#475 Mindfulness Research - Not So Simple

     The therapeutic alliance hangs on the patient's firm belief in the healer's intention & ability to heal and that her method is reasonable & effective. The ideal healer's every thought, word & action intentionally nurtures this relationship.

     This critical psychosocial component of all healing modalities should be intentionally maximized, not eliminated. Mindfulness can be seen as a healing modality - a path out of suffering towards wholeness. From a less medical and more developmental point of view, mindfulness can be seen as a way of consciously nurturing the maturation of one's own consciousness.
     Many researchers would like to use a scientific / medical model for studying mindfulness. Yet, unlike drugs & surgeries, which have significant "material" components, mindfulness has almost none. The "active ingredient" of mindfulness CANNOT be reduced to some molecule. It is NOT a simple cause & effect (nor is anything that simple in medicine). The actual process of engaging with mindfulness practices IS what brings about transformation & healing. So the advice below may not apply at all to mindfulness research.

     "Observational studies have a high risk of bias owing to problems such as self-selection of interventions (people who believe in the benefits of meditation or who have prior experience with meditation are more likely to enroll in a meditation program & report that they benefited from one) & use of outcome measures that can be easily biased by participants’ beliefs in the benefits of meditation. Clinicians need to know whether meditation training has beneficial effects beyond self-selection biases & the nonspecific effects of time, attention & expectations for improvement."

       Goyal M et al. Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being. A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Intern Med. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.13018 Published online January 6, 2014.

Mystical Boat by Odilon Redon

#402 Objectification

     Much is said and written about men objectifying women - perceiving and thus treating women as if they were mere sexual objects.

     "Objectification means treating a person as a thing, without regard to their dignity. A person is objectified if treated:
          • as a tool for another's purposes (instrumentality);
          • as if lacking in agency or self-determination;
          • as if owned by another;
          • as if interchangeable;
          • as if permissible to damage or destroy;
          • as if there is no need for concern for their feelings and experiences." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectification

     Of course it's not only women - and men - who are objectified. Don't we all, at times, have similar reductionist attitudes, and thus inappropriate behaviors, towards animals, jobs, food, homes, cars, vacations, the ecosystem - everything - even ourselves? Objectification arises from deep, unexamined hunger. This hunger limits our attention to the one specific quality of the person, animal, product, activity, or natural resource that we desperately, unrealistically, hope will quench our desire. It all starts with the "life unexamined" - instead of looking at our life as a complex, nuanced whole, we reduce it to likes & dislikes, and end up compulsively chasing desires, and fleeing aversions.

     "The robber sees only the saint's wallet."

     To perceive each person, animal and thing as they are, in the appropriate context of this time and place, awareness must be open (instead of narrowly focused) and equanimous (as undistorted as possible by the observer's needs). Practicing mindfulness helps to shift consciousness from egocentric towards allocentric & ecocentric.

     See: #398-401