New Age in Schools:
                 Who is Dr. Herbert Benson?
                       by Craig Branch

In February of this year, ABC's 20/20 ran a segment on the
growth of interest in the use of meditation in therapeutic
situations. Dr. Tim Johnson focused on Dr. Herbert Benson as
a pioneer in this field, even allowing himself as a
demonstration of how easy it is to be taken into this
altered state.

Herbert Benson is a name that also frequently appears in
transpersonal (New Age) education literature, and in some
current and popular curricula. Benson's work and books, "The
Relaxation Response" and "Beyond the Relaxation Response,"
are used to justify and give some sort of scientific
credibility to the use of progressive relaxation techniques
in the classroom.

For example, Don Dinkmeyer, developer of D.U.S.O., cites
Benson in his article "Holistic Approaches to Health" in the
"Elementary School Guidance and Counseling" journal. After
citing meditation and yoga as appropriate ways to deal with
stress, Dinkmeyer writes, "Herbert Benson was one of the
first to indicate the value of the relaxation response, a
simple meditative technique that unlocks your strength and
assets... improving physical and emotional health....
Counselors and other educators might well consider and study
the value of Benson's type of meditation for teachers and
students" (Don Dinkmeyer, Holisitic Approach to Health,
Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, December, 1979,
pp. 108-110).

Another example found in the "Elementary School Guidance and
Counseling" journal reported on an experimental study
conducted on kindergarten through sixth grade students. The
study tried to determine the effectiveness of relaxation
techniques to increase a students "on-task" behavior and
thus enhance learning potential. The authors employed the
"quieting reflex," "autogenics," and Benson's "breathing and
progressive relaxation" techniques on a daily basis with
students. The authors concluded that "the use of psycho
physiological relaxation training as an alternative or
adjunct to traditional approaches (i.e., external stimulus
reduction, drugs, behavior modification, or cognitive
behavior modification) for promoting on-task behaviors have
several advantages" (Dick Oldfield, Richard Petoss,
"Increasing Student On-Task Behaviors Through Relaxation
Strategies," Elementary School and Guidance Counseling,
February, 1986, p.185).

The fact that Benson's meditation technique of progressive
relaxation is being recommended as a psychological tool for
dealing with problem behavior accentuates many parent's
valid concerns that children are being made to participate
in hypnotherapy and meditation in regular classrooms. Not
only is this unacceptable on a religious basis, but
ethically and legally as well.

Whether or not it should be used individually treating
children with emotional difficulties is another issue. 
These approaches should not be used with healthy children 
with a shotgun approach in the regular classroom. Yet the 
bombardment from a certain segment of educators continues.

In the health textbook of one of the largest and most
popular publishing companies, Merrill Publishing, we find a
section on stress management promoting  "autogenics" (self-
hypnosis), and Herbert Benson's meditation technique of
progressive relaxation. The author describes Benson's
relaxation response as meditation which is a technique used
to alter the state of consciousness ("Meeks, Heit, Health: A
Wellness Approach," Columbus, OH: Merrill Publishing Co.,
1991, p.138).

Another example of the use of progressive relaxation
techniques used in therapy for problem behavior is described
by elementary guidance counselor Dick Oldfield. He writes in
the April 1986 issue of the "Elementary School Guidance and
Counseling" journal, that Benson's Relaxation Response was
used in a study to determine if it should be a methodology
for remediating to prevent acting-out behavior and promoting
a self-concept. Oldfield described "acting-out" to mean
"disruptive, inappropriate" (Dick Oldfield, "The Effects of
the relaxation response on self-concept and acting out
behaviors," Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, April
1986, p.255).

In Oldfield's research experiment, he exposed fourth, fifth,
and six grades to Benson's Relaxation Response, self-
described as a simplification of a form of "mantra
meditation" (Ibid., p.256). Oldfield states that the
instruction included "breathing, internal counting, and
monitored meditation practices" (Ibid., p.257).

His conclusions were that regular meditation periods are
effective as a therapy of systematic desensitization (i.e.,
a drugless, tranquilizing "drug")  for students exhibiting
destructive behavior. Do you want your child exposed to this
radical "treatment" in the regular classrooms? Someone once 
used the analogy, "it would be like knowing that in a classroom 
of thirty students, five would probably have cancer, so the 
school treated all thirty with chemotherapy."

Benson's Relaxation Response also serves as the model for
"scientific" justification of many self-esteem, stress
reduction, and decision-making curricula in our public
schools.  "Teenage Health Teaching Modules," developed and
funded in part by the Centers of Disease Control and the
Department of Health and Human Services, builds its entire
Activity Five section of "Handling Stress" on Benson's
relaxation-meditation (Teenage Health Teaching Modules,
Handling Stress, 1983, p.36).

The program claims to be cognitive and affective in its
approach. But in its introductory comments, the authors
demonstrate not only the contradiction between cognitive and
affective, but also the shallow and illogical reasoning, and
inappropriateness of this approach. "They note that some
people try to relieve feelings of stress by smoking,
drinking alcohol, taking pills, or over-eating. While these
remedies may make some people feel better temporarily, in
the long run they do not remove the stressors, they do not
change our personal perceptions, and they do not make the
stressful life events disappear.... A better response to
stress is conscious relaxation" (Ibid., pp.37-38).

Following the faulty logic, they are saying that it is
inappropriate to artificially deal with stress by engaging
in the listed behaviors, because they do not remove the
stressors. They are only an escape device. But then they
offer the solution of using the drugless "drug" of
self-hypnosis/meditation as a solution. The question needs
to be asked, "what is the difference?" It too is an escape
mechanism that doesn't remove stressors. It certainly is not
cognitive! And repeated meditation can incur some serious
harmful effects.

The "Handling Stress" section goes on to employ progressive
relaxation techniques, the use of a mantra (repetition of a
word or phrase), a passive attitude, repeated deep breathing
exercises while counting backwards and descending staircase
imagery, autogenics, yoga's alternate nostril breathing, and
guided imagery (Ibid., pp. 38-45). Consulting any hypnosis
or meditation book will demonstrate that these are the
standard induction techniques for an altered state of
consciousness.

Some educators have objected to the accusation that Benson's
model of progressive relaxation is hypnosis or promotes
eastern religious meditation. This defense is totally
without merit according to the documentation just given and
more following.

For example, some of Benson's professional colleagues,
members of the National Academy of Sciences, Committee on 
Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance, makes the 
following observation on Benson. After a discussion of the claims 
of autogenics and progressive relaxation to reduce stress and 
enhance performance, the committee writes, "These approaches are 
in many ways similar to Eastern practices of meditation. Of
considerable interest in the 1970's was the work of Benson,
a Harvard professor of medicine who developed what he called the
relaxation response, which was really a westernized version of 
transcendentalmeditation," ("Enhancing Human Performance: Issues,
Theories, and Techniques," National Research Council,
National Academy of Sciences, 1988, p.122).

If a popular health textbook, the professional journal of
the American School Counselors Association, and the Natural
Academy of Sciences all recognize Benson's "Relaxation
Response" as meditation, why are some school officials
having such a difficult time admitting it? Perhaps the
parents concerns of educational tyranny, arrogance, and
dishonesty on the part of some educators are justified. This
concern is accentuated when one reads Marilyn Ferguson's
comments in the New Age Manifesto, "The Aquarian
Conspiracy."

In her chapter detailing the infiltration of the New Age
Movement into the political and government bureaucracies,
she notes how changing the name of transcendental meditation
enabled its assimilation into the U.S. Navy. She writes,
"Under a human-resources management contract led by the navy
in San Diego, Jay Matteson helped organize an appropriate
course. Matteson knew that he could never get away with
teaching meditation in the navy. He also knew that he was
also unlikely to get approval for teaching the relaxation-
response technique adapted by Herbert Benson of Harvard from
Transcendental Meditation. Matteson got the course approved
as  'Dynamic Methods of Coping'" (The Aquarian Conspiracy,
p. 237).

And finally, to clear any doubt of the fact that Benson's
"Relaxation-Response" is based on the beliefs and practices
of eastern religious meditation, let Benson speak for
himself.

Benson writes in his seminal book, The Relaxation Response,
"This book brings together and synthesizes recent scientific
data with age-old Eastern and Western writings that
establish the existence of an innate human capability: The
Relaxation Response.... It has been evoked in the religions
of both East and West for most of recorded history," (The
Relaxation Response, pp.9, 175).

He repeatedly reveals the source of his technique in
comments like, "From the collected writings of the East and
West, we have devised a simplified method of eliciting the
Relaxation Response.... The altered state of consciousness
associated with the Relaxation Response has been routinely
experienced in Eastern and Western cultures throughout all
ages" (Ibid., pp.81-86, 107-109, 112-135).

Although Benson claims that his technique is merely the
scientific validation of age old wisdom, it is in fact based
on and promotes religion, not to mention using a
controversial hypnotherapeutic, escapist, potentially
harmful technique on our children.

It would be like a teacher coming to class and introducing a
new technique to help the children clear their minds, relax,
and receive special power to learn or take the test.
The teacher then leads the class in bowing their heads,
folding their hands in front of them, closing their eyes and
silently communicating to an outside source invoking peace
and power for that day.

How long would it be before the A.C.L.U. would be on cite
complaining that the teacher was leading in and promoting
prayer in the schools? The teacher never said prayer or God,
yet the techniques and concepts were clearly based on
religious tradition.