Getting Beyond I, Me, Mine Sati in Pali Connotes awareness , - PDF document

What is Mindfulness? Getting Beyond I, Me, Mine • Sati in Pali  Connotes awareness , attention , & Mindfulness, Wisdom, and remembering Compassion in Psychotherapy • In therapeutic arena, also includes  Non-judgment  Acceptance • Adds kindness & friendliness Ronald Siegel, Psy.D. Therapeutic Mindfulness Mind less ness • Operating on “autopilot” • Being lost in fantasies of the past and 1. Awareness future • Breaking or spilling things because 2. Of present experience we’re not paying attention 3. With acceptance • Rushing through activities without attending to them The Problem With Selfing Life Is Difficult, for Everybody 1

Mindfulness Can Help Us Mindfulness Practice is Not: • To see and accept things as they are • Having a “blank” mind • To loosen our preoccupation with “self” • Becoming emotionless • To experience the richness of the • Withdrawing from life moment • Seeking bliss • To become free to act skillfully • Escaping pain Breath Awareness How It Works Overwhelmed? Capacity to Intensity of experience bear experience Fly 2

The Thinking Disease • Review past pleasure and pain • Try to maximize future pleasure and avoid future pain The Roles of Mindfulness How Does Mindfulness Help? Implicit • Reinforces experiential approach • Practicing Therapist • Helps free us from believing in our thoughts • Mindfulness Informed • Reduces narcissistic orientation Psychotherapy • Connects us to the world beyond our • Mindfulness Based personal pleasure and pain Psychotherapy Explicit What Matters Most in Dodo Bird Hypothesis Psychotherapy? Patient variables Placebo & Expectation Model & technique Common Factors “Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.” 3

And I, Sir, Can Be Run “Evenly Hovering Attention” Through with a Sword • “Listen and not to trouble to keep in mind anything in particular” – Freud, 1912 Embracing Affect Affect Tolerance • Not “my,” but “the” • Beyond affect tolerance – embracing emotion  Anger  Our patients can only be  Fear with those emotions that we can embrace  Lust • All emotions  Joy experienced as transient  A teaspoon of salt in a pond Not Knowing Beginner’s Mind 4

Decisions, Decisions Core Practice Skills 1. Which skills to emphasize? 1. Concentration (focused attention) 2. Formal or informal practice? 3. Which objects of attention? 2. Mindfulness per se (open monitoring) 4. Religious or secular practices? 5. Narrative or experiencing mode? 3. Acceptance and Compassion 6. Relative or absolute truth? 7. Turning toward safety or sharp points? Focused Attention vs. Acceptance Open Monitoring • Concentration (FA)  Choose an object and follow it closely • Mindfulness (OM)  Attend to whatever object rises to forefront of consciousness Loving-kindness Practice Continuum of Practice • “Metta” practices Informal Mindfulness Practice  May I be happy, peaceful, free from suffering Formal Meditation Practice  May my loved ones be happy. . .  May all beings be happy. . . Intensive Retreat Practice 5

Informal Practice Taillight Meditation Formal Practice Shower Meditation (Results May Vary) • Data supports effects of formal meditation • Structural and functional brain changes. Objects of Attention Intensive Retreat Practice Coarse • Feet touching ground • Sights and sounds of nature • Taste of food • Sound of bell • Breath in belly • Mantra • Air at tip of nose Resources at: meditationandpsychotherapy.org Subtle 6

Religious or Secular? Narrative Mode • Psychodynamic • “Spiritual” practices  Earlier, transference, other relationships  Devotional and theistic • Behavioral • Secular practices  How learned, how reinforced  Science grounded • Systemic  Maintained by family, community, culture • Seek cultural consonance Relative Truth Experiencing Mode • Human story • How is it felt in the body?  Success & Failure • How does the mind respond?  Pleasure & Pain  Grasping  Longing  Pushing away  Hurt  Ignoring  Anger  Envy  Joy  Pride Absolute Truth Timing is Everything • Anicca (impermanence) • Dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) • Anatta (no enduring, separate self) 7

Turning toward Safety I Turning toward Safety II • Inner focus • Outer or distal focus  Mountain Meditation  Walking Meditation  Guided Imagery  Listening Meditation  Metta Practice  Nature Meditation  DBT techniques  Eating Meditation  Open eye practices Turning Toward the Sharp Different Strokes Points • Need for frequent adjustment of • Moving toward anything exercises unwanted or avoided • How is it experienced in • Elicit feedback about the experience the body?  Both during and after practice  Pain, fear, sadness, anger  Unwanted images or • Titrate between Safety and Sharp memories  Urges toward Points compulsive behaviors When Mindfulness of Inner Life Preservers Experience Can Be Harmful • When overwhelmed • Concentration Practices by traumatic memories  Stepping out of the thought stream • When terrified of disintegration, loss • Eyes open, external of sense of self sensory focus • When suffering from  Ground, trees, sky, psychosis wind, sounds 8

Decisions, Decisions 1. Which skills to emphasize? Wisdom in Psychotherapy 2. Formal or informal practice? 3. Which objects of attention? 4. Religious or secular practices? 5. Narrative or experiencing mode? 6. Relative or absolute truth? 7. Turning toward safety or sharp points? “Hard core pornography is hard to define” “If we are doomed to die [but] —let us spend.” “I know it when I see it.” -- Mesopotamia (3000 BCE) -- Justice Potter Stewart (1964) “Be not puffed up with thy “The narrow intelligence flashing knowledge, and be not proud from the keen eye of a clever because thou are wise.” rogue” is not wisdom. -- Socrates (400 BCE) -- Egypt (2000 BCE) 9

Paul Baltes – Berlin Group 1. Factual knowledge 2. Procedural knowledge 3. Life-span contextualism 4. Value relativism 5. Awareness and management of uncertainty A 15 year old girl wants to get married right away. What should she do? Not Knowing Monika Ardelt “A fool can learn to say all the things a wise man says, and to say them on the same occasions, but this isn’t real wisdom.” --John Kekes Beginner’s Mind Buddhist Psychology • Compilation of insights derived largely from mindfulness practice • Not a religion in Western sense, but the results of a 2500 year old tradition of introspection 10

Three Marks of Existence Mindfulness • Anicca (impermanence) • Dukkha (unsatisfactoriness) • Anatta (no enduring, separate self) How Mindfulness Fosters How Mindfulness Fosters Wisdom I Wisdom II • Stepping Out Of the Thought Stream • Transpersonal Insight • Being With Discomfort • Seeing How the Mind Creates Suffering • Disengaging From Automatic • Embracing Opposites Responses • Developing Compassion R-A-I-N • Recognize what is happening. Anatta • Allow life to be just as it is. • Investigate inner experience with kindness. • Nonidentification; rest in Natural awareness. --Tara Brach 11

Narcissism in Western The Western View of the Self Psychology • Emphasis on separateness vs. • DSM connection to family, tribe, nature, etc.  Character disorder • Healthy (Western) development: • Behavior therapy  Individuated  Self efficacy  Aware of Boundaries • Psychodynamic psychotherapy  Knowing one’s needs  Healthy narcissism or self esteem  Clear identity and sense of self Narcissism in Buddhist Therapeutic Benefits of Psychology Glimpsing Anatta • We suffer when we don’t know who we • Increased affect tolerance really are • Radical acceptance of parts • Attempt to buttress self is central cause • Freedom from self-esteem concerns of suffering • Deeper connection to others • Our concept of “self” is based on a fundamental misunderstanding Thinking Homunculus? 12

Default Mode Network Where do I Begin and End? What about Boundaries? Boundaries Us and Them Superorganism Servant Meat Servant Enemy Enemy Servant Servant Meat Meat Enemy Servant Meat Enemy Servant 13

Constructing “Me” Sense Contact • Coming together of • Identity is a construction project  Sense organ  Sense object • Mind is a world-  Awareness of object building organ • Six senses  Makes order out of chaos  Seeing  Constructs reality  Hearing from data streaming  Smelling in at break-neck  Tasting speed  Touching  Thinking Perception • Evaluates sense experience  Conditioned by culture and language • Constructs and categorizes  Omits details  Fills in missing information VIDEO Feeling Intention and Disposition • We add an affective • We try to or hedonic tone to  Hold onto the pleasant all experience  Push away the unpleasant  Pleasant  Ignore the neutral  Unpleasant • We develop habits of intention  Neutral  Dispositions  Learned behaviors or conditioned responses  Personality characteristics 14