Investigators, clinicians, and research authors frequently analyze and discuss the effects and efficacy of this intervention as a whole, with the result that it is often difficult to attribute positive or negative outcomes to any of the specific techniques that contribute to guided meditation. Furthermore, the term "guided meditation" is frequently used interchangeably with the terms "guided imagery" and sometimes with "creative visualization" in popular psychology and self-help literature, and to a lesser extent in scholarly and scientific publications. Consequently, understanding the nature, scope, application, and limitations of guided meditation requires it to be considered in context and relationship to the multiple techniques that are integral to its practice, allowing for variations in terminology.[35][36][37][38]