Mindfulness meditation is a growing area of interest for both mental health professionals and the general public alike. Beneficial outcomes are associated with these practices, although the variety of measurement techniques makes research difficult to interpret. Definitions of these constructs are varied, and anecdotal accounts point to the idea that many people hold misconceptions about mindfulness and meditation, even when meanings are made clear. Still, no formal research has been published on misconceptions of mindfulness – or, if they exist, how such misinformation affects acquisition of related skills. Furthermore, mindfulness has been incorporated into therapeutic modalities without much consideration for context, including the client's learning history. The current analogue study examined how the presentation of mindfulness meditations (i.e., inaccurate rationale/meditation and accurate rationale/meditation) affects an individual's practice. Specifically, self-reported mindfulness and meditation skills, mood questionnaires, a matching-to-sample task, and qualitative measurements were used to assess acquisition. Although primary hypotheses did not yield significant findings, results from both preliminary and exploratory analyses demonstrate significant findings with regard to teaching, learning, and measurement related to mindfulness meditation. The results, future directions, and limitations are discussed.

Mindfulness may be one way in which common factors could be enhanced in trainee therapists. Previous research has found some support for mindfulness increasing empathy, compassion and emotion regulation, but research is affected by a lack of active control groups and interventions with multiple components. An experimental design was used with a brief (15 min) mindfulness practice compared to a brief (15 min) ‘mind-wandering’ control group, in order to overcome some of these confounds. Participants were 48 trainee therapists who were randomly assigned to two groups of equal sizes. Measures were taken at baseline and post-induction. The predicted findings for empathy and compassion for others were not found. The mindfulness group did show lower negative affect at post-test than the control group, but only in participants who were high in negative affect at baseline, a result which should be viewed tentatively due to the small number of participants in each subgroup of the analysis. Issues limiting confidence in the results are discussed, particularly that the two groups did not report different levels of state mindfulness after the brief exercises. Implications for future research, particularly in considering appropriate active controls for mindfulness, are discussed.

Yoga has recently been a subject of some media attention, both positive and negative. Some people advocate it for its mental and physical benefits, but others are also concerned that it might cause or lead to injury, particularly in the Western world where it's commonly seen primarily as a form of exercise. Yoga therapy emerged in part because of such concerns. Though people have used yoga to aid in health and wellness for as long as the practice has existed, the idea of yoga therapy being its own specialized field is relatively new. Yoga therapists hope to personalize the experience of yoga by working with people with various mental and physical conditions and giving them customized programs. Using quotes from professionals and people with personal yoga experience, this article explores the roots of yoga therapy, yoga itself: its praises, criticisms, science and a small sample of its plentiful history. It also addresses the definition of yoga therapy, specialties in the field, its professional organization and possibilities for the future. The question of whether yoga therapy can gain credibility and become a reliable healthcare resource has not yet been answered, though there are those who say their own personal experiences are enough to convince them one way or the other. In any case, yoga and all its various forms of practice likely won't disappear anytime soon. / text

Within the last 15 years a large number of empirical investigations have explored the psychotherapeutic applications of meditative techniques. This research expands upon previous efforts in this area by comparing Kundalini Yoga with Progressive Muscle Relaxation, an attention-placebo control, and a no-treatment control on measures of anxiety (STAI Trait Form), personality development (Locus of Control Scale), and drug consumption. A total of 47 undergraduate student volunteers were randomly assigned to the four treatment conditions. Following a 2-week baseline phase to determine pretreatment drug consumption, subjects began a 6-week treatment phase during which time they attended two classes each week. Throughout the treatment phase subjects maintained detailed drug consumption diaries. Following this treatment phase, all subjects were readministered the aforementioned tests and questionnaires. Without exception, the research failed to find any significant treatment effects attributable to the practice of Kundalini Yoga. Moreover, none of the experimental treatment groups studied here displayed treatment gains over and above a no-treatment control group. There are at least two ways to account for this lack of significant differences. On the one hand, one could assert that the treatment groups were somehow impotent and incapable of effecting change any better than the nonspecific treatment factors working for the no-treatment group; or on the other hand, one could assert that the treatment groups were indeed therapeutic, but not significantly due to too brief of an intervention phase, and/or due to the highly variable treatment response of a nonpredisposed subject pool.

This thesis explores the ways in which an actor training scheme can be constructed to allow the participants to directly apply the principles of training to their work in the moment of performing. Subsequently, my aim is to employ this actor training approach alongside or as an alternative to the current acting courses in undergraduate drama programmes in Thai universities. Three practical projects were carried out as part of the research. In the first project, I attempted to identify essential areas of enquiry in a psychophysical actor training approach, and the tasks that needed to be tackled by an actor in rehearsal and performance that allow what may be considered the quality of an actor’s presence to emerge. In the second practical project, I examined the function of meditation in motion as an actor training tool that enables the participants to tackle their performance tasks. In the third practical project, I explored the ways in which meditation in motion can be employed in a university actor training course in Thailand to enhance the students’ mindfulness in performance. This thesis argues that Buddhist concepts of meditation and mindfulness are beneficial to the course facilitator in terms of the structuring of an actor training course, and to the students when approaching performance tasks. The main result of this research is a psychophysical approach to actor training, focusing on the practice of meditation in motion and the Buddhist concept of mindfulness of the present, designed specifically for Thai undergraduate drama programmes. Moreover, this thesis demonstrates a move away from the East-West binary towards a more localised and customised approach to actor training in Thailand and the utilisation of resources within the Thai or the broader Asian culture. It also opens up other possibilities of applying Thai or Asian philosophies to performance training, without relying on the Western perspectives on theatre and performance.

Thesis advisor: Joyce Pulcini / This randomized intervention study examined the efficacy and feasibility of a stress reduction program using mindful movement to decrease levels of perceived stress, facilitate coping, enhance self-esteem, and self-regulation in school-age girls. School-age children experience stressors with serious sequelae and need to respond with multiple coping strategies. Girls use maladaptive coping strategies and report lower self-esteem. Evidence-based interventions for stress management in children are scant, contributing to missed opportunities for preventing illness and promoting health. Mindfulness-based stress reduction is a training program of awareness-based practices, including yoga, which was adapted to the development of school-age girls. The questions included: (1) To what extent do school-age girls who participate in an eight week mindful movement intervention report significantly different levels of perceived stress, effectiveness and number of coping strategies, levels of self-esteem, and self-regulation than girls in a wait-list control group? (2) To what extent is the dose of mindful movement inversely correlated with perceived stress and positively correlated with effectiveness and number of coping strategies, self-esteem, and self-regulation? A sample of fourth and fifth grade girls was recruited from two public schools randomized as intervention and wait-list control. The intervention group met one hour a week for eight weeks and completed ten minutes of daily homework. Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance with an intention to treat analysis (n=155) was used. No differences between groups were found. Both groups reported increased self-esteem and self-regulation over time. Compared to the control group, the intervention group was more likely to increase their frequency of coping (p< .05). The amount of home yoga practice predicted an increase in stress scores. Supplemental analyses found the intervention group was more likely to report increasing stress appraisals (p<.01). Coping frequency and stress appraisal scores were not correlated at Time 1 in the intervention group, but were positively correlated at Time 2. The intervention group may have become more aware of feelings associated with stress and generated coping, or may have experienced increasing stress as part of mindfulness training. School-based mindfulness interventions are feasible and may be coordinated by school nurses, but require more investigation. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.

The time of adolescence is marked by enhanced emotional experiences and difficulties with regulating one’s emotions. One way to improve the adolescent’s ability to regulate their emotions is to let them practice mindfulness meditation. The motivational drive behind this thesis is the question of what forms of mindfulness meditation are needed to give the highest increase in their emotion regulation-abilities. One problem is that while there exist neural studies on mindfulness meditation for adults, the research field of adolescent meditation lacks them. Because neural studies are needed to adequately answer this question, and the lack of brain imaging tools for this thesis, the focus here was to conduct some groundwork for this discussion. The first aim was to investigate the neural effects of mindfulness meditation on emotion regulation in adults and the second aim was to investigate to what extent we can generalize these neural effects to adolescents. To be able to theoretical discuss the second aim, neural and psychological studies on mindfulness meditation and emotion regulation were used as a base. The studies were grouped into five sub-categories based on age group and research field and then discussed with the help of developmental studies. Adult meditators had stronger functionality in regulatory brain regions than non-meditators during meditation and during the perception of negative stimuli. The discussion about the generalization of the adult neural patterns to adolescents showed that the findings were too diverse to come to any useful conclusions. Empirical and conceptual improvements, along with neural meditation studies on adolescents, are needed to improve the research field in both age groups.

Thesis advisor: Karen Arnold / This study was an experimental trial of a classroom-based intervention to influence mindfulness among MBA students at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MBA students at MIT Sloan and elsewhere are conditioned to look forward and reflect on the past only to the degree that it helps plan for the future. They are rarely taught to be aware of what is occurring in the current moment. Training students to be more mindful, that is better able to be aware of and to pay attention to present moment experience would contribute to the mission of MBA programs to create leaders by giving students meaningful insight into their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Within the literatures of medicine, neuroscience, psychology, and education, investigators have found that mindfulness has been positively correlated with improved well-being, reduced stress, better decision-making and perspective-taking, as well as improved personal relationships (Brown and Ryan, 2003; Block-Lerner, Adair, Plumb, Rhatigan, & Orsillo, 2007; Dekeyser, Raes, Leijssen, Leysen, & Dewulf, 2008; De Dea Roglio & Light, 2009; Kabat-Zinn, 1994). While the potential benefits of mindfulness have been established in multiple fields, there is scant research on mindfulness and MBA students. This research study explored whether brief mindfulness meditation exercises, embedded in an existing course, would influence MBA students' levels of mindfulness as measured by the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) (Brown & Ryan, 2003). In the fall 2014 semester, a sample of 158 first-year MBA students from MIT Sloan participated in an experiment with modified randomization of a pre/post design. Data analysis revealed that participant scores on the MAAS decreased significantly from pretest to posttest, though less so in the treatment group. These findings suggest that the intervention was not robust enough to exert a positive influence on participants' levels of mindfulness in the graduate business school context. This research contributes to the literature by providing important information about the requisite exposure to and scalability of the intervention in research on mindfulness meditation in higher education. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Ronald K. Tacelli / This dissertation arose from concerns that the prevalent philosophy of materialism which reduces everything to matter has inadvertently contributed to the ecological destruction of the planet, and an impoverished understanding of human nature. Conceptual arguments and empirical data cry out for a philosophy beyond materialism (or its current avatar Physicalism) that moves us beyond 17th century classical science, making use of 20th century quantum science to better understand our world. Such a new philosophy would embed a new scientific paradigm that incorporates both the first person point of view and the third person "no point of view."The main issue I engage in this dissertation is whether consciousness can be explained by Physicalism. While functionalism, the dominant theory of Physicalism, answers many questions related to consciousness, it leaves major ones unanswered. I offer a critique of Physicalism using conceptual arguments and empirical data encompassing what I call the "chemistry of attention." I also offer innovative proposals toward a philosophical approach I term "Aspect Monism" that builds on earlier monist philosophies (Spinoza) while incorporating dualistic features, suggesting that this new approach would better account for consciousness. The proximate history of Physicalism to either explain the mind away or reduce it to the brain from Behaviorism through Identity Theory to Functionalism is laid out as well as the difficulty in establishing the boundaries of Physicalism.The project utilizes conceptual arguments to critique Physicalism in three areas of concern: What is left out? What is assumed? What is causing methodological confusion? The areas of qualia, cognition, intentionality, meaning and personhood are left out. This is demonstrated, in part, by various thought experiments like the inverted spectrum argument, the Chinese nation argument, the zombies' argument, the knowledge argument and the Chinese room argument. The problem of causal closure of the physical is that which is assumed. The ambiguity with respect to method is that which causes confusion.Empirical data from the neurosciences (EEG, ERP, fMRI experiments during meditation; OCD and phobia treatment; placebo and nocebo effect) are used to critically analyze Physicalism with respect to mental states and causation and the analysis of such data points to a close relationship between attention and changes in the brain, and subsequently to the collapse of Physicalism into Epiphenomenalism. Such a metaphysical approach to consciousness is suggested from, and provides a home for, the neurophysical approaches to the origins of consciousness. I present a neuro-quantum perspective using Stapp and Penrose-Hameroff who suggest these origins via neuroscience and quantum physics.As we search for a new scientific paradigm and consequently a new metaphysics that takes into consideration the objective and the subjective, and the inner and the outer, a new philosophy and a new scientific paradigm which incorporates both the first person point of view and the third person "no point of view" data is the need of the hour. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

The first purpose of this experimental study was to investigate if there is an improvement in tennis players' performance when they use mindfulness meditation training (MMT), an intervention designed for this study. The second purpose of the study was to evaluate whether participation in MMT would increase tennis players' mindfulness and help them reduce anxiety, and whether these factors would mediate performance. The third purpose of the study was to examine whether participation in MMT training decreased the frequency of negative thoughts and improved athletes' ability to 'let-go' of negative thoughts. In terms of the structure of the research, 100 tennis players were randomly divided into either the intervention group or the control group. The intervention group was asked to listen to a mindfulness meditation training (MMT) CD, while the control group listened to a tennis skills and strategy CD. Both CD's were ten minutes in duration and the tennis players were asked to listen to their given CD daily over an eight week period. The intervention group finished with 42 participants and the control group finished with 38 participants, therefore, ending up with the total of 80 participants total. The intervention group, which practiced MMT, significantly outperformed the control group as measured by tennis results. Compared to the control group, the intervention group won significantly more games (449 compared to 242) and matches (211compared to 99) and lost significantly fewer games (188 compared to 428) and matches (120 compared to 205). The intervention group also increased in the level of mindfulness as measured by The Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS) whereas the control group showed no significant increase. The increase in mindfulness by the intervention group not only helped participants accept performance related anxiety, but also had a positive effect on performance; higher scores on the MAAS scale were positively related to the number of games and matches won. Likewise, the significantly lower scores on the Social Fear subscale shown by the intervention group could help explain why those participants lost fewer games and matches. Even though neither the intervention group nor the control group was able to "let-go" of negative thoughts if they did occur, the findings indicated that the intervention group experienced fewer negative thoughts than the control group. MMT helped tennis players' performance, and although further research is warranted to assess the impact of MMT with respect to age, gender, sport and practice duration, it should be considered a potentially valuable intervention for coaches and athletes who are trying to improve tennis performance.