Mindfulness Meditation and the Perception of Beauty: Implications for an Ecological Well-Being

Meditation is a first-person method for contemplating ourselves and the world, with more than 2500 years of history, rooted in the philosophical and contemplative traditions of the east. The present chapter aims to explore this worldview in order to demonstrate its relevance to our capacity for the appreciation of beauty. To this end, the aesthetic experience, the contemplative experience and their relationship with the practice of mindfulness are analysed. We suggest that the contemplative meditative experience bestows a state of consciousness and acceptance of life which places the practitioner in a progressive encounter with a self-concept that begins to detach from a static sense of the self and from the categories that define it, so that it may be experienced as an ongoing mental event, removed from cultural ideals of beauty or positivity. The result of this de-identification from the static self is a greater degree of psychological flexibility and a more genuine way of seeing the world, leading to a new perception of the self that is connected to an experience of freedom, and contributes to one’s own well-being, as well as to that of others and of the environment

Analysis of the multidimensionality of hallucination-like experiences in clinical and nonclinical Spanish samples and their relation to clinical symptoms: Implications for the model of continuity

Numerous studies have found that hallucinatory experiences occur in the general population. But to date, few studies have been conducted to compare clinical and nonclinical groups across a broad array of clinical symptoms that may co-occur with hallucinations. Likewise, hallucination-like experiences are measured as a multidimensional construct, with clinical and subclinical components related to vivid daydreams, intrusive thoughts, perceptual disturbance, and clinical hallucinatory experiences. Nevertheless, these individual subcomponents have not been examined across a broad spectrum of clinically disordered and nonclinical groups. The goal of the present study was to analyze the differences and similarities in the distribution of responses to hallucination-like experience in clinical and nonclinical populations and to determine the relation of these hallucination-like experiences with various clinical symptoms. These groups included patients with schizophrenia, non-psychotic clinically disordered patients, and a group of individuals with no psychiatric diagnoses. The results revealed that hallucination-like experiences are related to various clinical symptoms across diverse groups of individuals. Regression analysis found that the Psychoticism dimension of the Symptom Check List (SCL-90-R) was the most important predictor of hallucination-like experiences. Additionally, increased auditory and visual hallucination was the only subcomponent that differentiated schizophrenic patients from other groups. This distribution of responses in the dimensions of hallucination-like experiences suggests that not all the dimensions are characteristic of people hearing voices. Vivid daydreams, intrusive thoughts, and auditory distortions and visual perceptual distortions may represent a state of general vulnerability that does not denote a specific risk for clinical hallucinations. Overall, these results support the notion that hallucination-like experiences are closer to a quasi-continuum approach and that total scores on these scales explain a state of vulnerability to general perceptual disturbance

Mindfulness-Based Intervention on Distressing Hallucination-Like Experiences in a Nonclinical Sample

The presence of psychotic-like experiences in the general population has been amply reported. Nevertheless, the degree of concern or anxiety that such experiences may generate is an aspect that has not received as much appraisal. In this sense, mindfulness is an approach to intervention based on the modification of the individual's relationship with the symptoms, instead of their elimination. The goal of the present study is to compare the effect of mindfulness training on distressing hallucination-like experiences. Eighteen participants were assigned to the experimental group, and they received 8 sessions of mindfulness training; 20 participants were assigned to a control group that viewed 8 sessions of a video forum. The results showed that upon completing the mindfulness training, there was a significant and large effect on the decrease of anxiety caused by hallucination-like experiences. These results were maintained at the 16-week follow-up. The repercussions of these results are underlined

The impact of baseline mindfulness scores on mindfulness-based intervention outcomes : toward personalized mental health interventions

A growing body of evidence has portrayed mindfulness as a useful tool for dealing with a broad range of psychological problems and disorders. This has created the impression that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can be used to treat nearly all psychological difficulties, in all cases. Nonetheless, little research has been done on how individual differences may contribute to intervention outcomes. The goal of this study was to evaluate the role of baseline mindfulness on participants’ outcomes by examining three prior Randomized Controlled Trials that addressed the impact of MBIs on mental health and mindfulness measures. The participants were 164 people, aged between 12 and 45, from both clinical and non-clinical samples. Our findings indicate that at least two thirds of the change produced by these interventions in terms of mindfulness scores can be predicted by the baseline scores of the same variables. We also found that many trajectories are not only strongly influenced by the initial status of the participants, but also by the intervention performed, as attested to by the significant interactions found. These results stress the need to continue doing research in a way that considers the diversity of participants’ trajectories, increasing the room for intervention improvements aligned with a more personalized health care model

Interpretation, emotional reactions and daily life implications of hallucination-like experiences in clinical and nonclinical populations

Background: Research on Hallucination-Like Experiences (HLEs) has not yet explored whether people without psychosis who have HLEs attribute the same level of significance to them. This signifi cance includes whether or not the HLEs elicit similar emotional reactions in people with and without psychosis, or if the HLEs occur in same context between the two groups. The objective of this study was to compare the characteristics of these experiences in a non-clinical group and a clinical group of patients with schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Method: Both groups were evaluated to determine the prevalence of HLEs. After the evaluation, they were interviewed about the characteristics of these experiences. Results: Both groups sought to actively eliminate the HLEs, could identify the presence of a trigger factor, and experienced little perceived control. However, HLEs elicited more anxiety, discomfort and interference in daily life in the clinical group than in the nonclinical group. Furthermore, the clinical group members defi ned their hallucinations more negatively and were reported to have experienced them under stressful events. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the two experiences are not entirely equivalent, especially when taking into account the emotional reaction produced by these experiences and the meaning people attach to them.Interpretación, reacción emocional e implicaciones en la vida diaria de experiencias de tipo alucinatorias en población clínica y no clínica. Antecedentes: la investigación en Experiencias de Tipo Alucinatorias (HLEs en inglés) aún no ha explorado si las personas sin psicosis que las experimentan les atribuyen el mismo signifi cado, si estas provocan las mismas reacciones emocionales o si ocurren en los mismos contextos que en la psicosis. El objetivo de este estudio fue comparar las características de estas experiencias entre un grupo no clínico y un grupo clínico de pacientes con esquizofrenia y trastornos del espectro esquizofrénico. Método: ambos grupos fueron evaluados para determinar la prevalencia de las HLEs, después de lo cual fueron entrevistados sobre las características de estas experiencias. Resultados: ambos grupos buscan activamente eliminar estas experiencias; pueden identificar la presencia de un factor desencadenante, y poco control percibido. Sin embargo, las HLEs provocaron más ansiedad, malestar e interferencia en la vida diaria en el grupo clínico que en el grupo no clínico. Además, el grupo clínico definió sus HLEs como más negativas y experimentadas bajo situaciones estresantes. Conclusiones: estos resultados sugieren que las experiencias de ambos grupos no son completamente equivalentes, especialmente cuando se toman en cuenta las reacciones emocionales producidas por estas experiencias y el significado que las personas les atribuyen

A qualitative study of a mindfulness-based intervention in educational contexts in Chile : an approach based on adolescents’ voices

This article belongs to the Special Issue "Mental Health of Child and Young People".The application of mindfulness-based interventions in school settings has increased considerably in recent years, showing that differences between the characteristics of programmes can impact on the receptivity and effectiveness of mindfulness training. However, few studies have explored the learning process from the perspective of the children and adolescents who participate in mindfulness practice. The goal of this paper is to analyse the subjective experience of a group of adolescents following the completion of a mindfulness-based intervention developed for schools in Chile. The intervention studied is the “.b curriculum”, which is part of the Mindfulness in School Project (MiSP) developed in the UK. Twenty adolescents participated in semi-structured interviews within their school, in which three key areas were explored: pedagogy, perceived effects, and mechanisms of action, each of them being analysed from the perspective of thematic analysis. The results support the view that pedagogy is a very relevant consideration in the implementation, development, and efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions within the school context. We propose that the inclusion of structure, contents, process/mindful practices, and teachers’ expertise provides the pedagogical-relational framework required for students to successfully develop mindfulness skills, which enables them to experience their cognitive, emotional, and somatic effects. These effects are linked to self-regulation strategies, based on paying attention to one’s somatic experience with kindness and curiosity, which works as an attentional anchor. It is hoped that these results will contribute to the spread of mindfulness research in adolescents in Latin America, thus facilitating cross-cultural and international comparisons

Clinical resilience : toward a unified definition

Clinical practice takes place under particularly complex conditions. Exposure to everyday challenges, stress, traumas, uncertainty, and dysfunction of the healthcare system are associated with burnout, lower quality of patient care, and deterioration of relationships within health teams and institutions. These factors have been exacerbated during coronavirus pandemic and associated social unrest, raising more acute and long-term concerns about the ability of health professionals, teams, and institutions to be sufficiently resilient in order to face their current and future challenges