Mindfulness & compassion最新文献

There is consensus amongst both the scientific and Buddhist community that mindfulness – when correctly taught and practised – leads to a range of beneficial outcomes. However, there has been little evaluation of what happens when mindfulness is incorrectly taught, or is practised with a selfish rather than selfless intention. Nowhere is the importance of this issue more pertinent than the recent and growing assimilation of mindfulness for employees by large corporations. The current paper introduces the principle of ‘authentic spiritual transmission’ and examines how it can inform the integration of mindfulness into the corporate workplace. Three questions are explored: (i) what spiritual infrastructure is required to operationalize mindfulness that is effective in the corporate setting? (ii) to what extent can ‘inner change’ induced by mindfulness substitute the need for corporations to foster healthy ‘external’ working conditions? and (iii) is mindfulness corruptible or does it have a natural defence mechanism? The paper addresses these questions by synthesizing relevant Buddhist discourses, evaluating recent theoretical and empirical findings concerning the use of mindfulness in corporate settings, and examining how second-generation mindfulness-based interventions can inform this topical area of scholarly debate.

Compassion therapy is a third-generation psychotherapy that has been used in association with mindfulness in recent years. Similar to mindfulness protocols, a number of compassion protocols have been developed in the United States and Britain. As these countries have cultural characteristics and health systems that differ greatly from those of Spain, it was necessary to develop compassion protocols which were more suited to the Spanish situation and which could be administered to both general population and to medical and psychiatric patients. This model is based on attachment styles, a psychoanalytical concept which describes the relationship children develop with their parents, and which will influence the interpersonal relationships and self-image they will eventually develop. This paper describes the scientific basis for this model, the structure of the protocol, the scientific evidence and the training programme for this model, which is the first such programme specifically developed for Spanish-speaking countries.

Objectives

The goal was to understand and describe the perception of psychotherapists about the influence that their mindfulness practice would have in their openness with consultants.

Methodology

This is an exploratory and descriptive study, with a qualitative method. The sample was collected by a total of eight clinical psychologists from different theoretical-orientations and one psychiatrist with psychotherapeutic training, all of them had a formal mindfulness training. Data was first collected with semi-structured interviews and then transcribed and analyzed from the perspective of the Grounded Theory.

Results

The results suggest that the constant practice of meditation would lead to a deeper understanding of experience, changing their common way of being-in-the-world by bringing attention back to the present moment with openness to experience. This would be deployed as part of their personality, changing the way they perceive consultants in psychotherapy and their own role as therapists.

Conclusions

Finally, this study proposes an understanding of therapy where the therapist doesn’t sees it in terms of expert-patient, but as part of an encounter between two different ways of being-in-the-world (co-presence).

In the last few years, mindfulness and compassion practices have become more broadly known in Chile outside the boundaries of meditation groups affiliated with spiritual traditions. Although still at an early stage, these contemplative practices are beginning to be offered in different secular environments, including schools, universities, hospitals, and clinics, and mindfulness trainings for healthcare professionals and educators are beginning to be offered. The initial impulse of this movement in Chile has emerged from mental health professionals with a previous interest in contemplative practices and yoga, however, an increasing number of people are encountering these practices for the first time through their participation in secular mindfulness-based and compassion-based educational programs or by participating or training in a third-wave psychotherapy. In this article we review some of the key landmarks in the brief history of mindfulness and compassion practices in Chile, assessing the current state of these practices (publications, trainings, institutions) and also reflecting upon current challenges and future opportunities in this development.

Mindfulness research has extensively focused on mechanisms that make it work. Emotional regulation (ER) has been proposed as one of the mechanisms to explain the effects of mindfulness on health. ER is composed of a broad set of strategies, such as the use of autobiographical memory (AM), which refers to the recollection of personally experienced past events to regulate the emotion (i.e., remembering a positive past event in order to calm anxiety). Authors suggest that mindfulness and AM are related. However, few studies exist to explore this relationship that could promote a more adaptive ER. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between the mindfulness trait and the use of positive specific memories (as an ER strategy) after sadness induction. The sample was composed of 60 university students with no mindfulness meditation experience. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory Questionnaire (BDI-II), the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS). A sad Mood Induction Task (MIT) was applied to the participants using Virtual Reality (VR) before the AM task. Results showed that the Non-reactivity mindfulness facet was significantly correlated with time needed to access personal positive specific memories in response to positive words (r=–.41; p<.05) and predicted this relationship (β=–.41; p<.05). This study provides data on the relationship between the mindfulness trait and ER, showing that mindfulness (specifically the Non-reactivity facet) is related to more adaptive ER.

Objectives

To assess the change in mindfulness levels at a one-year follow-up visit in patients with fibromyalgia (FM) who were following recommended pharmacological treatment and to identify the variables related to that change.

Methods

A one-year, uncontrolled, two-wave longitudinal multicentre study design. The study sample consisted of patients (n=269) with FM in primary care settings. Patients received the recommended pharmacological treatment for FM (pregabalin and, if they were diagnosed with depression, duloxetine). The main outcome variable was mindfulness, as measured by the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS). Other psychological variables evaluated in this study included pain catastrophising, pain acceptance, mental defeat, psychological inflexibility, perceived injustice, and positive and negative affect. Spirituality, anxiety, depression, global function, pain and quality of life were also assessed.

Results

FM patients who followed recommended pharmacological treatment in primary care settings improved with regard to general function and pain (Cohen's d, 0.52 and 0.50, respectively) but decreased with regard to their mindfulness levels (d=0.49). After controlling for baseline mindfulness values, the variables included in the model that explained changes in mindfulness (r2=0.958, r2 change=0.140, p<0.001) were anxiety, pain acceptance, spirituality and psychological inflexibility. The final equation was significant, F(6,193)=21.96, p<0.001, and the model explained 95.83% of the variance.

Conclusion

This investigation is the first study to confirm that mindfulness levels decrease in FM patients who receive recommended pharmacological treatment. The identification of psychological variables that are related to this decrease can help to modify FM treatment protocols to increase treatment efficacy.

This study reports physical and psychological health outcomes following mindfulness- based stress reduction (MBSR) training in an inner city environment. Results show: (a) the relative difficulty contacting referrals; (b) a relatively high completion rate (65%) once people have enrolled in the program; and (c) clinically and statistically significant reductions over the eight weeks of the intervention period in measures of medical symptoms (MSCL) and anxiety (BAI), and corresponding increases in self-esteem (Self-Esteem Inventory) and mental health (SF-36). A small follow-up sample characteristic of the larger population showed maintenance of these changes for periods of up to seven years. The limitations of this uncontrolled descriptive study and the particular challenges and rewards of working in this environment are discussed.

Despite the great empirical evidence that has been built up about mindfulness benefits, it is not possible yet to arrange it into a coherent body of knowledge that allows to speak properly about a specific mindfulness area in organizations or mindful work. Literature points that there are a few investigations that record and assess the incorporation of these practices in organizations, which include a view that considers the organizational perspective. The following article aims to contribute in this area by bringing to light the qualitative results of a pilot intervention based on mindfulness, which was carried out with a group of people that belong to the same team in an organization in Santiago, Chile.

For this purpose the participants experience is explored by means of narrative methodology, according to which people organize their experience and give sense to it through narrations (White, & Epston, 1993). Also we wanted to know whether the transformative dimension of mindfulness practice could be reflected in the emergence of new narrations that help people visualize new possibilities to get on in their work.