What is Mindfulness?

Unfortunately, “mindfulness” became such a hackneyed word in popular culture that it has ceased to hold any significance at this point. Here, we briefly clarify what it means in the context of psychotherapy. Mindfulness-based treatment is a type of contemplative neuro-psychotherapy that aims to cultivate the awareness of habitual thoughts, reactive emotional patterns, and autopilot behaviors that are harmful to the health of an individual.  In short, it is a mental fitness program that takes advantage of neuroplasticity to unlearn and extinguish the inertia of the conditioned mind (habit force).

As shown below, mindfulness-based treatment is at the intersection of three fields—namely, psychology, neuroscience, and contemplative traditions.  Most spiritual traditions encourage some forms of contemplative practice and meditation is certainly not exclusive to Buddhism; however, mindfulness-based treatment is most closely associated with Buddhist psychology.

In the last few decades, mindfulness-based treatment (a.k.a. contemplative neuro-psychotherapy) has become very popular as one of the most accessible, safe, and effective treatment modalities, for virtually anyone who is interested in cultivating therapeutic insight.  By strengthening the neural muscles of inward attention, mental acuity, and self-compassion that are essential in detecting and reevaluating unhealthy mental processes, emotional reactivities, and self-defeating behavioral patterns, mindfulness practice expands our capacity to effectively manage challenges in life with greater resilience and hardiness.

We live in a technologically driven society that has been drastically reshaped by algorithms that constantly rob our attention and mental energy without leaving much space to breathe and attune to ourselves.  It is not surprising that so many of us crave restorative space and mental skills with which we can heal and thrive instead of merely surviving.

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