(Fair warning, I have previously refenced Caddyshack as a source of dharma teaching a few months ago, and today I will draw upon another Bill Murray 70s comedy, Meatballs, for inspiration. If you consider such pop culture references offensive, I invite you to turn to the more conventional items elsewhere on our blog. -SH)
The following is a description of the process of adapting the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR) to work with women in early recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, enrolled in three residential substance abuse treatment programs, and in one outpatient program, located in an urban center in Massachusetts. Most participants started the intervention two to three weeks after detoxification treatment. A total of 318 women (45% Latina, 35% Black, 20% White) completed baseline interviews.
I found my way to meditation years ago out of necessity — not unlike how people come into therapy and the mindfulness-based courses I teach. Knowing how useful meditation had been in my own life, I began looking for a way to incorporate mindfulness and meditation into my psychotherapy practice for individuals and in groups. The intersection of abuse, body image and eating/food issues is insidiously woven together for many people. Each year I find myself sitting with an increasing number of women struggling with disordered eating borne out of stress and suffering.
Our colleagues Mark Lau and Andrea Grabovac have written a fascinating and groundbreaking paper introducing a Buddhist psychological model of mindfulness that we think is worth reading. Here is a brief introduction (and link to the full paper).
By Mark Lau, Ph.D. and Andrea Grabovac, MD, FRPCP
“I'm going to give you a little advice. There's a force in the universe that makes things happen; all you have to do is get in touch with it. Stop thinking...let things happen...and be...the ball.” – Ty Webb (played by Chevy Chase in the 1980 comedy Caddyshack)
It’s not every day that you find 80s screwball comedies referenced in articles about mindfulness, so you’ve got to give me credit for even trying. Hang in there and see if you find any wisdom in this silliness. Who says meditation has to be so serious, anyway?
A colleague of mine emailed me yesterday to ask my advice. She had submitted a paper for publication in a respected scientific journal that looked at one particular aspect of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
31 professionals came from as far away as Hong Kong to learn about MBCT and how it is taught, learning "from the inside out" in this amazing retreat format. Early morning movement and meditation practice and periods of silence (including several silent meals) punctuated our five days together in a way that allowed participants to ground their learning in the refuge of mindfulness.
Guilford Press has recently released Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Addictive Behaviors by Sarah Bowen, Neha Chawla and G. Allan Marlatt, the developers of MBRP.
A study just published in the Springer journal Mindfulness by Raes and Williams, explores the relationship between rumination and mindfulness. From the abstract: "when controlling for current depressive symptoms and prior history of depression, mindfulness was significantly negatively correlated with rumination, but it was only associated with the extent to which rumination was experienced as uncontrollable, not with global levels of rumination.
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