Countercurrents and Counterappropriations

While modernization and globalization have been sweeping the Korean medical industry of late, a perhaps seemingly contradictory trend toward more personalized care has also been unfolding in certain circles. This is a brief case study of a traditional Korean medical doctor who integrates Western mindfulness protocols into traditional Korean psychology/psychiatry in order to provide that connection with his patients. This practice report shows that his adaptation of mindfulness represents a Korean counterappropriation of a Western clinical tool that was itself created by appropriating Buddhist techniques. It argues that the multivalent resonances with both science and Buddhist methods give mindfulness utility as a site for this doctor to hybridize different bodies of knowledge, to reinterpret traditional insights in modern idioms, and arrive at new therapeutic innovations for his patients.