Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy: Accelerating Healing and Transformation

The word ‘mindfulness’ refers to a psychological trait or quality of consciousness, while ‘mindful’ refers to a psychological state or process of being aware. Mindfulness as a type of meditation originated in Buddhist India around 500 BCE. The term is a translation of the Pali word sati and the Sanskrit word smrti, which means ‘to remember’.

Wisdom, meditation, and ethical training each work synergistically (rather than linearly) to support one another. Harmonious lifestyle reduces fluctuations of mind and facilitates deepening insight, while insight into the nature of reality fosters tranquility and enables a responsible, caring engagement with life. Like the three-pronged cycle of se

The evidence that mindfulness works largely by empowering the prefrontal cortex to enhance self-awareness and neocortical integration is consistent with current thinking about insight-oriented and cognitive psychotherapy (Siegel, 2010a). Recent evidence that compassion meditation works by empowering the limbic cortex to enhance self-regulation of s

The shift began when the first research studies of meditation, notably transcendental meditation (TM), inspired the groundbreaking clinical paradigms of the 1970s and 1980s: Herb Benson’s relaxation response and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) (Beary & Benson, 1974; Kabat-Zinn, 1982).

Here one observes mental states as they emerge, for example noticing whether one is overstimulated or focused, afflicted or free. One learns to observe the states and qualities of awareness without being compelled by them on the one hand, or needing to suppress them on the other.

To his credit, Freud correctly read the landscape of modern culture and made a tactical decision that allowed psychotherapy to become a mainstream institution in an era in which scientific modernity obliged us to leave contemplative healing and pedagogy behind, as artifacts of humanity’s religious past.

As awareness is trained, it is more accessible for self-redirection

detachment.

Two teams, one led by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, and another by Sarah Lazar at Harvard, were responsible for moving their field from its long marginal status to center stage in the new neuroscience. Lutz and Davidson’s 2004 study showing that Tibetan monks can self-generate high frequency gamma synchrony at will, and Lazar’s 2