions or hunches in terms of MBTI types: S may prefer mindfulness as it involves giving attention to sensory experience; becoming immersed in it. I'm less sure, but I think that perhaps mantra-style approaches might work better for Ts. ... I've seen these things worked out in termss of prayer, but meditation is something that overlaps with prayer but not isomorphically. So I'm not quite sure how F and N types would relate.