Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is a secular, therapeutic form of meditation developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn (born 1944) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. It is one of the clearest examples of a religious practice moving into medicine.
From monastery to clinic
According to the scholar Louis Komjathy, MBSR is derived from Theravada Buddhist Vipassana (insight) meditation, reframed for medical use. Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as "moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness". MBSR later gave rise to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Komjathy ranks MBSR with Herbert Benson's Relaxation Response as the two most prominent secular, therapeutic meditation methods.[1]
Medicine and science
Komjathy places MBSR within "therapeutic meditation", in which meditation is treated as a relaxation technique or form of stress management with health as its main goal. Such relaxation methods are associated with lower heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure, and have been used for anxiety, chronic pain, depression and insomnia.[2] Publications on mindfulness grew sharply from the 1980s and especially in the 2000s.[2]
Criticism
Komjathy notes that a 2007 US government-funded review judged meditation research to be of "poor methodological quality". He also reports wider criticisms of the mindfulness movement: that secular versions strip practices of their religious setting, that research links to corporate medicine and insurers, and that Buddhism is too easily presented as "inherently scientific".[2]
See also
References
- ↑ Komjathy, Louis (2017). "Contemplative Practice". Introducing Contemplative Studies. Wiley Blackwell. section "Prominent Methods".
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Komjathy, Louis (2017). "Current Trends". Introducing Contemplative Studies. Wiley Blackwell. section "'Therapeutic Meditation' and 'Contemplative Science'".