The Role of Embodied Cognition in Understanding Mindfulness in Third-Wave Cognitive Behavioural Therapies
Julien Tempone-Wiltshire, Tra-Ill Dowie
Journal of Consciousness Studies December 1, 2024 DOI: 10.53765/20512201.31.11.228 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Intervention | Mindfulness |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Proposes that mindfulness, understood as embodied social cognition, cultivates operative intentionality, allowing intervention in the mind-body system's feedback loops, and that mindfulness-based exposure therapies operate through insights from internal representations rather than cognitive or behavioral mechanisms. |
Abstract
Due to a lack of engagement with the embodied dimensions of mindfulness, third-wave CBT has misleadingly construed mindfulness interventions as cognitive restructuring and behavioural modification agents. When the relationship between the mind and body is understood according to the model of embodied cognition, however, mindfulness’s process of change can be better articulated. We propose a novel understanding of the ‘decentring’ skills fostered through mindfulness via non-conceptual attention to the processes underlying cognition. Mindfulness, understood as a skilful mode of embodied social cognition, cultivates operative intentionality whereby attention to the lived body, and one’s internal representations, allows one to intervene in the complex feedback structure of the mind???body system, influencing cycles of organismic self-regulation. Mindfulness-based exposure therapies, on this model, are understood not cognitively or behaviourally, but through insights generated via the practitioner’s orientation towards internal representations, and how these habituated patterns of representation generate transformations in their exteroceptive, pre-reflective enactment of both self and world perception.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 4
- Philosophy and psychedelics: Frameworks for exceptional experience Journal of Psychedelic Studies June 19, 2023
- Evaluating the role of psychedelic psychotherapy in addressing societal alienation: Imaginaries of liberation Journal of Psychedelic Studies September 25, 2023
- Psychedelics and critical theory Journal of Psychedelic Studies September 21, 2023
- Effects of Mindfulness on Psychological Health: A Review of Empirical Studies Clinical Psychology Review May 13, 2011