None of this is to deny the usefulness of cultivating the ability to view thoughts (and feelings, etc.) as “events in the field of awareness”, as Kabat-Zinn puts it in Full Catastrophe Living (Kindle p 5102). This is not the same as fighting or trying to push away thoughts. It’s just watching them, letting them be – but at the same time not engaging or elaborating. The end result is that they will likely dissipate, like fluffy little clouds. This can be an effective technique when challenged by unproductive thought patterns and persistent low mood.

But if you’re a believer, mindfulness is not only about techniques; it’s about a way of being. Cultivating a kind of watchful, disengaged awareness isn’t just for special occasions, like when we’re feeling sad or angry; it’s for all our waking hours, regardless of mood or thought content. As Kabat-Zinn puts it:

“Mindfulness is cultivated by paying close attention to your moment-to-moment experience while, as best you can, not getting caught up in your ideas and opinions, likes and dislikes… the constant stream of judging and reacting…” (1184)

Mindfulness practitioners do talk about being with, or staying with, our thoughts and feelings, observing them but not suppressing them. But to observe is still to keep a distance. Observing requires attentional resources that otherwise would be tapped by other cognitive processes, such as that thing we call “thinking.” Attention is a miser – it doesn’t share. You cannot observe a thought while that thought plays itself out. Observing isn’t watching the unfolding – it is disrupting the unfolding. Observing is the after-thought remembering of a thought-fragment while it is still fresh. Observing detaches the fragment from its trajectory.

This type of detachment can be a problem if you consider ideas, opinions, likes, dislikes, reactions, and judgments as things that can be profitable to get “caught up” in. That they are devalued in the mindfulness world is partly a product of a religious ideology in which suffering and the role of desire in suffering are pivotal. I’ll take up suffering and desire later, but for now I am going to assert that thoughts (ideas, etc) may or may not be worth engaging. And what do I mean by “engaging”?

To observe is not to engage. To engage is a four-step dance: yielding, pulling back, reflecting, and then jumping back in. Part of this dance is to be overpowered and to disappear within the interplay of thoughts and the rest, where distance is not respected and thoughts are not resisted. To engage involves controlled processing alternating with automatic processing. Intention with reaction. Engagement allows deeper processing of thoughts and feelings. Some observation, some reflection, some wallowing in the muck.

(This is all very difficult to discuss without an implied homunculus doing the engaging. It may be impossible to discuss engagement without making it seem like an act of will.)

Of course, engagement is not all. There is also stepping back – disengagement. Disengagement is also a good thing. Often we switch from the stream of thoughts to a moment of stillness. We may hit pause, then replay. Or the flow stops for a moment and we hear the echo what just came before. The echo may be so close in time that it seems like we are concurrently observing thoughts “as they unfold”.

To observe thoughts is not the same as listening to them. Listening is an invitation to continue. To listen is to encourage. Listening is not being a disinterested observer. Listening involves respect. Listening involves giving the benefit of the doubt. Listening means you’re not controlling the conversation, at least, not while you’re in listening mode. After a while, you might decide enough is enough. Or others enter your field of awareness and you start listening to them instead.

Can you speak and listen to yourself speak at exactly the same time? By “listening” I mean making sense of the words, not just hearing the words as sounds. Listening is not a passive process; it is active meaning-making. You have to yield to thoughts to listen to them – you have to surrender to them. This means they may take you places you’d rather not go or which make you feel worse for the wear. Is that so bad? Sometimes, yes. Often, no.

“IGNORE YOUR MIND: Don’t give thoughts a second thought ”  http://www.themindfulword.org/2015/ignore-mind-thoughts/

“When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/mindfulness

“We are not interested in engaging in the content of our thoughts; mindfulness of thinking is simply recognizing we are thinking.”  https://sites.google.com/a/audiodharmacourse.org/mindfulness-meditation/week-4-thinking/about-mindfulness-of-thinking

As the above quotes illustrate, one finds little respect for “thoughts” in mindfulness discourse. In fact, pace the ubiquitous assertion that being mindful involves being “nonjudgmental”, the process of thinking and the appearance of thoughts (from fragmented to pretty coherent) is clearly devalued as “just thoughts”. A few more examples of the lowly status of “thoughts” from Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophic Living (Kindle pages):

“It is remarkable how liberating it feels to be able to see that your thoughts are just thoughts and that they are not  ‘you’ or “reality”. 1898

“This feeling, this apprehending, is another way of knowing for us, beyond merely thought-based knowing.” 387

Of course, thoughts can cloud our judgment and lead us astray. Of course, thoughts aren’t the whole of us. Of course, thoughts are not the same thing as reality. Of course, thoughts can be wrong. Of course, we can become stuck in a way of thinking. These are not uncommon observations about thoughts. However, Kabat-Zinn appears to think (!) an appreciation of the limitations of thoughts and thinking is rare in the wider society. “In reality” he says, we are:

“…totally unaware of the tyranny of our own thoughts and the self-destructive behaviors they often result in.” 1053

In mindfulness discourse, “awareness” confers privileged access to reality, a special state of being that exists in parallel to thinking, feeling, and sensing. But in the parallel world, thinking has a particularly low status. In fact, “awareness” is often discussed in contrast to thinking, as something that is “beyond merely thought-based knowing” (as in the quote above) whereas developing a basic trust in our emotions and the signals from our bodies are an integral part of mindfulness training. So, even though the parallel world includes thoughts, feelings and sensations, the latter two tend to be regarded more highly than “mere” thoughts.

That thoughts are often wrong doesn’t necessarily make them less valuable in specific cases: even wrong thoughts can start us on a path that leads to something we do value, like insight – about ourselves or maybe a gnarly scientific problem we’ve been trying to understand.

(One does find an occasional nod in mindfulness discourse to the value and necessity of thoughts and thinking, with the insistence that “observing” thoughts does not mean to inhibit them. That is a whole other discussion, which I’ll be taking up later).

This doesn’t mean that all thoughts are equal – only that thoughts and the process of thinking (whether automatic or effortful) have variable value, depending on lots of things. Some thoughts are not useful (unproductive rumination), some are clearly useful (remembering it’s Mom’s birthday) and many are in the gray zone. There is a time to inhibit thoughts, a time to assume the stance of uncommitted observer as thoughts come and go and a time to indulge the interplay of thoughts as they pursue their own mysterious ends.

However, being open to thoughts – whether they just pop up, are part of a loosely managed stream, or are the product of persistent effort and purpose – is part of a scientific worldview. Thoughts are sources of information about the world, just as emotions and the senses are. That doesn’t make them necessarily right, or necessarily welcome at all times.

Practicing non-judgmental awareness, letting go of thoughts and gently redirecting attention to some meditative object is probably good for the heart and the brain (considered physically and metaphorically). The evidence suggests it certainly can be. Aerobic exercise is also good for the heart and brain. But just because exercising 30 minutes a day is good for you doesn’t mean exercising all day long is even better. The same with mindfulness practice: it can be very useful to practice “state regulation” and to assume the non-judgmental stance of an observer, but not necessarily to do so at all times – in other words, as a way of living and being. This is partly a matter of what is possible and partly a matter of what is desirable, about which more later.

—

Triumphalism is a sense of superiority and expectation of ultimate triumph, often reflected in exultation about the achievements of one’s religion or ideology (as confirmation of progress towards an ultimate triumph). Granted, triumphalism is an “observer’s category” and is generally used pejoratively. Few people would call themselves triumphalist. Still, the idea of triumphalism captures something that is quite real.

Here are a few quotes from an excellent exemplar of the triumphalist spirit within the mindfulness movement, Jon Kabat-Zinn from Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness ( Kindle page numbers):

“…the scientific investigation of mindfulness and its effect on health and well-being has grown tremendously … exploding scientific evidence for the efficacy of mindfulness…240-252 [my italics]

“…the research in this area is expanding exponentially.” 313 [my italics]

“In MBSR, we try to inspire people …We do this by touching on the ways in which new scientific research and thinking are transforming the practice of medicine itself… This transformation in medicine is sometimes referred to as a paradigm shift, a movement from one entire worldview to another.” 3289-3322 [my italics]

“The most rigorous of the physical sciences [physics] has had to come to terms with new discoveries showing that, at the deepest and most fundamental level, the natural world is neither describable nor understandable.” 4323 [my italics]

“This new way of being in relationship to stress and potential stressors can be hugely liberating.” 5602 [my italics]

“Science is now searching for more comprehensive models that are truer to our understanding of the interconnectedness of space and time, matter and energy, mind and body, even consciousness and the universe, and what role the human brain…. plays in it all.” 3330 [my italics]

Here is the narrative of a relentless but inevitable march towards the triumph of mindfulness as a scientifically-validated way of being, the current scientific embrace of mindfulness foreshadowed but radically discontinuous with what came before (at least in the West). Hence, the emphasis on newness: no incrementalism here – we’re talking a movement “from one entire worldview to another”. Just as the gap between the mindful and the rest is unbridgeable in modern society, there is no straight line from the old science to the new science.

It’s really quite odd. That the world is “interconnected” is not exactly new or revolutionary. Ditto for the idea that at some level the world is indescribable or beyond understanding. These perspectives go way back and own nothing to the mindfulness movement.

Regarding the apparently widespread and growing scientific support for the benefits of mindfulness, neuroscientist and meditation researcher Catherine Kerr says: “It is not like any of this is grossly inaccurate. It is just that the studies are too cherry-picked and too positive.” I would add that the triumphalist spirit, borne of religious and ideological fervor, encourages such selectivity because it is essentially anti-scientific. Science starts with a tentative proposition that something may be the case. Triumphalism starts with certainty that something is the case – and in time the essential truth will be revealed to all.

Even though mindfulness advocates often cite scientific evidence for the positive effects of mindfulness, the religious and ideological nature of the mindfulness movement can be at odds with the values of science. Mindfulness enthusiasts may welcome findings that appear to validate their beliefs but I haven’t found much hand-wringing in the mindfulness community about null or negative findings. To paraphrase Kabat-Zinn: the scientific support is great but we don’t really need it to value mindfulness; we know the truth from the inside.

Of course,  all of us are prone to embrace or ignore evidence according to our pre-existing biases. This tendency is simply stronger if the biases are religious or ideological. As William James noted long ago, the “truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion….” (p 77, Varieties of Religious Experience)

In addition to tendencies not unique to mindfulness, there are specific elements in the mindfulness movement that appears incompatible with a scientific perspective. Before elaborating on those elements, I will first discuss what I mean by a “scientific perspective”, starting with a couple quotations.

“Science is not just another enterprise like medicine or engineering or theology. It is the wellspring of all the knowledge we have of the real world that can be tested and fitted to preexisting knowledge. It is the arsenal of technologies and inferential mathematics needed to distinguish the true from the false. It formulates the principles and formulas that tie all this knowledge together. Science belongs to everybody. Its constituent parts can be challenged by anybody in the world who has sufficient information to do so. It is not just “another way of knowing” as often claimed, making it coequal with religious faith.” EO Wilson, Social Conquest of Earth p 4151 (Kindle)

“The values of science: to seek to explain the world, to evaluate candidate explanations objectively, and to be cognizant of the tentativeness and uncertainty of our understanding at any time.” Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature p 4112 (Kindle)

For me, science is about the pursuit of truth combined with an appreciation of one’s own fallibility and the ever-expanding ignorance that each advance of knowledge brings to our attention. To paraphrase David Eagleman: The 3 words that science has given humankind: “I don’t know”.

Science is about loving the questions (without denying that answers are nice too).

Science is also about maintaining a balance between skepticism and openness. As Carl Sagan put it:

“If you’re only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never can learn anything. You become a crotchety misanthrope convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. …At the same time, science requires the most vigorous and uncompromising skepticism, because the vast majority of ideas are simply wrong, and the only way to winnow the wheat from the chaff is by critical experiment and analysis.

No one can be entirely open or completely skeptical. We all must draw the line somewhere. An ancient Chinese proverb advises, “Better to be too credulous than too skeptical,” but this is from an extremely conservative society in which stability was much more prized than freedom and where the rulers had a powerful vested interest in not being challenged. Most scientists, I believe, would say, “Better to be too skeptical than too credulous.” But neither is easy. Responsible, thoroughgoing, rigorous skepticism requires a hardnosed habit of thought that takes practice and training to master.” Sagan, C. (1996). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (pp. 304-306).

In the coming posts, I will discuss three manifestations within mindfulness discourse that go against the spirit of science: triumphalism, the devaluation of cognition, and magical thinking.

Recap: Borrowing from Robert Jay Lifton and Willard S. Mullins, I’m defining ideology as a relatively comprehensive and coherent set of convictions (a “vision”) about how humans and the world works, which is powerful enough to influence one’s thinking, feelings, evaluations, and actions. In this sense, I consider mindfulness as an ideological movement.

Per Teun A. Van Dijk in Politics, Ideology and Discourse, the “ideological square” is pervasive in ideological discourse. Previous posts have dealt with the first three corners of the square:

Emphasize Their bad things–De-emphasize Our bad things–Emphasize Our good things

The spirit of the ideological square is 1) other ways are awful; 2) our way (as correctly understood and practiced) has no real downside; 3) our way will make life incomparably better than other ways; and, finally, 4) other ways have little to offer. “They” is a convenient term for what happens when our way is not followed. Of course, for some ideologies, “they” can also mean our enemies.

Now it’s time for “De-emphasize Their good things”.

In the case of mindfulness, “de-emphasize their good things” means to de-emphasize the good things of a life lived without mindfulness, as commonly conceived by its practitioners. Another way of putting this is that it is mindfulness that makes life good – so that without mindfulness, “their good things” don’t add up to much, which is a pretty common attitude within the mindfulness community.

In Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn is clear about how awful life is and will continue to be without mindfulness. Actually, “awful” is too mild – “grim” and horrific” are more like it (9309). He describes such a life as one lived in a “blanket of unawareness” (7639), that “half-sleep” in which we are “habitually immersed” (8047), full of “loss and grief and suffering” (440).   Kabat-Zinn advises us to practice mindfulness “as wholeheartedly as possible, as if your life depended on it. Because it does – in more ways than you think.” (340) As society goes downhill (as inevitably it must, unless governed by mindful leaders and infused with mindfulness), “meditation will become an absolute necessity” to “protect our sanity” (9256) (All numbers are Kindle pages).

The bottom line here is that no matter what good things life has to offer, those good things aren’t worth a hill of beans without mindfulness. And not only mindfulness in the simple sense of “awareness” but as a disciplined practice of meditation.

What others in the mindfulness community say about life without mindfulness:

“Life without mindfulness is foggy and vague, driven by blind impulse and external pressures.” p59

– C. Alexander Simpkins, Annellen M. Simpkins (2003) Buddhism in Ten: Easy Lessons    for Spiritual Growth; Tuttle Publishing, Boston, MA

“Without mindfulness, we miss so much in life. Without mindfulness we become restless, bored, and dissatisfied, forever seeking some new sensation…we miss so much of the beauty and poetry of life.” p. 92

– David Fontana (2004) Meditation Week by Week: 52 Meditations to Help You Grow in    Peace and Awareness; Sterling Publishing, NY, NY

“Without mindfulness, you react mentally, emotionally and physically to life, and sometimes the consequences of those reactions are even more damaging than the events that brought them up in the first place!”

– http://www.the-guided-meditation-site.com/mindfulness.html (accessed 9/25/15)

“Without mindfulness, we simply act out all the various patterns and habits of our conditioning.”

– Joseph Goldstein (2013) Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening; Sounds True,    Boulder, CO

“When operating without mindfulness, all your decisions are automatic and based on previous decisions.”

-Shamash Alidina and Juliet Adams (2014) Mindfulness at Work For Dummies; John        Wiley and Sons; Hoboken, NJ

You get the picture. Without mindfulness, we are half-asleep, suffering automatons.

That completes the Ideological Square of Mindfulness:

. Emphasize Their bad things

. De-emphasize Our bad things

. Emphasize Our good things

. De-emphasize Their good things

Reference: Jon Kabat-Zinn Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Kindle Version, Revised Edition 2013; Bantam Books, New York

[Side note: I often use Kabat-Zinn as a proxy for “common” or “typical” sentiments within the mindfulness community, because he is an influential proponent of mindfulness. Throughout these posts, I use a mix of sources to illustrate points, from powerful figures to academics to the hoi polloi – with the understanding that it’s super-easy to find quotes through internet search and then describe them as representative, which they may or may not be. Ideally I would also use survey data, but quality surveys on mindfulness practitioners are hard to come by.]

Unless I want to spend the next decade on this project, I won’t be going into a lot of detail about each study that addresses the benefits of mindfulness. Let’s just look at a couple meta-analyses. One, “Mindfulness-based therapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis “(2013), concludes that mindfulness-based therapies are “an effective treatment for a variety of psychological problems”, but the authors also note that the moderate effectiveness of MBT “did not differ from traditional CBT [Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy] or behavioral therapies … or pharmacological treatments.”

The other meta-analysis was “The effect of mindfulness-based therapy on anxiety and depression: A meta-analytic review” (2010), which analyzed 39 studies (out of 727 originally identified as possible candidates for review). The authors found that mindfulness-based treatments were moderately effective for anxiety and depression, with stronger effects for individuals with anxiety and mood disorders. But their meta-analysis included many non-controlled studies, so how can we interpret these results?

Looking more closely at the 39 studies, 23 had no control or comparison group, 16 included a control or comparison group, of which 8 were waitlist controls, 3 were treatment-as-usual (TAU), and 5 actually had an active comparison treatment. So that’s 5 out of 39 MBT studies with a decent control group. But wait: of the 5 studies that were described as having “active controls”, two were “education programs” and two were types of art therapy. Education programs and art therapy are insufficient comparison treatments because they do not match the main intervention in common factors of efficacious treatments or placebo effects. (Note: I have designed such comparison interventions, so know a bit whereof I speak). Only one of the 5 studies listed as having an active control condition could be called an empirically supported “real” intervention – and that was cognitive-behavior group therapy, a condition with a grand total of 18 participants, representing just 1.5% of the 1,140 participants covered in the meta-analysis.

The authors of the 2010 meta-analysis actually criticize an earlier meta-analysis on the effect of mindfulness-based treatments partly because the authors of the earlier meta-analysis only reviewed controlled studies – and the other meta-analysis concluded that MBT does not have reliable effects on anxiety and depression.   To quote: “Our study suggests that this conclusion was premature and unsubstantiated. The authors included only controlled studies, thereby excluding a substantial portion of the MBT research.”

Well, yeah, that is a legitimate problem. I’d recommend more high-quality controlled studies to address it. Then do another meta-analysis.

The problem with the research record on mindfulness is the same problem that plagues a lot of psychotherapy research: experimenter bias, which can taint even controlled studies. James Coyne puts this point beautifully in Salvaging Psychotherapy Research: a Manifesto:

“The typical RCT [Randomized Controlled Trials] is a small, methodologically flawed        study conducted by investigators with strong allegiances to one of the treatments being      evaluated. Which treatment is preferred by investigators is a better predictor of the             outcome of the trial than the specific treatment being evaluated….

Overall, meta-analyses too heavily depend on underpowered, flawed studies conducted by investigators with strong allegiances to a particular treatment or to finding that      psychotherapy is in general efficacious. When controls are introduced for risk of bias or     investigator allegiance, affects greatly diminish or even disappear.”

So, where does that leave us? With the need to do more, better research on mindfulness-based treatments. In the meantime, it’s probably safe to say that mindfulness practice and mindfulness-based treatments are helpful in some ways, for some people – but a lot of questions remain unanswered. To the degree that mindfulness advocates present evidence about the wonderful effects of mindfulness as unequivocal and/or uncontested (much less “staggering”, as per Kabat-Zinn), they are exaggerating and overstating their case.

And that’s it for third corner of the ideological square: Emphasize Our good things – the idea being unquestionable evidence of unmitigated goodness. On to the last corner: De-emphasize Their good things.

Reference: Jon Kabat-Zinn Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Kindle Version, Revised Edition 2013; Bantam Books, New York

The benefits of mindfulness receive a lot of press (e.g., see the Huffington Post ). Mindfulness boosters frequently cite scientific studies to support the case for mindfulness as a kind of cure-all for the ills of the modern age. Given that mindfulness meditation involves the near-constant control of attentional processes and ongoing mental distancing through “observing” thoughts, labeling mental activity as “just thoughts” and gently redirecting attention away from thoughts, it makes a lot of sense that certain neuropsychological tendencies and profiles would be found in meditators.

Given a worldview that values loving kindness and calm nonreactivity, it makes sense that mindfulness practitioners would report less stress and show fewer biomarkers for stress. It makes sense that mindfulness would be associated with greater well-being and happiness. Given hundreds or thousands hours of practice directing and redirecting attention, it makes sense that neural efficiency and connectivity patterns would be altered. The brain, body and personality all change with experience. If you spend hours and hours regulating cognitive, emotional and physiological processes in specific ways, your brain, body and personality will change in specific ways.

Questions remain regarding the mechanisms of change and how large and consistent these effects are. In books, blogs and the popular press one often sees statements that “researchers have found” or “studies show” without information on the quality or size of the studies involved or the robustness of the findings. When I check out the actual research, more often than not the researchers acknowledge the tentativeness of their conclusions and the need for replication. More often than not, the study design was not a randomized controlled trial and if even there was a control group, there was not a suitable comparison treatment condition. More often than not, the researchers did not appear to control for the placebo effect or factors common to most interventions (“common factors”) An example:

Take the study Prevention of Relapse/Recurrence in Major Depression by Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy by Teasdale, Segal, Williams and others. This study has been frequently cited in academic papers and used by mindfulness advocates as strong evidence of the benefits of mindfulness. For instance, here’s how Jon Kabat-Zinn summarizes the study: “…people with a prior history of three of more episodes of major depression taking the MBCT [Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy] program relapsed at half the rate of the control group, which only received routine health care from their doctor…This was a staggering result…” (Full Catastrophe Living, Kindle p. 7322)

Now for some context. This particular study had no active comparison therapy. The control group received “treatment as usual” (aka routine health care). The MBCT group actually had a higher rate of relapse for participants who had two-or-fewer prior depressive episodes, not quite statistically significant but trending that way (p=>.10). The benefit for MBCT (for participants with 3+ prior episodes) was seen with a few as 4 treatment sessions (out of 8 possible) but the authors do not let us know if additional sessions (up to 8) increased benefit. We also have no idea what the actual ingredients of change are. Without an active comparison group that matches MBCT in factors common to all efficacious treatments, we don’t know if anything specific to MBCT made a difference in participant outcomes.

(Quick word about “common factors”: these include things like therapeutic alliance, empathy, goal consensus/collaboration, “buy-in”, positive regard/affirmation, and congruence/genuineness. Common factors are thought to exert much more influence over therapy outcomes than factors specific to individual therapies – for more on common factors, see Laska, Gurman and Wampold 2014.)

Other types of therapies have also been associated with reduced relapse in chronic depressives such as Maintenance Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Behavioral Activation Therapy. So when we are told the results of the MBCT study are “staggering”, I’m thinking: promising, yes – staggering, hardly. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy clearly has some value; for one thing, it provides practical tools to help reduce stress and regulate unruly thoughts and emotions. It probably does help with unproductive rumination. But are mindfulness meditation and mindfulness-based therapies that much better than what’s already out there? Hard to say – since the quality of the research often leaves much to be desired.

To be continued…

References

Kabat-Zinn, Jon Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Kindle Version, Revised Edition 2013; Bantam Books, New York

Laska, K. M., Gurman, A. S., & Wampold, B. E. (2014). Expanding the lens of evidence-based practice in psychotherapy: A common factors perspective. Psychotherapy;51:467–481. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0034332

Teasdale, J.D., Segal, Z., Williams, J.M.G., Ridgeway, J.A., Sousby, J.M., & Lau, M.A. (2000). Prevention of relapse/recurrence in major depression by mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68, 615–623.

Recap: Borrowing from Robert Jay Lifton and Willard S. Mullins, I’m defining ideology as a relatively comprehensive and coherent set of convictions (a “vision”) about how humans and the world works, which is powerful enough to influence one’s thinking, feelings, evaluations, and actions. In this sense, I consider mindfulness as an ideological movement.

Per Teun A. Van Dijk in Politics, Ideology and Discourse, the “ideological square” is pervasive in ideological discourse:

. Emphasize Their bad things

. De-emphasize Our bad things.

. Emphasize Our good things

. De-emphasize Their good things

The points of the ideological square are recurring narrative themes. Narratives aren’t so much untrue as part-true. Rarely are narratives completely false – but they do tend to distort the truth though exaggeration, minimization and simply leaving important stuff out.

Continuing with the “de-emphasize Our bad things”. In the last post, the “bad things” had to do with possible ill-effects of mindfulness practice, such as undermining creativity and problem-solving through a general devaluation of self-generated thought, aka mind wandering. The example of mind wandering was used for illustration. Other criticisms of mindfulness – as commonly advocated, explained and practiced – include its promotion of dissociation and distancing to deal with unwanted thoughts and emotions. See Mindfulconstruct.com:the-dark-side-of-mindfulness and Mindfulconstruct.com: ways-mindfulness-meditation-can-cause-you-harm for more on this line of criticism, then check out some of the responses for great examples of the “you just don’t understand” defense. ) Of course, there is room for disagreement whether possible downsides of mindfulness practice or ideology are indeed that bad. I’ll leave that issue to a later discussion.

Onward to the next destination on our Square: “Emphasize Our good things”. Well, this could go on and on. We’re talking: “fully embracing and inhabiting” our lives (Kabat-Zinn, FCL, Kindle p. 286), living in the embodied moment in the “domain of pure being, of wakefulness” (ibid, p 823), liberated (especially from identification with the thinking mind, otherwise known as “just thoughts”), transformed, being in an “entirely different” relationship to the difficult and aversive (ibid, p 5939), more “in touch and in control” (ibid, p 5939), no longer half-asleep, mindless, merely reacting but “fully present… with the comfort of wisdom and inner trust, the comfort of being whole.” (ibid, p6107), all our resources at our disposal, the “freedom to be creative” (ibid, p 9078), awakened “from the self-imposed half sleep of unawareness in which we are so often habitually, but not inevitably, immersed.” (ibid, p 8047)

This is religious language, where the religious experience is not on a continuum with everyday experience but is something else entirely. It’s “new”. It truly is salvation:

“And when the human mind does not know itself, we get ignorance, cruelty, oppression, violence, genocide, holocausts, death, and destruction on a colossal scale. For this reason, mindfulness writ both large and small is not a luxury. Writ small, it is a liberative strategy for being healthier and happier as an individual. Writ large, it is a vital necessity if we are to survive and thrive as a species.” (Kabat-Zinn, FCL, p 9078-9084)

This being the modern age, advocates of mindfulness repeatedly cite scientific support for the benefits of mindfulness, often in triumphant tones that stress the status and authority of science and scientists. For instance, in FCL we come across: “…cutting-edge neuroscience research…latest evidence … most prestigious and high-impact scientific journals in the world…renowned psychologist…renowned stress researcher…” and so on.

Specific claims of scientifically-backed benefit resulting from mindfulness practice and mindfulness-based treatments include: happiness, brain efficiency and cortical thickness, reduced stress, anxiety, loneliness, social isolation and depression, increased lifespan, telomere maintenance, reduced inflammatory processes, increased self-knowledge and self-awareness, increased control of attention and emotions, better sleep, better grades, fewer colds, better health in general, more compassion, deeper appreciation of music, and better pain control – to name a few.

I’m sure there is some truth to these claims. After all, there are supportive studies – see, for instance: making us more compassionate, decrease feelings of loneliness, lessen the nasty effects of colds, lower risk for depression, lose weight, have better control over mood and behaviors, objectively analyze ourselves, increased signaling connections in the brain, better control over processing pain and emotions, more focused engagement in music, make us more compassionate, practice good hygiene, and improve our grades.

The question is not whether there are benefits to practicing mindfulness; the question is whether these benefits are as large and  unequivocal as often presented –as per the third corner of the ideological square: “”emphasize Our good things.”

Stay tuned….

Reference: Jon Kabat-Zinn Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Kindle Version, Revised Edition 2013; Bantam Books, New York

Ok, so mindfulness discourse is full of warnings about the sheer awfulness of life without mindfulness, consistent with one quarter of the ideological square:

. Emphasize Their bad things

. De-emphasize Our bad things.

. Emphasize Our good things

. De-emphasize Their good things

Let’s move on to “de-emphasize Our bad things”.

What bad things? To ideological adherents, the bad things associated with their ideology are less about the ideology than about individuals who lack sufficient understanding or “being”. So it is in the mindfulness community.

When I read potential criticism or reservations about mindfulness, the responses from adherents seem to assume that since mindfulness is steeped in ancient wisdom and the mindfulness vision has been revealed by masters, any apparent fault must be in the critic not the criticized.

For instance, in the article “Is Mindfulness Harmful?” by Judson Brewer (initially posted on 1/15/14 in the Huffpost Healthy Living, updated on 3/17/14, accessed on 6/6/14 at 7:45pm from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-judson-brewer/mindfulness-practice_b_4602714.html) the author addresses research that mind wandering promotes creativity and problem-solving, which appears to contradict the common notion that mindful awareness and mind wandering are mutually exclusive. Per Kabat-Zinn in FCL:

[Mindfulness is] “about being aware of when the mind is wandering and, as best you can, and as gently as you can, redirecting your attention and reconnecting with what is most salient and important for you in that moment, in the here and now of your life unfolding. “Kindle p. 367

If mindfulness teachings broadly devalue and discourage mind wandering, a potential criticism would be that mindfulness teachings undermine useful processes in the human brain – valuable for the individual and society as a whole.

But, no, according to Brewer, novices may find mindful awareness effortful and incompatible with mind wandering, but for experienced practitioners, mindfulness involves effortless awareness. Brewer concludes that mindful awareness may co-occur with mind wandering. His view seems compatible with the idea that mindful awareness exists as a parallel mode of experience and is not in a zero sum relation to other types of neurocognitive activity.

Then what about all this talk within mindfulness community about “monkey-mind”, a term that comes from Buddhism (Taming the Monkey Mind, Thubden Chodron, 1995):

The monkey mind (kapicitta) is a term sometimes used by the Buddha to describe the agitated, easily distracted and incessantly moving behaviour of ordinary human consciousness (Ja.III,148; V,445)….Anyone who has spent even a little time observing his own mind and then watched a troop of monkeys will have to admit that this comparison is an accurate and not very flattering one. …In contrast to this, the Buddha asked his disciples to train themselves so as to develop ‘a mind like a forest deer’ (miga bhūtena cetasā, M.I, 450). Deer are particularly gentle creatures and always remain alert and aware no matter what they are doing.

It sure sounds like mindful awareness and monkey mind are exclusive ways of being. Although historically monkey mind is a broader concept than the tendency to mind wander and encompassed jumpy reactivity to both internal and external stimuli, it is common in contemporary mindfulness discourse to consider it more or less synonymous with mind wandering (e.g., Silencing The Monkey Mind by Don E. Brown II – note that the title conveys an image of chattering rather than jumping monkeys).

Academia has picked up on the apparent incompatibility of mindful awareness and mind wandering, as can seen in this quote from Mrazek et al 2012 (Abstract):

“Research into both mindfulness and mind-wandering has grown rapidly, yet clarification of the relationship between these two seemingly opposing constructs is still absent. … Together these studies clarify the opposition between the constructs of mindfulness and mind-wandering …”

Brewer would counter that the above reflects an inaccurate understanding of mindfulness and is not supported by either the Buddhist tradition or experienced mediators. But since I’m exploring mindfulness as a form of discourse, and while allowing that discursive communities don’t speak in a single voice, I’m less interested in what may or may not be the “correct” understanding of the relationship between mindfulness and mind wandering and more interested in what appears to be a typical view, which is well-expressed in the popular bumper sticker, “Don’t Let Your Mind Wander – It’s Too Little To Be Left Alone”.

The example of mind wandering illustrates a theme that recurs among defenders of mindfulness: namely, that concerns about mindfulness are due to inadequate understanding. The typical argument is that it may take many years of mindfulness practice to fully realize its benefits; with accumulation of experience and growth of being, concerns will evaporate.

The idea here is that an experienced practitioner will have become so transformed through study, discipline and practice that he or she will ultimately achieve a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the really real and how it all works. Novices and outsiders are more likely to get stuck on seeming contradictions. Have doubts? Just wait. And, of course, continue to meditate.

Within mindfulness discourse, the “bad things” aren’t so much de-emphasized as dismissed. The religious nature of mindfulness ideology makes it easier to shrug off criticism. For many in the mindfulness community, their beliefs (convictions about the nature of reality) and practices aren’t derived from fallible human beings but have been revealed through religious experience and the teachings of masters. How can you argue with that?

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Footnote: The use of “experts” is pretty common in academic research on the effects of mindfulness on the brain and body. So, in academia, what does it take to be an “expert” mindfulness practitioner? Just in terms of time commitment, a common figure bandied about is at least 10,000 hours of meditation (e.g., Perlman et al, 2010). This figure is based on the general “expert” literature – everyone knows it’s a convenient heuristic and that time alone devoted to an enterprise does not in itself make one anything, except maybe persistent. But let’s go with it for now and do the math. At 10 hours a week, that would be 1000 weeks, which would be almost 20 years. At 20 hours a week, that’s just about 10 years.

Additional Reference: Jon Kabat-Zinn Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, Kindle Version, Revised Edition 2013; Bantam Books, New York