This isn’t the usual sort of post for this blog. I’m looking through some of the literature about mindfulness, and I plan to post a few summaries of studies, at least for my own understanding of it. If you’d like to look at little more closely at mindfulness, please join me.

Shapiro, S.L., Carlson, L.E., Astin, J.A., & B. Freedman. 2006. Mechanisms of Mindfulness. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(3), 373-386.

This article reviewed the mechanisms by which mindfulness might work and proposed a model of mindfulness. Much of the research on mindfulness evaluates the effectiveness of interventions such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, and shows that it can effectively treat psychological as well as physical symptoms. To examine how mindfulness works, the authors break the practice down into three “building blocks” of mindfulness:

• Intention – the issue here is “why are you practicing mindfulness?” It could be for such purposes as self-regulation (e.g. to relieve a physical symptom), self-exploration, or self-liberation
• Attention – observing one’s own moment-to-moment internal and external experience. It does not involve interpretation, but simply paying attention to the present experience.
• Attitude – the qualities that one brings with them to paying attention. For example, is it cold and clinical or is it a friendly and compassionate presence? When one pays attention to their experience in an open, curious, and kind way, the result may be a capacity to not constantly strive for one kind of experience or push another kind away. The desired outcome is an acceptance of what is.

The authors suggest that intentionally attending to experience with openness and without judgment leads to a shift in perspective that they term “reperceiving.” Instead of being immersed in our life story, we can stand back and witness it from a little distance. This perspective changes the experience and makes us less likely to react automatically. The authors draw a parallel between this and the development of an ability, as a child grows older, to take the perspective of another person. We are no longer caught up in a subjective or self-centered view of the other person and can more accurately understand the other person’s world. Reperceiving strengthens a sort of “observing self” who can observe conscious experience without being fused with it or defined by it.

Some additional mechanisms or processes are described as following from reperceiving. One is self-regulation. Intentional, nonjudgmental attention to our experience allows us to connect with what is happening without having to react and avoid. Automatic and maladaptive responses may drop away if we can experience anxiety or pain from a little distance, seeing it as a temporary thing that will pass.

Reperceiving can help us be more purposeful about choosing what really is important to us. While we might have adopted values based on what our culture or family provided, mindful observations make it easier to consider what is truly meaningful for us, choosing values reflectively rather than reflexively.

Greater cognitive and behavioral flexibility may follow from our ability to see our experience clearly and observe our internal commentary about it. Our thoughts may become less automatic and, more objectively observing our experience, we have more choice over how we think about and respond to our circumstances.

Finally, reperceiving may allow for us to tolerate greater exposure to emotions, thoughts, or sensations that previously were experienced as intolerable. If we can remain still, so to speak, in the face of such experiences, their power over us diminishes. The benefits of such exposure, in terms of decreased anxiety and avoidance, are well-documented in research.