Can Vipassana dissolve psychosis?

Upvote:2

The impression is you should avoid vipassana if past meditation retreats lead to your mind becoming unbalanced. Only relatively small proportion of participants attain something significant from meditation. Probably practising the five precepts, metta meditation, recollection of the love & compassion of the Buddhas and things like this is best for you.

Upvote:5

Google defines psychosis as

A mental disorder characterized by a disconnection from reality.

Causes:

Psychosis may occur as a result of a psychiatric illness like schizophrenia. In other instances, it may be caused by a health condition, medications, or drug use.

Since what you suffer from sounds more like the temporary kind, I would say there's a good chance that vipassana meditation could help you. Vipassana means to see clearly the nature of reality, and it is effected by cultivating sati, the main characteristic of which is confronting (abhimukha) reality. If you can manage that, I'd say you would be effectively counteracting the dissociation involved in psychosis.

That being said, I've been reading a lot lately about Goenka-based retreats that seems to suggest they are quite intense. I don't practice his technique myself, so I would just like to say that there are many ways to practice vipassana, some maybe more suitable for dealing with your condition than others. Good luck :)

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