October 8, 2021
In this episode, Wendy speaks with meditation researcher and clinical psychologist Nicholas Van Dam. Nicholas is the Director of the Contemplative Studies Centre at the University of Melbourne—the first such center in Australia. His work explores how meditation and mindfulness can support well-being, and help with conditions like anxiety and depression. This conversation covers many topics, including:
- how an existential crisis led him to meditation practice;
- bringing loving critique to contemplative science;
- the complicated realities of mindfulness, how we measure it, and its impact on the brain;
- looking at effects beyond just the individual who is meditating;
- insights from a year of daily practice;
- balancing personal interest vs. research objectivity;
- the freedom that comes from letting go;
- how skills learned on the cushion transfer to daily life;
- deconstructing the self;
- mindfulness and meditation for anxiety and depression;
- getting out of your head and into your body;
- connecting with Indigenous and other non-Buddhist contemplative traditions;
- and advancing evidence-based research on meditation.
Nicholas Van Dam is the inaugural Director of the Contemplative Studies Centre, and a Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He holds a PhD in clinical psychology and has extensive training in cognitive neuroscience and mindfulness/meditation. Nicholas’s research program explores the ways that meditation and mindfulness practices can support well-being, as well as improved understanding and treatment of high-prevalence psychiatric disorders (i.e., anxiety, depression, substance use), and is ultimately aimed at better understanding the human condition. His vision for the Contemplative Studies Centre reflects a desire for inclusivity, authenticity, integrity, and excellence, embedded within a rigorous ethical framework to ensure retention of the ethos of contemplative practices, while simultaneously promoting their empirical study.
Resources
Personal website
Twitter: @ntvandam
- Contemplative Studies Centre at the University of Melbourne
- Documentary (2020): My Year of Living Mindfully
- Lecture/Panel Discussion: Beyond Mindfulness: The Scientific Examination of Buddhist Practice. (The Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences and The Buddhist Society of Victoria, 2020)
- Paper: Mind the hype: A critical evaluation and prescriptive agenda for research on mindfulness and meditation. (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2018)
- Paper: Underestimating harm in Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). (Psychological Medicine, 2020)
- Paper: Mindfulness, by any other name…:Trials and tribulations of satî in western psychology and science. (Contemporary Buddhism, 2011)
- Paper discussed in the episode, from Nirbhay Singh: Comparative Effectiveness of Caregiver Training in Mindfulness-Based Positive Behavior Support (MBPBS) and Positive Behavior Support (PBS) in a Randomized Controlled Trial. (Mindfulness, 2020)
View or download a transcript of this episode
