What Is Mindfulness Based Interventions?

1066 Words3 Pages

Mindfulness Based Interventions The most commonly used mindfulness based Interventions (MBI) used are the mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR), and mindfulness based cognitive therapy (Gu, Strauss, Bond & Cavanagh, 2015). Mindfulness based stress reduction was originally developed to treat chronic pain patients and was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Lorentz, 2011). The MBSR is a group-based training that is held once a week, over an eight-week period for 2.5 hours per session. A variety of techniques are used to teach mindfulness. A combination of lecture series on mindfulness, group discussions and instruction mindfulness techniques (e.g. meditation, body-scan, breathing awareness, empathy awareness) are used to teach participants about “The focus of MBCT is to encourage individuals to focus on the moment in a non-judgmental way and to let it pass without further thought or concern” (Felder, Dimidjian & Segal, 2012). This type of training is also taught in a group setting held over an eight-week period for 2.5 hours per session. Mindfulness originates from a deeply rooted system of contemplative practice. An individual cannot achieve the benefits of mindfulness training unless they continue practicing mindfulness techniques after the training is completed. By practicing meditation on a regular basis, mindfulness becomes an intentional practice (Holas & Jankowski, The questions on the FFMQ make simple statements about everyday experience (Baer et., 2008). THE FFMQ consists of 39 items and uses a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Never or very rarely true, 5 = Very often or always true), (Baer et al., 2006). The FFMQ questionnaire measures the five components of mindfulness: “observing (noticing internal or external sensations or emotions), describing (labeling internal experiences with words) acting with awareness, (attending to one’s activities in the moment), non-judging of inner experience (taking a non-evaluative stance towards thoughts and feelings) and non-reactivity to inner experience (tendency to allow thoughts and feelings to come and go without getting caught up in them” (Baer et al., 2008, p. 330). Reliability testing was done on several individuals that were regular meditators (N=213), demographically similar non-meditators (N=252), a general community sample (N=293) and a student sample (N=259), (Baer et al, 2008) using several different scales to compare the FFMQ

Open Document