Further investigations of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are currently being undertaken through a randomised control trial under the leadership of Professor Mark Williams. The trial is developing existing understanding by investigating the potential of MBCT for people who experience both recurrent depression and who are suicidal while depressed. The questions being asked are: Does MBCT reduce the incidence of depression in this more vulnerable group? If depression occurs is the incidence of suicidality reduced in those participants who have taken the MBCT course? The trial is also comparing MBCT to a psycho-educational 8-week programme to test whether the personal mindfulness meditation practice developed by participants during an MBCT course is a crucial component. The talk will offer an orientation to the background of MBCT and to the current research, and will then turn to the particular teaching themes and methodologies employed within MBCT which support participants in working in new ways with their vulnerability to depression and suicidality.
It is generally accepted that there are close links between mindfulness and attention. However, there is much controversy concerning the nature of those links. This is so in part because there is no consensus concerning the number or types of attentional processes we possess. Some headway has been made in recent years, and functional neuroimaging studies are starting to clarify some of the issues. One of the main themes to be discussed is the notion that there are two forms of consciousness or awareness: (1) a lower-level consciousness associated with perception; (2) a higher-level consciousness often associated with self-awareness and internal thoughts about past and future events. Mindfulness can be regarded as an integration or fusing of these two forms of consciousness.
The use of meditation to improve emotional and mental well-being has been apparent for thousands of years from its birth in India through Hinduism. Recently, its impact on cognitive abilities such as attention has become the subject of investigation. The current study investigates whether this positive effect can be capitalized upon to improve the EEG signals measured from the motor cortex with the eventual aim of increasing the efficiency of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) devices to control neuroprotheses. In an exploratory longitudinal study, three groups of matched participants are being tracked for their ability to control a BCI; two are taking lessons in activities requiring concentration, one learning to meditate and one learning to play a musical instrument and the final is receiving no intervention. Pilot studies have shown that both types of concentrative practice (meditation and learning to play an instrument) improve performance on the BCI. Focused attention therefore seems to be very important but further results will elucidate whether meditation can provide the greatest benefits.
New research is showing how mental activity sculpts neural structures. Therefore, through mindful attention, you have the power to shape your own brain for greater happiness, love, effectiveness, and wisdom. This presentation will explore:
There will be plenty of time for questions and answers, and no background with neuroscience or mindfulness is necessary. For therapists and other caregivers, numerous methods will be offered for those with whom they work.
It is estimated that around 80% of individuals with ASD also meet diagnostic criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder. Traditional counselling models can be confusing and inappropriate for this population. Mindfulness would appear to offer an accessible and effective treatment for anxiety and also depression, which is another common co-morbid condition in this group.
Apart from medicine and health care, much of the Western scientific engagement with Buddhist mindfulness meditation has been within clinical psychology, primarily based on psychoanalytic and cognitive–behavioural approaches to psychotherapy, and sharing the common aim of fostering well-being. Academic research in psychology, by contrast, has attempted to define, understand and measure mindfulness, studying the nature of meditation, and evaluating the effectiveness of various interventions. Thus, academic psychologists have tended to study mindfulness and meditation from an ‘outsider’ positivistic position, using established scientific criteria and methods, mainly experimentation. While such research is important and worthwhile, it potentially misses the opportunity to learn from mindfulness meditation as a method of experiential inquiry in its own right. Indeed, there is an added danger that, by treating ‘mindfulness’ as an object of study, such research may potentially become distanced from the actual practice of mindfulness, resulting in a disembodied and dualistic subject–object split, ironically of the kind mindfulness is designed to counter. An alternative approach to mindfulness research in psychology is therefore needed, which understands mindfulness as a first-person method of research, to be used alongside the standard third-person methodologies. This embodied and whole-hearted approach to doing psychology would comprise the cultivation of present-moment awareness and compassion, and be grounded in systematic formal meditation practice, along with everyday mindfulness. Such a ‘science of interbeing’ (Varela, 1999) would embody mindfulness theory and involve the interdisciplinary investigation of a variety of social and psychological topics.
It is known that people from critical, harsh and neglectful backgrounds are vulnerable to a range of mental health difficulties linked to shame and self-criticism (Zuroff 2005, Gilbert 2005a) and can do poorly with traditional psychotherapies (Rector 2000, Blatt 1995). To address these difficulties, Gilbert developed a nosology for shame, distinguishing external shame (based on how we feel we exist for others) from internal shame (based on how we experience ourselves) and designed different strategies to address them (Gilbert 1989, 1998, 2002).
Buddhist approaches within the mindfulness tradition have also placed a strong emphasis on compassion as the key to overcome suffering, expressed by HH Dalai Lama “my religion is kindness” .
Compassionate mind training (CMT) is situated within evolutionary neuroscience and attachment approaches to psychological problems (see Gilbert 1998 through 2008). This framework argues that one of the key difficulties for high shame and self-critical people is that they are not able to access their affiliative positive affect system, a particularly type of positive affect system linked to soothing and well-being (see Depue & Marrone-Strupinsky 2005, Carter 1998 and Gilbert 2006b).
CFT techniques and exercises have repeatedly been shown to be effective, alluding to the benefits of emotion regulation where compassion, particularly towards the self, can significantly alleviate negative affect and improve positive affect in healthy, mentally ill and self-critical populations (Gilbert 2004, 2006b, 2006c, Mayhew & Gilbert 2008). Indeed, for centuries Eastern psychologies have suggested compassion as an antidote to psychological problems (Leighton 2003). Nevertheless, despite their importance, there is very little understanding of the neuropsychology of self-compassion or self-criticism. Most notably, although several accounts of the benefits of compassion-related practices exist (see Neff 2005, 2007a, 2007, Leary 2007, Lutz 2008, Shapiro 1998, 2005, 2007 and Leighton 2003), there remains a gap in knowledge about relationships between self-compassion, self-criticism and neuroimaging paradigms. In light of this, a potential series of studies on the neuropsychology of self-compassion and self-criticism is proposed, of which this pilot study is the first. In fact, this is the first fMRI study to pilot CFT modules and compassion meditation techniques.
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