Self-compassion includes mindfulness, self-kindness, and common humanity. When people add self-compassion concepts into their lives, they notice how it helps lower distress and manage anxiety and depression. Self-compassion encourages us to become aware of large, medium, and small things in life.
Mindfulness is one concept of self-compassion. It teaches us about observing, noticing, and acknowledging our thoughts, feelings, actions, and images. Through regular practice of mindfulness, we begin to understand ourselves differently. Once mindfulness practice becomes a habit, we begin to notice changes in our daily routine.
What is the Mindfulness Response?
The Mindfulness Response is that point in awareness where a person can step back and see things differently. There is a change in the attitude or mindset. We develop skills to disengage from stressful situations and choose different ways to respond. We begin to realize that we have choices in our responses, actions, and decisions.
The Mindfulness Response teaches people to observe, accept, and acknowledge difficult symptoms and let the symptoms be present. This becomes a learning process of observing the symptoms. The Mindfulness Response uses learned skills to help people gain self-awareness by practicing mindfulness and acceptance of life situations or symptoms they must manage.
Through acceptance, people in a group therapy setting were able to grow and change. People learned from each other and gained support from conversations about severe symptoms and difficulties encountered throughout their lives.
The process of learning takes months and regular practice each week. This was observed during outpatient mental health group therapy sessions. This regular mindfulness practice developed into a habit by repeating the mindfulness routine during group sessions. To form a new habit a person must have the moral discipline to continue to do mindfulness at home.
How did it originate?
The addition of mindfulness practice in a group therapy setting came from a book by Dr. Paul Chadwick, who writes about Person-Based Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis. The addition of ten minutes of mindfulness were added to the base cognitive behavior therapy and self-compassion concepts helped create a change and lowered depression and anxiety symptoms.
Self-compassion concepts were applied to the group therapy recovery process. The concepts helped lower the shame and guilt that are experienced from the stigma of having a mental illness. Learning to be kind to yourself is more than just giving yourself a break or giving yourself a treat. Being kind to yourself or self-kindness is not judging yourself, not criticizing, putting yourself down, calling yourself names, or swearing at yourself. Once this is learned and practiced daily, people apply it to others in their community.
This process was observed and noticed during group therapy sessions over the years. The effect of the Mindfulness Response came from research into depression and anxiety levels of people who have severe mental health symptoms.
The regular practice of ten minutes of mindfulness, twice weekly and at home significantly reduced depression and anxiety symptoms after three months of group therapy. It created a calmer atmosphere in the group. This addition showed attitude changes beyond what traditional CBT could achieve (Lund, 2021, Chadwick 2006).
During research, the group therapy participants revealed an outer layer of shame and fear arising from the stigma associated with mental health disorders which interfered with group therapy conversations. The cognitive behavior therapy base was not able to penetrate the shame and stigma or resolve issues. Group participants were more cautious and didn’t want to share information about their severe symptoms.
The Mindfulness Model was developed to address this cautious behavior. Self-compassion concepts were added to the cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) base and found to reduce shame. The group used common humanity, self-kindness, and mindfulness during group sessions and at home. It significantly reduced anxiety and decreased depression from admission to discharge twelve weeks later.
Borrowing from many theories, the Mindfulness Response model is flexible and borrows skills from numerous psychological theories. Person-centered therapy was used to create a social developmental healing process that provided learning, growth, and healing, and helped sustain stability over a lifetime (Vygotsky, 1978; Blackstock, 2011; Rogers 1942, Chadwick, 2006).
How did the circular model originate?
Ironically, an article about serious mental illness symptoms and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs brought about the circular model. Maslow’s model is triangular in shape and hierarchical, where a person must obtain the lower levels of the model before advancing to higher levels or reaching self-actualization.
The Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs was a reference point for the Mindfulness Model. It was evident from group therapy conversations that learning was not hierarchical but dynamic, collaborative, and circular. A circular model was developed to illustrate how conversations from different areas on the model were connected.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 2020)
While conducting group therapy and noticing how conversations about different topics addressed a variety of levels on Maslow’s Hierarchy model, it was evident that the movement was dynamic and not a hierarchy. People were well aware of their needs and demonstrated that they were in self-actualization but realized that they had problems in other areas of their lives. They were open to suggestions from others in the group who also experienced similar problems.
The circular model explains how a person can attain full potential, yet still need help from other areas of the circle. This tendency to be self-actualized can be exhibited by those who genuinely want to change, representing their self-fulfillment. The circle demonstrated the different dialogues existing between and among different areas, and how it emerged, shifted, and transformed the group.
The diagram below came from many conversations about this process. The ability to disengage from distressing events is learned and practiced over weeks and months. It is a feeling of being supported and moving away from old patterns and behaviors that drag people down. It is the willingness to try new actions, or alternative thoughts, and create new attitudes.
The different spokes on the wheel represent different segments of the learning process. The Dharma wheel image was chosen before considering the connections between all of the learning processes, but it fits well with self-compassion since Buddhism emphasizes numerous connections in life including mindfulness, moral discipline, and the community. People who have severe symptoms of mental or physical health feel alone in their sufferings or struggles. Grief and loss issues are life-changing for people, and they can feel alienated from others. The use of the Mindfulness Response teaches us that we are connected to others and not alone and that others experience the same distress as we do.
The Mindfulness Response - Lund (2023)
What is the Distressing Reaction Response?
The Distressing Reaction Response shows the frustration and worry surrounding the reaction to difficult symptoms such as those resulting from psychosis, mood disorders, trauma, panic attacks, and addiction. To gain insight and find inner peace, participants practiced mindfulness regularly with the group and at home (Lund, 2021).
The Mindfulness Response and the Distressing Reaction Response – Lund 2021
Many people report racing thoughts, ruminative thoughts, and thoughts that they can’t get out of their minds. This is the Distressing Reaction Response. These types of thoughts create headaches and stomachaches for us and interrupt our concentration.
The other side of the Model is the Mindfulness Response. This area helps us build concentration and calm back into our lives. This comes from regular practice with mindfulness and taking the time to stay in the present moment, take deep breaths, observe what we are doing, thinking, and feeling, as well as what images we have in our minds.
The next conversation:
The Mindfulness Response and Cultural Awareness
References
Blackstock, C. (2011). The Emergence of the Breath of Life Theory. Journal of Social Work
Values and Ethics, 8,1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237555666_The_breath_of_life_versus_the_embodiment_of_life_indigenous_knowledge_and_western_research
Chadwick, P. (January 2006). Person‐Based Cognitive Therapy for Distressing Psychosis.
Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Print ISBN:9780470019313 |Online ISBN:9780470713075 | DOI:10.1002/9780470713075
Lund J.D. (2021) Mindfulness, Group Therapy, and Psychosis: Training Decreases Anxiety and
Depression in Outpatients with a Psychotic Disorder in a Non-Randomized Within Group
Comparison. J Psychol Psychotherapy. 11:388. doi:10.35248/2161-0487.20.11.3
Maslow, A.H. (2020). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Encyclopedia of Personality and
Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_301517 Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
Rogers, C. (1942). Client-Centered Therapy.
Carl Rogers (2012). “On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy” Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy. Houghton
Boston: Mifflin Company
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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