| Titel: | Ahamkara and ego-functions among meditators and normals |
|---|---|
| Autor: | Kumar, S. K. Kiran Raj, Archana |
| Mediengruppe: | journal article |
| Herausgeber: | --- |
| Zeitschrift: | Journal of Indian Psychology |
| Jahr: | 1999 |
| Band: | 17 |
| Heft: | 1 |
| Seiten: | 46 - 56 |
| Sprache: | englisch |
| Abstract: | Contemporarily it is debated whether meditation and psychotherapy are compatible in their goals, particularly with reference to the development of the ego. One of the arguments is that practice of meditation with transcendence as its goal would mean loss of ego-functions and hence, the very capacity to be human as understood by psychoanalysts. But meditation traditions claim that a meditator would become a better functioning human being psychologically but would only lose the circumscribed feeling of personal identity. To examine the above proposition a study was conducted. Two questionnaires were developed, one to measure the concept ahamkara which represent the circumscribed feeling of identity and the other to measure ego-functions as understood in psychoanalysis. These questionnaires and a questionnaire to measure anxiety were administered to a group of 30 meditators (mean age 37 yrs) and to a group of 30 non-meditators (mean age 38 yrs). The results suggest that ahamkara and ego-functions refer to different aspects of psychological functioning and meditation may have differential effects on them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2002 APA, all rights reserved); ############################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################### |