Meditating With Purpose

If mindfulness is the sharpening of one’s ability to notice, then perhaps this noticing can be applied to the subtle changes in thoughts, behavior, and emotions that precede or come concurrently with the onset of a mood change or a psychotic episode.  One changes as one enters any psychiatric episode.  Noticing these changes can enable the individual to take whatever steps are necessary, and effective, to head off a debilitating psychiatric break.

The MBSR Police

Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was first presented 36 years ago by Jon Kabat Zinn in the Pain Clinic of the University of Massachusetts’ Medical Center.  Since then, tens of thousands of patients have benefited from mindfulness training by taking classes that adhere to, and classes that are similar to, the MBSR program.  Today, variants of the program have sprung up at leading medical centers worldwide.  This has led many to wonder how should mindfulness be best taught as a medical intervention, and by whom?