Benefits of Art therapy in Prison Population with a Diagnosis of Mental Illnes: A Systematic Review.

Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that was introduced in psychiatric hospitals, where psychiatric patients used painting as a way to express themselves. Nowadays, it is used in prison and has positive effects such as stress and anxiety reduction, and decrease in rates of recidivism. The main aim of this study was to analyze the effects of art therapy programs among the prison population with a diagnosis of mental illness.

Dissociation between the cognitive and interoceptive components of mindfulness in the treatment of chronic worry.

Objetives: Despite the increasing interest in mindfulness, the basic components and action mechanisms of mindfulness remain controversial. The present study aims at testing the specific contribution of two components of mindfulness -attention to cognitive experience (metacognition) and awareness of interoceptive sensations (metainteroception)- in the treatment of chronic worry.

Method: Forty five female university students with high scores in the Penn State Worry Questionnaire were split into three groups: a mindfulness cognitive training group, a mindfulness interoceptive training group, and a non-intervention control group.

Mindfulness (Vipassana) meditation: effects on P3b event-related potential and heart rate variability.

The concept of mindfulness is based on Vipassana, a Buddhist meditation technique. The present study examines the physiological indices of attention and autonomic regulation in experienced Vipassana meditators to test the claim that mindfulness is an effective therapeutic tool due to its effects on increasing awareness of present experience and emotional self-regulation. Ten male experienced Vipassana meditators underwent two assessment sessions, one where they practiced Vipassana meditation and another where they rested with no meditation (random thinking).

Auras in mysticism and synaesthesia: a comparison.

In a variety of synaesthesia, photisms result from affect-laden stimuli as emotional words, or faces of familiar people. For R, who participated in this study, the sight of a familiar person triggers a mental image of "a human silhouette filled with colour". Subjective descriptions of synaesthetic experiences induced by the visual perception of people's figures and faces show similarities with the reports of those who claim to possess the ability to see the aura.