Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Fabrizio Didonna Read Free Book Online Page B

the independent work and studies of
    many researchers and therapists, this has given rise to a trans-epistemological
    approach, leading to experimentation and the application in clinical settings
    of principles and methods deeply rooted in Eastern psychology.
    Interest in these approaches stems from an awareness that despite the
    importance of scientific methodology, which aims at ensuring rigorous pro-
    cedure and seeks to further evidence-based knowledge, there appears to be
    a considerable need to combine these practices with the innate components
    of human nature that are decisive in influencing an individual’s interpretation
    of events and his/her emotional attitudes and behavior. These components
    can be found in the acceptance of experience (Hahn, 1998; Hayes, Strosahl,
    & Wilson, 1999), a compassionate attitude toward one’s own and other peo-
    ple’s suffering (Gilbert, 2005), the capacity to observe oneself without judg-
    ing (Kabat-Zinn, 1990), and the idea that the mind can observe itself and
    understand its own nature (Dalai Lama, Benson, Thurman, Goleman, & Gard-
    ner, 1991). They are also found in the capacity to direct attention toward the
    emotional sphere and the relationship of interdependence and reciprocal
    influence existing between the mind and the body (Goleman, 1991) and in
    more general terms in a harmonizing and normalizing attitude toward intrap-
    ersonal and interpersonal variables.
    All of these components can be summed up in the concept of
    mindfulness .
    As is well explained in the first part of this book, mindfulness is the “heart,”
    or the core teaching, of Buddhist psychology (Kabat-Zinn, 2003), and it is
    inherently a state of consciousness that involves consciously attending to
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    Fabrizio Didonna
    one’s moment-to-moment experience (Brown & Ryan, 2003). This state is
    cultivated and developed through meditation practice (Kabat-Zinn, 2005),
    which offers a method by which we can become less reactive to what is
    happening to us in the present moment. It is a way of relating to our entire
    experience (be it positive, negative, or neutral), which provides us with a
    means by which we may reduce our general level of suffering and increase
    our level of well-being (Germer, Siegel, & Fulton, 2005).
    A crucial aspect of most mindfulness practices is a sense of heightened
    but detached awareness of sensory and thought experience and, as Wolinsky
    (1991) argues, mindfulness is actually the way out of the everyday trances
    we live at the mercy of through unconscious, habitual, automatic patterns
    of conditioning. Understanding the therapeutic value of these processes may
    represent a particularly important integration of Eastern and Western psy-
    chologies (Walsh, 1996).
    The ever-growing integration between mindfulness and psychotherapy is
    justified by the fact that mindfulness can be considered a trans-theoretical
    construct that has been used and integrated into different Western theo-
    retical and therapeutic approaches that up to only two decades ago had
    few, if any, points of contact and dialogue. Today, different therapeutic
    models (cognitive-behavior therapy, constructivism, evolutionary psychol-
    ogy, humanist psychology, psychoanalysis, brain science, traumatology, pos-
    itive psychology) now seem to have found a unifying factor and significant
    shared element that will make it possible, in the future, to better understand
    and develop the therapeutic factors common to all effective psychological
    treatments. Indeed, it can be argued that the mechanisms of change that
    form the basis of mindfulness meditation can be found in most Western psy-
    chotherapeutic perspectives.
    Mindfulness-based approaches also pay particular attention to the impor-
    tance of personal resources and potential and to the capacity of an individ-
    ual’s “system” to heal itself (or healing from within). By doing so, individuals
    spontaneously reach a point (especially when properly guided and