#487 Mindfulness, Science & Reductionism

     The latest mindfulness-based intervention, "Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), is designed to train people to respond differently to pain, stress & opioid-related cues."

     The definitions provided in the paper (below) of mindfulness, reappraisal & savoring are so brief as to be misleading. Clearly there's MUCH more to mindfulness than awareness for the purpose of self-regulation. Reappraisal / reframing, at least as it pertains to mindfulness, is also MUCH more complex, including acceptance and seeing things clearly as part of the overall big picture. Similarly, savoring as defined below sounds simplistic - FAR less nuanced & balanced than one experiences through mindfulness meditation practice. But such is the nature of reductionism, an inherent part of science.

     "MORE targets the underlying processes involved in chronic pain & opioid misuse by combining three therapeutic components: mindfulness training, reappraisal & savoring.
     • Mindfulness involves training the mind to increase awareness, gain control over one's attention & regulate automatic habits.
     • Reappraisal is the process of reframing the meaning of a stressful or adverse event in such a way as to see it as purposeful or growth promoting.
     • Savoring is the process of learning to focus attention on positive events to increase one's sensitivity to naturally rewarding experiences, such as enjoying a beautiful nature scene or experiencing a sense of connection with a loved one."

       Garland EL, Manusov EG, Froeliger B, Kelly A, Williams JM, Howard MO. Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement for Chronic Pain and Prescription Opioid Misuse: Results From an Early-Stage Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2014; DOI: 10.1037/a0035798

 

Elena Shumilova  http://www.flickr.com/photos/75571860@N06/11874722676/

#387 Meditation Facilitating Normal Developmental Shift to Healthier Emotion Regulation

     "The challenge is to find ways of regulating our emotions so that we retain their helpful features while limiting their destructive aspects.
     ... two commonly used emotion regulation strategies:
     Cognitive REAPPRAISAL - changing the way one thinks about a potentially emotion-eliciting situation in order to modify its emotional impact; 

     Expressive SUPPRESSION - changing the way one responds behaviorally to an emotion-eliciting event. 

     ... experimental findings show that 

1) reappraisal has a healthier profile of ... consequences (patterns of affect, social functioning, & well-being) than suppression

2) (there's) a normative shift toward an increasingly healthy emotion regulation profile during adulthood (increases in the use of reappraisal & decreases in the use of suppression)."

 

       John OP, Gross JJ. Healthy and unhealthy emotion regulation: personality processes, individual differences, and life span development. J Pers 2004; 72(6): 1301-33.

     Meditation is based on seeing clearly (awareness). The acceptance aspect of meditation involves letting go of prevalent avoidant tendencies such as suppression by accepting reality as it is, rather than demanding that it conform to our preferences.