Eventhough there is a vast amount of research into mindfulness and it has

become very popular over the coming years, recently a big debate has

arisen in regards to exactly how beneficial mindfulness really is. Recently

the media has portrayed mindfulness as a wonderful cure for everyone and

everything. There are vast amounts of articles on the benefits of meditation,

that include some accurate information and cientific research however this

may be too cherry picked and over positivised. So even though some of this

information is true, it is important we dont portray mindfulness as a

miraculous cure for everything and everyone. If you would like to read more

Linda Heuman writes about Neuroscientist Catherine Kerr's concern

regarding how mindfulness is portrayed in the media

in an article entitled "Don't Believe the Hype".

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Following on from the over positivised portrayal of the cientific research

that backs up mindfulness, the mayority of it has a large number of flaws in

terms of how it has been carried out.

Most of it tends to not include a similar group of people, who have not done

mindfulness, in order to be able to compare whether the improvement and outcomes researchers attribute to mindfulness are solely due to the program or merely down to the passing of time or other reasons. It is also argued that the people who choose to carry out a mindfulness program are already predisposed to positive outcomes, as their choice to do it is because they believe it will work and have in some way been drawn to it. This means we cannot say mindfulness is effective for everyone and would be more accurate to say it seems to be effective for those who take a liking to it. Moreover, if you have taken a liking to it and think it will work you are more likely to believe it is having an effect and report improvement. This leads to another methodological flaw which is that most of this research is based on self reports, where the participants rate themselves. This would mean that what they have reported is not an objective measure of their improvement and rather how they perceive themselves, which would in turn be highly affected by what they expect the treatment to do. Overall even though the research is promising we cannot conclude that mindfulness will certainly result in sustained benefits for everyone. If you would like to read more on the flaws of scientific research into mindfulness visit this link to an article called "meditation nation" where a Brown University researcher discusses this topic further. 

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The last concern regarding mindfulness and how it is

portrayed is that mindfulness has actually produced

negative effects in some people. This is especially prevalent

in those who have unresolved traumas, who are at risk of

experiencing 'de-repression'. Others can feel disosiation,

discomfort and depersonalisation. Dawn Foster explains

what these experiences can feel like in an article published

in the guardian called "is mindfulness making us ill". 

Willoughby Britton who is an Assistant Professor of

Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University

Medical School and has been a committed mindfulness

practitioner for 20 years says:

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“A lot of psychological material is going to come up and be processed. Old resentments, wounds, that kind of thing, but also some traumatic material if people have a trauma history, it can come up and need additional support or even therapy.”

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For this reason it is important to make sure mindfulness practitioners are adequately trained and experienced and abide by the Good Practice Framework set by Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (CMRP), especially as they are dealing with vulnerable people. This is also why we advise you do not engage in our 8 week online course if it does not feel right for you or if you have any problems that need expert guidance or treatment.

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