#745 Key Principles & Aspects of MBSR

a     making the experience a challenge rather than a chore and thus turning the observing of one’s own life mindfully into an adventure in living rather than one more thing one ‘has’ to do for oneself to be healthy.

b     an emphasis on the importance of individual effort and motivation and regular disciplined practice of the meditation in its various forms, whether one ‘feels’ like practicing on a particular day or not.

c     the immediate lifestyle change that is required to undertake formal mindfulness practice, since it requires a significant time commitment (in our clinic 45 minutes a day, six days per week minimally).

d     the importance of making each moment count by consciously bringing it into awareness during practice, thus stepping out of clock time into the present moment.

e     an educational rather than a therapeutic orientation, which makes use of relatively large ‘classes’ of participants in a time-limited course structure to provide a community of learning and practice, and a ‘critical mass’ to help in cultivating ongoing motivation, support, and feelings of acceptance and belonging. The social factors of emotional support and caring and not feeling isolated or alone in one’s efforts to cope and adapt and grow are in all likelihood extremely important factors in healing as well as for providing an optimal learning environment for ongoing growth and development in addition to the factors of individual effort and initiative and coping / problem solving.

f     a medically heterogenous environment, in which people with a broad range of medical conditions participate in classes together without segregation by diagnosis or conditions and specialization of the intervention. This approach has the virtue of focusing on what people have in common rather than what is special about their particular disease (what is ‘right’ with them rather than what is ‘wrong’ with them), which is left to the attention of other dimensions of the health care team and to specialized support groups for specific classes of patients, where that is appropriate. It is in part from this orientation, which differs considerably from the traditional medical or psychiatric models, which orient interventions as specifically as possible to particular diagnostic categories, that the generic and universal qualities of mindfulness-based stress reduction stem. Of course, stress, pain, and illness are common experiences within the medical context, but beyond that, and even more fundamentally, the participants share being alive, having a body, breathing, thinking, feeling, perceiving, and incessant flow of mental states, including anxiety and worry, frustration, irritation and anger, depression, sorrow, helplessness, despair, joy and satisfaction, and the capacity to cultivate moment-to-moment awareness by directing attention in particular systematic ways. They also share, in our view, the capacity to access their own inner resources for learning, growing, and healing (as distinguished from curing) within this context of mindfulness practice.

       quoted from: Jon Kabat-Zinn. “Mindfulness Meditation. What Is It, What It Isn’t, and It’s Role in Health Care and Medicine.” in Ishii Y, Suzuki M, & Haruki Y eds. “Comparative and Psychological Study on Meditation.” Eburon, 1996. 

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#527 What Can We Do About Toxic Environments?

     We instinctively pull away from unpleasant, difficult situations, people, activities, and are attracted to pleasant, comfortable situations, people, activities. It's the well-known approach-avoid dichotomy see: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/65-embracing-full-catastrophe.html
     One very unfortunate consequence of this tendency is that when things start going awry in one's surroundings eg a colleague's behavior becomes disruptive, we're apt to avoid dealing with it in a timely, direct manner. We find it unpleasant, we may fear negative consequences from speaking to the person, we may feel incompetent intervening, we may not want to hurt the colleague's feelings, etc. Many of us have minimal training or skills in the behavioral sciences.
     Without constructive intervention, problems tend to persist or escalate. We'll often continue to avoid addressing the offender, because now it's really out of hand - way too much for us to handle. Now we may be grumbling incessantly about the problem with other colleagues, behind the offender's back, and even behind the backs of management, who could & should address the problem. Soon we're also grumbling about management for allowing the problem to get out of hand! THIS is the perfect recipe for poisoning one's environment. This is how a collegial, collaborative, family-like atmosphere can easily be turned toxic - not by the one troubled colleague - but by all the bystanders - the "nattering nabobs of negativism."

     So what is an appropriate, intelligent response (instead of avoidance) to such problems?  
     1) awareness & acceptance of problems
     2) approach & investigate them with curiosity 
     3) learn & apply skills to solve them early
     4) institute proactive preventive measures

     We can learn to become competent in any arena.  Competence transforms unpleasant difficulties that we may once have avoided, into manageable, even interesting challenges. We can become truly proactive by initiating a cultural shift in which training & competence in the psychosocial realm becomes a valued, integral part of our educational system. 
     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/fear-avoidance-ineffective-existential.html
     and: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/01/270-interpersonal-conflicts-inevitable.html

Peet J van Eeden, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

#377 Meeting Basic Psychological Needs Promotes Inherent Growth Tendencies

     "Motivation is having the energy or desire to do an action. The degree to which an individual’s psychological needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness are being met within any performance context will determine if that person is motivated or unmotivated to perform the task(s) at hand. When a performance context facilitates the fulfillment of basic needs, that need fulfillment engenders intrinsic motivation, or autonomous types of extrinsic motivation, toward a task or performance. These self-determined types of motivation, because they involve voluntary & persistent effort toward a task, help to ensure successful outcomes. The successful outcomes lead to renewed need fulfillment, more self-determined motivation, and continued success of outcomes, all of which lead to psychological well-being. If the needs are not met, an individual will not achieve psychological well-being.

     Self-determination theory (SDT) is concerned with human motivation. The theory examines people’s inherent growth tendencies and innate psychological needs, which are posited to be the foundations of self-motivation. Understanding the circumstances that bring about positive motivation is the focal point of the theory. SDT is based on the assumption that humans, with their innate psychological needs, seek challenges in an effort to master their environments. 
     To understand the reasons why people participate in any activity, according to SDT, it is important to distinguish among a variety of types of motivation. The theory proposes that there is a continuum of human self-determination (or choice) regarding the things that we do. Along this linear continuum, various types of motivation can be described. At the far left of the linear continuum is amotivation, which is the lack of an intention to act. At the far right end of the continuum is intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing an activity for the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself. Four types of extrinsic motivation lie between amotivation and intrinsic motivation, which is at the far right side of the continuum.
     The first type of extrinsic motivation is external regulation. This is the least self-determined, or the least autonomous, of the externally regulated behaviors, in which actions are performed to satisfy external demands. The next type of extrinsic motivation is introjected regulation, which involves behaving so as to avoid guilt or to enhance one’s ego. Identified regulation is a self-determined, or autonomous, form of extrinsic motivation in which the person identifies with the personal importance of a behavior. Integrated regulation is the most self-determined form of extrinsic motivation. It operates when behaviors are most congruent with an individual’s values and needs."
       Ballmann JM, Mueller JJ. Using self-determination theory to describe the academic motivation of allied health professional-level college students. J Allied Health 2008; 37(2): 90-6.

     For more details about SDT, search for Ryan RM on: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/

Galatia N   www.dpreview.com