#234 Shared World of Deep Meaning AND Multiculturalism

     Based on our experience in fifteen 8-week MBSR workshops, with attendees from a wide range of cultures, ages, and educational backgrounds, it's abundantly clear that mindfulness welcomes all to meet in a "shared world" of deep meaning. Mindfulness may well be the Esperanto - the common language - of deeply meaningful connection. As human beings we're all wounded, in need of healing from each other; AND we're all healers through listening deeply, being fully with each other.
     Anything less than such a deep human-to-human connection (see quote below), is a barrier to meaningful communication between individuals, cultures, religions etc (eg doctor-patient, peace talks).

     "Most analyses of traditional healing systems involve situations in which patients and healers share a similar cultural background. In multicultural societies, sufferer and healer may live in different local worlds and may not share the same notions of the roles of patient and healer, the appropriate place and time for healing, the meaning of symbolic acts, and the expected outcome. Where a shared world cannot be assumed, patient and healer must go through prolonged negotiation to define the parameters of an effective clinical encounter. Even when patient and healer find common ground, their co-constructed understandings of illness and healing may run into conflict with larger institutional contexts and the social world. The clinical encounter is embedded in social structures, which may give it unintended meanings and consequences."
       Kirmayer LJ. Asklepian dreams: the ethos of the wounded-healer in the clinical encounter. Transcult Psychiatry 2003; 40(2): 248-77.

Paul Hannon   http://paulhannon.com/