Mapping modalities of self‐awareness in mindfulness practice: a potential mechanism for clarifying habits of mind

Mindfulness-based practices in psychotherapy are examined through both Buddhist and neurocognitive lenses. The article describes how noting and labeling techniques in open monitoring meditation can access multiple modalities of awareness, potentially transforming maladaptive mental habits and perceptual biases. It proposes that these practices improve cognitive efficiency, facilitate integration, and provide flexibility between self-processing systems. A model is offered for how noting and labeling may influence low- and high-level neural processing at different stages, with hypotheses about how practice extent affects each level. The work also discusses implications for subjective experience and self-processing in relation to habits of mind, behavior, and one's relation to the external world.

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Abstract

To better understand the neurobiological mechanisms by which mindfulness-based practices function in a psychotherapeutic context, this article details the definition, techniques, and purposes ascribed to mindfulness training as described by its Buddhist tradition of origin and by contemporary neurocognitive models. Included is theory of how maladaptive mental processes become habitual and automatic, both from the Buddhist and Western psychological perspective. Specific noting and labeling techniques in open monitoring meditation, described in the Theravada and Western contemporary traditions, are highlighted as providing unique access to multiple modalities of awareness. Potential explicit and implicit mechanisms are discussed by which such techniques can contribute to transforming maladaptive habits of mind and perceptual and cognitive biases, improving efficiency, facilitating integration, and providing the flexibility to switch between systems of self-processing. Finally, a model is provided to describe the timing by which noting and labeling practices have the potential to influence different stages of low- and high-level neural processing. Hypotheses are proposed concerning both levels of processing in relation to the extent of practice. Implications for the nature of subjective experience and self-processing as it relates to one's habits of mind, behavior, and relation to the external world, are also described.