A recent opinion piece on CNN came out about a book by Dr. Louann Brizendine, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCSF, that caught my attention and so I had to read further (a sign of good marketing). The book is The Male Brain, a follow up to her past book, The Female Brain, and it basically states that the classic stereotypical male attributes (e.g. automatically looking at women’s breasts, lacking empathy, oversexed) can now be explained from a neuroscientific perspective. In other words, neuroscience can now explain John Gray’s famous book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

I thought, “Wow, this is astounding,” but something didn’t feel 100% kosher here. I dug deeper. In a New York Times book review, Emily Bazelon more or less says that Brizendine’s book is a highly lopsided account of the facts for the purpose of high power marketing. She says:

There is no question about it, the interest in Mindfulness-Based Interventions to work with people experiencing a variety of “disorders” and also in healthy individuals is growing at a rapid pace. There has been research with psychological issues such as stress, anxiety, depression, bipolar, addiction, eating disorders, ADHD, OCD, Parenting and others. There has also been plenty of research with medical diagnoses such as Chronic Pain, HIV/AIDS, Cancer, Sleep disorders, heart disease, epilepsy and others.

The most well-known of these are Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Dialectal Behavior Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and a growing interest in Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention (MBRP) for addictive relapse.

In her book  The Art and Science of Mindfulness: Integrating Mindfulness into Psychology and the Helping Professions, Shauna Shapiro shows a variety of research with mindfulness-based interventions and says,

As it stands, there is solid evidence that mindfulness-based treatments can be successfully applied to the treatment of symptoms of anxiety and depression, whether MBSR, MBCT or ACT is applied. Mixed-modality intensive treatments like DBT that incorporate mindfulness training are also useful for treating more complex personality disorders, which often include substance abuse and self-harming behaviors. 

Yet, it’s amazing that there has been this much positive research in only 30 years, most of it coming in the last 10 years. This is an exciting time in the field of mindfulness as a modality for medical and psychological distress.

The research is clearly pointing out that mindfulness as an approach has been and can continue to be translated into the mainstream and is indeed helpful as an intervention.

In a previous interview with Shauna, I asked her what she felt was the most exciting research out there in connection with mindfulness and she said:

Neuroplasticity. I believe this single word gives people hope; hope that change is possible. For example, we used to think that we all had a “happiness set point” much like with weight, and that no matter what our circumstances, we would always end up back at baseline. Good scientific evidence substantiates this theory, for example, people who win the lotto or those who are in a …

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Mindfulness is all about learning how to be intimate with yourself once again: In other words, turning toward your thoughts, feelings, and emotions or others with a kind or loving awareness.

Derek Walcott’s poem of Love after Love is recited in most Mindfulness-Based Therapy programs because it is so accurate. Walcott says, “You will love again the stranger who was yourself.”

So if mindfulness is about becoming intimate with our selves and with life, then it seems like it would be a natural fit to weave mindfulness with sex, right?

A handful of years ago I began to create the curriculum for a program called Mindfulness-Based Sex Therapy, taking traditional sex therapy theory and techniques and weaving it into the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) curriculum.

 I thought that integrating the attitudes of non-judgment, openness to experience, non-striving toward any particular goal, and letting things be as they are could relieve a lot of sexual pressure that is involved with sexual challenges.  This is not a brave new concept; the classic texts of Masters and Johnson seem to integrate pieces of this in their work to support people who have aversion or anxiety around sex. The acts of Kama Sutra and Tantric sex also integrate some of this work. However, it is not presented in the palatable way that I believe the Mindfulness-Based Therapies are.

Research and personal experience tell us that practicing mindfulness also allows us to be more flexible (mentally, but also physically if combined with stretching or yoga) and creative leading to more opportunity to experience pleasurable sexual experiences in ways that we may have been closed off to in the past.

Fortunately or unfortunately, my mind began to wander off (as it does) and I began to get involved with creating an online interactive guide that brings people through a program for Mindfulness, Anxiety, and Stress, a number of mindfulness-based CDs for various mental health challenges, and then began the journey of co-authoring A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn and coming out in February, 2010 (forgive me, shameless plug).

I still think it’s a great idea and believe many people would benefit …