Should there be a right to be forgotten by search engines in America?

Politics and Economics

In 2014 a European court sided with a Spanish man attempting to have links to a negative story about him removed from the online search engine Google. Invoking a version of what’s known as the “right to be forgotten,” the European Union Court of Justice said that citizens have the right to ask that links be removed if they contain information that is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.” Should we have the same right to be forgotten in the US?

Proponents of a right to be forgotten claim that, for privacy reasons, search engines should have to remove outdated or extremely personal information from their search results. “It’s about privacy and dignity,” says Michael Fertik the founder of Reputation.com, a company that helps customers clean up their online information. “If Sony or Disney wants fifty thousand videos removed from YouTube, Google removes them with no questions asked. If your daughter is caught kissing someone on a cell-phone home video, you have no option of getting it down. That’s wrong. The priorities are backward.”

Proponents further argue that privacy is not only a human right, but an essential component of autonomy. In other words, the space protected by privacy is the only space in which human endeavor can flourish. Far from being a tool of censorship, the right to be forgotten is the only protection we have against self-censorship. And since the obligation to remove applies only to the links posted by search engines, it does not trample on the rights of internet content creators, such as media outlets, who are still free to publish information as they see fit.

Opponents argue that the right to be forgotten is a major abridgment not only of the right to speak but also of the right to acquire information. Such a “right” essentially amounts to government-mandated censorship. As a Bloomberg editorial put it: “Airbrushing history, even with the best of intentions, is almost always a very bad idea…And such a sweeping new right is sure to have unintended consequences – for starters, by potentially depriving the public of useful information.”

In addition, opponents contend the right to be forgotten will place an overly complex and costly imposition on search-engine companies. What requests should be honored? Which denied? On what basis? How does one distinguish illegitimate from legitimate requests? When should the public interest trump the right to be forgotten? Who makes that decision? How will disputes be arbitrated? The sheer volume of requests to remove links would likely overwhelm the ability of search engines to property evaluate requests, leading to inconsistent and arbitrary compliance,

So what do you think? Should Americans have a right to be forgotten to protect their privacy and dignity? Or would it infringe on other more essential rights? Is the trade-off worth it? Why? Why not?

 

Null and Beautiful

Scientific Encounters

Per wonderful  Wikipedia, which is not everything and not always right or balanced, but anyway – thank you Wikipedia! – here’s a definition of ‘null result’:

“In science, a null result is a result without the expected content: that is, the proposed result is absent. It is an experimental outcome which does not show an otherwise expected effect. This does not imply a result of zero or nothing, simply a result that does not support the hypothesis.”

But null results aren’t published enough, so we often get a skewed idea of the range of scientific findings regarding the subject of interest. Almost 80% of null results – at least in the social sciences – are unwritten and/or unpublished. This per Publication bias in the social sciences: Unlocking the file drawer.

What to do? It’s easy to say “publish the null results, you numskulls!” Or, “do more replication research”. Try having a career that way. Try attracting money. The forces are against it.

Funding organizations (or some far-seeing billionaires) need to expand their missions to include research dedicated to sniffing out false positives. And academic journals need to be more welcoming of papers based on such research. Of course, the research would have to be on the up-and-up, where design is sound and commitment to the scientific method trumps hoped-for findings.

Ideally, journals would have sections comprised of critiques of previously published papers summarizing research findings. But this is unlikely to happen, since it’s not exactly in a journal’s self-interest to expose weaknesses in what it had previously agreed to publish. Perhaps there should be journals dedicated to critiquing papers that were published elsewhere. To avoid a lot of sloppy, mean-spirited writing, standards for critiques would have to be high and the original researchers would be invited to respond.

Mindfulness and the Ideological Square: Emphasize Our good things – Part I

Observing Mindfulness

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

Finding Allies in the Effort to Address Climate Change

The Environment

Not being a climate skeptic myself, I’m not that interested in spending a lot of time trying to disprove the consensus, and much more interested in maintaining an atmosphere where questioning the consensus isn’t met with bullying, name-calling, mind-reading, or immediate dismissal as a nutcase. Good science is not served by an atmosphere of intimidation.

Of course, openness as a principle still has to be exercised on a case-by-case basis and some anti-consensus arguments may be so clearly wacko they don’t merit serious attention. Others are more interesting and may be worth some initial consideration (for me those would include certain assumptions that go into some climate change models, especially re: demographics or socio-economic-technolog­ical trends). But this whole “what side on you on?” way of thinking makes it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. The science of climate change involves a myriad of research questions, each of which can generate a myriad of hypotheses, generating a range of predictions spanning a continuum of possibilities. Turning climate change into an Us versus Them issue can have a chilling effect on the field if researchers choose not to pursue certain lines of questioning out of fear of being classified as one of Them.

I suspect the strong feelings evoked by the climate change debate have a lot to do with the assumption that one can’t be a skeptic and also be an advocate for policies that would promote climate change mitigation and adaptation. This is not necessarily the case. It’s quite possible to be an ardent environmentalist and harbor some doubts about the climate change consensus. There are many reasons to want to reduce CO2 emissions, the specter of global warming being just one. However, the tendency to group people into camps can become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, as individuals expelled from “respectable” circles seek support elsewhere and that support will partly come from people with their own, quite different, agendas.

Find common ground when possible. Agreement on all points is not needed. There are lots of reasons to reduce CO2 emissions – the specter of global warming being one of them. Way back in the 1970s, the initial push to reduce emissions and lower consumption of petroleum products had nothing to do with fears about climate change and much to do about reducing pollution and conserving nonrenewable resources. Approach skeptics not as knaves or fools but as fellow problem-solvers. Of course, keep climate change as part of the conversation – while acknowledging that reading the future is fraught with uncertainty – but don’t insist on embracing the consensus as a precondition of working together on environmental initiatives.

Research on the Benefits of Mindfulness

Observing Mindfulness, Scientific Encounters

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 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 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”) A few examples:

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.

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 a lot of research 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 Trial] 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 probably 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”), they are exaggerating and overstating their case.

Note: This post is also in Observing Mindfulness under the title “Mindfulness and the Ideological Square: Emphasize Our good things – Part II”

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

 

A Real Quick and Admittedly not Comprehensive Bill of Rights Review

Politics and Economics

The First Amendment: separation of church and state, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to peaceably assemble and to petition the government.

The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms (in accordance with longstanding English common law: “…a public allowance under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”)

Detour! The Supreme Court currently considers general bans on gun ownership to be unconstitutional (e.g., all guns banned for whole communities) but is fine with tighter controls on individual gun ownership (see District of Columbia v. Heller). So, other than its symbolic value to gun control opponents and the archaic reference to militias, what is gained by getting rid of the 2nd Amendment? And please don’t say “gun control”, since (per Scalia et al) the 2nd Amendment does not contravene restrictions on individual gun ownership. (For the record, I’m a big fan of gun control but see any movement to repeal the 2nd Amendment as pretty much pointless). And if the inclusion of the outdated “militia” reference is sufficiently egregious to justify repeal, then why is that such an issue with the 2nd Amendment and not the 3rd Amendment? Speaking of which….

The Third Amendment: “no Soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house”, etc. ‘Nuff said.

The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring search warrants supported by probable cause.

The Fifth Amendment protects against double jeopardy and self-incrimination and guarantees the rights to due process, grand jury screening of criminal indictments, and compensation for the seizure of private property under eminent domain.

The Sixth Amendment establishes the right to a speedy and public trial; the right to trial by an impartial jury; the right to be informed of criminal charges; the right to confront witnesses; the right to compel witnesses to appear in court; and, the right to assistance of counsel.

The Seventh Amendment is about the right of trial by jury.

The Eighth Amendment says excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment.

The Ninth Amendment clarifies that the Bill of Rights, does not constitute an explicit and exhaustive listing of all individual rights.

The Tenth Amendment reinforces the principles of separation of powers and federalism by providing that powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or the people.

Of course, the Bill of Rights is not sacred and an Amendment that does more harm than good should be repealed, or at least revised. But the Rights represent core principles and protections and should not to be tinkered with or rejected lightly. That the Bill of Rights is a product of a certain place and time isn’t to say that these Rights are mere historical products. To recognize the special status of the Bill of Rights doesn’t have to reflect fear of change or an idealization of tradition but rests on an understanding of how essential these Rights are to civil society.

Thinking and Labeling

Explorations Outside the Box

Recently I read about a woman railing against tech workers saying she reminds herself not to call tech employers “companies” but “corporations”, the better to maintain her indignation.

Finding the words that vilify…. But why are “corporations” tainted and not “companies”? Is it just the assumption that most corporations are large companies and big is bad because big is powerful? Actually, most corporations are small to medium-sized, although it’s also true that most large companies are corporations. But large companies do us a lot of good. Per Corporations in the United States:

Large businesses are important to the overall economy because they tend to have more financial resources than small firms to conduct research and develop new goods. And they generally offer more varied job opportunities and greater job stability, higher wages, and better health and retirement benefits.

I think a better exercise would be to call corporations “companies”, the better to facilitate critical thinking and not lazy name-calling. The word “company” does not in itself conjure up much of anything, so it doesn’t function as a substitute for thinking. That’s what labels do.

Labels are a type of shorthand, mostly used to reduce and reject. Labels are rarely used to enhance value. Enhancing value often involves articulating in detail the rich variety and complexity of the thing thought about, i.e., the opposite of labeling.

 

Mindfulness and the Ideological Square: De-emphasize Our bad things

Observing Mindfulness

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?

—

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

Common factors behind Successful Outcomes in Psychotherapy

Scientific Encounters

In the past post, I mentioned that that concepts and techniques specific to various types of psychotherapy may account for as little as1% of outcomes. Here is a fuller accounting of the numbers for “percentage of variability of outcomes” in psychotherapy – care of Laska and Gurman (2014)

Common factors to all effective therapies (therapeutic alliance, empathy, goal consensus/collaboration, positive regard/affirmation, congruence/genuineness and therapist characteristics: 43% total

Differences between treatments – <1.0

Specific ingredients (dismantling) – 0.0

Adherence to protocol – <0.1

Rated competence in delivering particular treatment – 0.5

And the rest care of Lambert, M. J., & Bergin, A. E. (1994):

Extra-therapeutic events: 40%

Placebo effect (expectations): 15%

The above adds up to about 100%.

The Laska and Gurman paper posit the following common factors as “necessary and sufficient for change: (a) an emotionally charged bond between the therapist and patient, (b) a confiding healing setting in which therapy takes place, (c) a therapist who provides a psychologically derived and culturally embedded explanation for emotional distress, (d) an explanation that is adaptive (i.e., provides viable and believable options for overcoming specific difficulties) and is accepted by the patient, and (e) a set of procedures or rituals engaged by the patient and therapist that leads the patient to enact something that is positive, helpful, or adaptive.” (p. 469)

Laska and Gurman argue that therapies and treatments (“interventions”) that contain all these factors are likely to be efficacious. Note that some of these factors enhance the placebo effect – hope and higher expectations would be inspired by a caring therapist with a believable explanation for one’s troubles and believable options for change. This makes any clear division between “common factors” and “placebo effect” somewhat problematic.

The two papers also didn’t provide estimates for the contribution of client characteristics to outcomes, although I’d imagine client characteristics are an important source of variance. And where does “regression towards the mean” enter the picture? Bottom line: the above percentages are suggestive but the actual numbers and variables could use some tweaking.

Laska and Gurman point out that although random controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard in research, they are often flawed and so the conclusions one can draw from them are limited. For example, some RCTs have active comparison interventions that are supposed to match the main intervention in important respects (e.g., length of time, number of sessions). If the main intervention has better outcomes than the comparison intervention, the researchers may conclude there is something specific to the main intervention that made the difference. But most comparison interventions don’t include all the “necessary and sufficient” factors common to all effective interventions, so successful outcomes in the main intervention may not be attributable to anything special it does.

What we need are studies that compare interventions that share all the common factors and aim to inspire the same degree of hope, expectation, and buy-in, not just for the subjects but for the therapists as well. Then maybe we’ll be closer to designing therapies that offer more than what is commonly available.

References

Kevin M. Laska and Alan S. Gurman Expanding the Lens of Evidence-Based Practice in Psychotherapy: A Common Factors Perspective 2014, Vol. 51, No. 4, 467–481.

Lambert, M. J., & Bergin, A. E. (1994). The effectiveness of psychotherapy. In A. E. Bergin & S. L. Garfield (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy and behavior change (4th ed., pp. 143–189). New York, NY: Wiley.

 

Business, Government, and Climate Change

The Environment

What to do, what to do. Personally, I love the “3% solution” being put forth by World Wildlife Fund. Refreshingly, it seeks a partnership with business rather than assuming that business is the wolf that must be kept thin or else it will devour us all. But that’s just one idea, no guarantee it will work, but part of a whole range of possible actions. Of course, government also plays an important role.

Some measures to reduce GHGs may be counter-productive in the near term but ultimately bring about an overall reductions. An example would be government regulations mandating carbon capture technology installed in all new manufacturing facilities, which would lead some companies to delaying building new facilities, relying instead on less efficient and higher carbon emitting old facilities. Whether the measures are worth it depends on several factors, such as how long the counter-productive period lasts.

Another consideration: if a government favors a particular technology through special grants and tax breaks, that may channel resources away from R&D on other technologies that would have been better in the long run. Whatever the policy, consider trade-offs and the possibility of unintended consequences, and always be willing to cut bait if the effort turns out to be counterproductive. One problem with government favors is that they create interest groups that then resist change. So the favors should be time-limited and require legislative action to renew.

Then there’s the downside of success. Say, for instance, the US manages to greatly reduce consumption of CO2-emitting products, especially for electricity generation and transportation, lowering global demand for oil, reducing the global market rate for oil, increasing consumption of oil elsewhere. That may be ok, because eventually the technologies that resulted in reduced consumption in an advanced economy will filter out to other economies, especially as they get cheaper to produce and keep improving.

But if a technology is essentially subsidized by the government because businesses haven’t figured out a way to make them affordable, then that might discourage innovation and eventual affordability, not only for rich countries but poor ones as well.

A carbon tax would be part of the mix. But not too onerous. A problem with using a harsh punitive approach to CO2 emissions is the likelihood of electoral backlash, economic turmoil and reversal of public support for environmental protection. Also, if a large carbon tax succeeds in reducing GHG-emitting production and consumption, global prices for oil would go down and at least partly neutralize the effect of any tax. This is not to say that a carbon tax is not ok but such a tax would have to be carefully crafted and implemented.

Certain GHG-reducing proposals could make things worse. Some may encourage gaming the system and result in a net increase in emissions. This just happened with the European cap and trade system, with Russia and Ukraine doing a major scam on their well-meaning partners.

Mandating specific emission reductions for individual companies could also create problems, especially the creation of perverse incentives and disincentives. If the reductions are based on a baseline, businesses will prefer high baselines so that reductions are more doable and less costly. For instance, when in the market to buy new manufacturing facilities, a company might want to buy high-emitting operations to establish a high baseline, thus reducing subsequent compliance costs.

I personally like combining the carrot approach with gentle pressure, such as the WWF’s 3% Solution. Have respected, non-divisive environmental organizations work closely with businesses to reduce emissions and provide free publicity for those that jump on board. Companies do value the good will of the public. So what if they’re motivated by profit?

Relying on sticks alone will backfire. People will find a way to get around the rules, forcing regulators to play a constant game of whack-a-mole.