Re: CBT -> MBCT? in pain management

Richard Corfield wrote:
On 2008-03-26, Peter Brooks <Peter.H.M.Brooks@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The techniques sound simple, though, in the lecture, it is pointed out
that 'mindfulness' is a lot less simple than it sounds.

It does take quite some practice, and sustained too. You can catch
glimpses of it after a little work, but holding mindfulness in life
does take effort. Unless we're doing something that takes focus anyway,
Our minds tend to wonder so much.
>
Wander rathar? Not that they don't wonder quite a bit too.

I think that they're talking about more than simply meditation. The Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale gives some insight into what they're on about:

http://www.scp.rochester.edu/SDT/measures/mindfulness.html

I wonder too what the overlap is between this newly discovered
overlap, respectable meditation (mainly standard buddhist) and the
various cultish manifestations of meditation (Hare Krishna, Divine
Light Mission, Transcendental Meditation and that sort of thing).
You'd expect that, if this mindfulness works even these cults would
have shown some benefits from it - maybe even managing chronic pain. I
haven't seen much myself. 8 of the only 19 references to MBCT on
Pubmed include a reference to meditation.

There are members of the various cults who'd swear by how wonderful their
cult is for them, who are really convinced that their practice works. It
does add a lot of extra though, and I think the focus of things like TM
and Hare Krishna are quite far from the focus of mindfulness.

Also, the line between cult and non-cult is so very hard to define. Is
the Church of England a cult? Step back far enough?

The CofE is certainly a money-making racket, if not a very good one these days. I'd say it delivers considerably more (or did) in terms of aesthetic value than most cults.

There's a list of cult characteristics at:

http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm
.

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