Evidence map›Paper›PMID 38311913›Full record

ArticleHealth (London, England : 1997)2025

Mind-Stuff and Withdrawal of the Senses: Toward an Interpretation of Pratyahara in Contemporary Postural Yoga.

Elizabeth McKibben

Open access · hybridAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Health (London, England : 1997), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
0.5field-weighted citation impact, top 36% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.

Elizabeth McKibbenTe Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.ORCID 0000-0002-4850-4027
Victoria University of Wellington · NZ

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Yoga has become a popular health and wellbeing practice that draws on ancient philosophy. Pratyahara is a core tenet of yoga practice and is often translated to mean withdrawal of the senses. Withdrawing from the senses plays a key role in aiding yoga practitioners to find spiritual enlightenment by transcending the worldly. Withdrawing from the material world, however, does not neatly fit within the parameters of the contemporary postural yoga industry. This paper looks at the conceptual origins of pratyahara through stances relevant to health research. The author weaves biomedical, esthetic, and neoliberal onto-epistemological stances through health discourse to discuss how postural yoga both resists and replicates power imbalances. In so doing the author emphasizes the paradoxical nature of pratyahara as it is reflected in socio-political tensions of the yoga industry. To conclude, the author suggests that pratyahara itself can be useful in resolving this tension as yoga fulfills a philosophical prerogative for social change.

Indexed as

YogaHumansMind-Body Relations, Metaphysicalbiomedicineestheticshealthneoliberalismpratyaharayoga

Identifiers

PMID38311913
PMCPMC11660512
OpenAlexW4391537279

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.