Vipassana Meditation and Skin Picking Disorder

A client once spoke about something called Vipassana Meditation, saying that she found it very helpful in managing her skin picking urges. We decided to research Vipassana and see if we could identify potential benefits for other skin pickers out there.

What is Vipassana Meditation?

Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It is a balanced technique for refining the mind of the mental elements that cause distress and torment. It is a state of self-regulation of your attention and the ability to direct it towards breathing, eating, or something else. Curiosity, openness, and acceptance are all part of insight meditation.

One of the benefits of insight meditation for dermatillomania sufferers is that it lowers stress and anger while maintaining emotional balance. These techniques benefit mental health. Meditative techniques like vipassana also aid in maintaining emotional balance and treat neurosis and other unhealthy emotional conditions. The belief is that by watching the physical sensations that comes with intense emotions like passion, greed, and anger you realise that these emotions are impermanent and therefore can begin to change blind reactions to these emotions. Many skin pickers struggle with dealing with negative emotions in a healthy way. The Vipassana technique is a method of teaching mindfulness and being present, both cognitive behavioral techniques taught in our online therapy course. Human nature is that we try to protect ourselves from that which is unpleasant. We tend to do this by either expression or suppression of that emotion. through mindfulness and practicing being present you practice a third option, which is pure observation. Distancing yourself from your emotions allows you to objectively understand where it is coming from and how your thoughts and experiences influences your emotions.

 Insight meditation and religion?

Insight mediation is not a religion. Although it was discovered by the Buddha, insight meditation is not Buddhism. It is the method by which the Buddha and his disciples freed themselves from every form of suffering and attained awakening. This straight forward technique is a democratic method, open to people of any faith, race, or gender.

Like with any other therapy or mediation sessions, practice makes perfect, the more you practice something the better you get at it, so having a daily practice will help you progress faster, you can start doing 10 minutes daily and grow from that. The quality of an individual’s determination will help them through the process. 

There are different techniques you learn such as:

• Breathing and observing the breathe
• observing the sensations of your body

Through these techniques you learn to observe the emotions and practice not reacting to it and just allowing it to pass. The video above is the experience of someone who went for a 10 day Visappana training.