Today I bring you one of the leaders in the field who goes to the heart of the intersection between mindfulness and psychotherapy. Shauna Shapiro has co-authored The Art and Science of Mindfulness: Integrating Mindfulness into Psychology and the Helping Professions, with Dr. Linda Carlson and has published over 50 book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic.  She currently leads mindfulness training programs for professionals nationally and internationally on the applications of mindfulness in the field of health care.

Question: In your book, you cite a huge rise in the last 10 years for National Institute of Health (NIH) funded research studies focusing on mindfulness-based therapies for stress, pain, and/or illness.  Can you tell us a bit about why you think there is such growing interest?

Shauna: In both research and clinical environments there is a rapidly growing interest in mindfulness-based approaches.  For example, searches of the scientific literature on PsychINFO and PUBMED using the same term, “mindfulness-based”, yield 260 and 115 published scientific articles, respectively.  And the enthusiasm of funders, grant peer reviewers and the scientific community has followed this trend:  In 2008 there were 44 funded studies in progress; this number has increased from zero in 1998 and only three in 1999.  I believe the interest and increased funding is due in part to the strong body of research conducted by pioneers in the field, such as Kabat-Zinn and Segal, Williams and Teasdale who provided a clear rationale and direction for future research.  I also believe that there is a cultural shift happening and a deep yearning for greater wholeness and health, for both patients and therapists. Mindfulness offers a simple and easily accessible path toward this - mindfulness offers enormous potential and possibility to the field of health care.  

Question: In your book you talk of three different ways mindfulness can integrate into psychotherapy. The first, the mindful therapist, the second, mindfulness-informed therapy, and the third you call mindfulness-based psychotherapy. Can you give us a rundown to what each is and …

Sharon Begley, science editor for Newsweek and author of The Plastic Mind: New science reveals our extraordinary potential to transform ourselves, just wrote an interesting article titled The Upside of Depression. In this article she reviews some recent research that basically flies in the face of the “Happiness” surge and says that depression is actually adaptive. In other words, it is part of our evolutionary make up.

How can this be?

She reviews an article titled The Bright Side of Being Blue, by J. Anderson Thompson at the University of Virginia and Paul Andrews at Virginia Commonwealth University who give a scientific argument that:

• Depressive rumination can be good because it allows for analytical thinking that can be important when coming up with a solution for depressed mood. This may be the case, but sometimes the mind’s anxious habit of looking for a solution is exactly what keeps us stuck in depressed mood. The ruminative anxiousness seems to pour kerosene on the fire. At times letting things be, rather than falling into the trap of always having to “do something” about it, is just what the doctor ordered.
• Depression tends to focus thinking. This is one of their findings, but it’s news to me. My experience is that people who suffer from depression feel more clouded and distracted with their thinking making it difficult to even pay attention to reading a magazine or book.
• Depression leads people to seek isolation and this can be good as it allows for the space to think about what might have triggered the depression in the first place and therefore find a way out. She goes onto quote a study citing the importance of writing as an expressive way to come out of depressed mood. This is absolutely true, however the reason writing might be helpful is because it allows us to get our thoughts out on paper and externalize them, taking away the emotional charge of our thoughts and laying to rest their need to swim or “ruminate” in our …
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There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. So for today, here is a quote by Franz Kafka:

 “You can hold back from suffering of the world,

you have permission to do so,

and it is in accordance with your nature,

but perhaps this very holding back

is the one suffering you could have avoided.”

In a recent blog, Mindful Monday: A Note to the Severely Depressed–Don’t Try So Hard, author Therese Borchard wrote about her first hand experience with trying to get out of a depressed state through her bag of mindfulness and CBT tricks. What she found was the harder she tried and was unable to succeed the more her judgments about being a “failure” grew.

What her doctor’s told her was when you are in the eye of a depressive episode, “distract, don’t think.”

When we’re really depressed, the mind is searching for things “to do” in order to get us out. However, this is a trap, especially when we’re really depressed. The harder we try, the more stuck we get.

Why?

Because it’s a set up.

The moment we’re reaching for mindfulness practices as a means to an end, as a means in that moment to feel better, get out of depression, or achieve calm, is the moment our minds develop the rule: “If I don’t see any relief come from this, then I am a failure, or there must be something wrong with me.”

From then on, the mind becomes vigilant in looking for relief and every moment it is not found, is a …

I am very happy to bring you and interview with Tara Brach again. If you missed the last interview on Radical Acceptance you can view it here.  Tara Brach is a clinical Psychologist who has been integrating mindfulness and psychotherapy for many years. She is author of the popular book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha, the CD Radical Self-acceptance, and her newest CD, which I highly recommend, Meditations for Emotional Healing: Finding Freedom in the Face of Difficulty. She is also working on a new book calledTrue Refuge (Bantam, early 2011). Tara has weekly podcasts from her Wednesday night sitting groups that address forgiveness and compassion and is senior teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington.  She really embodies and emphasizes the importance of acknowledging our aversions in life and cultivating compassion for oneself and others as a means toward mental health.

Question:  Tara, you put a lot of work out there that incorporates mindfulness and psychotherapy. Your newest being the upcoming CD Meditations for Emotional Healing: Finding Freedom in the Face of Difficulty . From all of these, can you give us 5 key elements emphasized in emotional healing and spiritual freedom?

1. Aspiration - The entire spiritual path arises out of our sincere aspiration to awaken. As one Zen master put it, “The most important thing is remembering the most important thing.”  We each have our own way of sensing what is most important.  It may be to be present, to know who you really are, to love without holding back, or to help others be free of suffering. Try to begin the day by reflecting in a fresh way on your aspiration, and pause through the day to remember what matters. This remembering will wake you up from the daily trance and energize your unfolding towards freedom.
2. Daily practice - A daily meditation practice is a gift to …
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Tom was taking a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) course with me and really had wonderful intentions to do the practices that were assigned week to week. However, at the time he was to sit down to do the practice, he noticed these thoughts in his mind telling him that doing this practice is a “waste of time” and he could be doing better things like watching television, eating, or flipping through a magazine.

And so it was…

When it comes to procrastination or inertia to make changes in our lives, it’s important to cultivate an awareness of what it really is. In order to do that, we need to break it down and name what is happening.

Once we can name it, we can face it, and when we can face it, we can work with it.

Here is a 3 step process to breaking through procrastination:

1. Name it - Over the years, we have developed so many habits in our mind that are very strong because they’ve had a lot of practice. Through current research in the area of neuroplasticity, we now know that what we pay attention to and how we pay attention lays down the tracks to our minds. So if we practice avoiding or doubting, that’s the way our minds will habitually drift on auto-pilot. So, it’s important to come up with a name for the “tape in the mind” or automatic negative thoughts that are taking you away from your original intention. Some of my clients have made up terms like “doubting mind,” “sabotage mind,” “distraction mind,” or even “baloney mind,” to add some humor to it.The key here is that once we name it, we’ve stepped outside of the auto-pilot and now have a choice to redirect. However, to make this stick, it’s difficult to just redirect to the intended action, we first need to get a better sense of this feeling that we’re trying to avoid.
2. Redirect to physical feeling - There is always some physical feeling that is associated with avoidance. We may notice it as …
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There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. So for today, here is a quote by Rumi:

“Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.”

Here is yet another quote that points us to the reality of what most of us habitually try to avoid or react to. The way to emotional freedom is through “being with” and embracing that which is painful or difficult in us rather that “trying to fix”, push away, or run from it.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with trying “to fix” things. Without this ability you wouldn’t have the seat you’re sitting in, the computer you’re looking at, or the clothes you’re wearing (if you’re wearing them). Most the time we’re not even aware we’re trying to avoid it.

However, when it comes to our emotions, trying to think our way out of them is only a path of avoidance. This avoidance creates further suffering.

Think about it for a second. What happens when you try and think about becoming less anxious or depressed? You go up into your head and start swirling around about why this is happening and maybe what you can do about it. In other words, we add stress to discomfort.

Another way to look at this is to ask: Where are you not? You’re not paying attention to the reality of the moment which is this feeling, the feeling of sadness or frustration or even joy. Yes, for many of us joy is mixed up in uncomfortable feelings so we avoid that too (more on that in another blog).

It is in the very moment that we become intimate, in a nonjudgmental way, with our discomfort, that we send the message internally that we care about ourselves (”the light enters you”) and this begins to transform the …

I’m very happy to be interviewing Steve Flowers, MFT, author of the excellent new book Mindful Path Through Shyness: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Help Free You from Social Anxiety, Fear, and Avoidance. Steve is also a psychotherapist, co-director of the Mindful Living Programs, leading mindfulness retreats for health professionals, and director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) clinic at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, California and online at Emindful.com.

Today we’re talking about a very important topic that so many people seem to suffer with.

Question: What is the difference between shyness and social anxiety and how prevalent is it?

Steve: Shyness is a human temperament often described in terms of personality traits that many regard as positive, like modesty and being quiet and demure. But some aspects of shyness aren’t positive and create what I’ll refer to as problematic shyness. These aspects include feelings of being unsafe in interpersonal relationships and feelings of social anxiety, which lead to protective behaviors.

People with problematic shyness have thoughts and emotions that are self-critical and self-absorbed. Trying to conceal those fears and perceived inadequacies can lead you to enclose yourself in a private self-consciousness, and although this enclosure is meant to protect, it actually imprisons. Shyness is experienced in individual relationships or may also come up in groups of people. The most recent polls show that self-reported shyness has been steadily increasing and at least 50% of the people in the United States consider themselves shy.

People that are shy experience social anxiety but may not meet the criteria for the diagnosis of social anxiety disorder (also known as social phobia).  Social Anxiety Disorder is an intense fear or even terror of humiliation or embarrassment in relation to groups of people. It’s very difficult to overcome and can be disabling. For this reason, social phobia is substantially different from shyness and is classified as a mental health disorder.  It can greatly impair a person’s life and cause much suffering.

Question: In your book you talk about shyness patterns and how this …

Let me just open by saying that the way I really believe change happens with us is in our daily lives. Having a space to remind us of that is enormously helpful.

For most of us, the changes we want to make are not supported by the people we spend most of our time with. There may be groups or pockets of people we connect with that help us stay-on-the-course of living the lives we want, but otherwise it’s really hard to make change.

Kagan and Lahey (2009) found that only 1 in 7 heart disease patients told by their doctor to change habits or face death, actually change their habits.

So thanks to the advent of the internet, we now have more opportunity to engage with groups that are supportive to living the life we want and more opportunity to engage with groups and media that go in the opposite direction.

I created the Mindful Living Twitter feed to allow people to get popped in a mindful place or exposed to mindfulness-based material on a daily basis. How might this help?

With this new concept of neuroplasticity, the ability of our brains to be reshaped throughout the lifespan, we have come to understand that how and what we pay attention has a serious impact on us. In other words, if we are entertaining anxious or depressive thoughts, those pathways are laid down in the brain. So the next time a thought comes up, it is more likely to go down the anxious road because it has been paved so many times.

The Mindful Living Twitter feed found at http://twitter.com/Mindful_Living,  or any feed that you find that is supportive to living the life you want is meant to surround you with the type of instruction and material to help you lay down those tracks of a mindful brain.

You are also welcome to the Free Mindful Companion Book to sift through during moments when you’re needing a mindful companion.

The point here is to surround yourself with the type of people, information and practice that you want more of in …

There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. So for today, here is a quote by Henry Ford:

“Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right.”

In my former life (or profession), I used to do sales and run outside sales teams running all over the San Francisco Bay Area talking to executives in companies and trying to find the best solutions with the products we had. It was an exciting time and one where I was often searching for phrases would make sense to my team to motivate them in the right direction.

When I came upon this one by Henry Ford I thought it was powerful. I saw a tremendous amount of negativity and self judgment among the employees in these companies with many of them believing they could not succeed. I saw how this sapped their energy, motivation, and ability to go the extra mile to make the sale.

Applying a mindful lens to this phrase, we can begin to see how we identify with our thoughts and how that then forms our actions, which then lead to consequences often confirming our beliefs.

In other words, if you don’t believe or identify with the thought that y cannot do something, you’re really not going to have the motivation to do it and you will likely not accomplish it.

On a deeper level, we’re talking about our attachment or identification with our thoughts in our mind, mistaking them as who we actually are. We might say “I am a person who never succeeds …

There is a story by Leo Tolstoy of a king who had everything he needed, but he had three questions that nagged at him.

What is the right time to do any one thing?

Who are the right people to listen to and work with?

What is the most important thing to do at all times?

He figured that if he knew the answers to these questions, he would be free of any anxiety and never have any issues.

He called upon all his countrymen to a contest to see if anyone had the answers. Hundreds of people came in.

For the first question there were a variety of answers. Some people told him he needed to fill out a calendar and follow it to the tee and then he would know what the right thing to do was. Others had other theories.

For the second question, again, some people listed religious leaders; others said he needed a wise counsel to rely on, while others said the military is who he should surround himself with.

The third answer brought similar responses from science to religion to the military.

Underwhelmed by all these responses, the king dressed in peasant clothing and walked up to visit a wise hermit on top of the mountain, for he may have the answer.

The hermit was busy plowing a garden and the king said, “Excuse me, wise hermit, you do not know me, but I have come to ask you three questions.”

After asking the questions the hermit smiled, patted him on the back, and continued on. The king soon saw that the hermit looked tired and offered to help and began plowing himself. After some time, the king asked the questions again and was interrupted by the sight of a naked man running through the hills with blood spilling from his stomach.

The bleeding man made his way to the hermit and king and the king swept into action and began tearing his own shirt to dress this man’s wound. The hermit and king went to lay the man down to rest in the cave where the hermit stayed and the …