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Relationships were investigated between home practice of mindfulness meditation exercises and levels of mindfulness, medical and psychological symptoms, perceived stress, and psychological well-being in a sample of 174 adults in a clinical Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. This is an 8- session group program for individuals dealing with stress-related problems, illness, anxiety, and chronic pain. Participants completed measures of mindfulness, perceived stress, symptoms, and well-being at pre- and post-MBSR, and monitored their home practice time throughout the intervention. Results showed increases in mindfulness and well-being, and decreases in stress and symptoms, from pre- to post-MBSR. Time spent engaging in home practice of formal meditation exercises (body scan, yoga, sitting meditation) was significantly related to extent of improvement in most facets of mindfulness and several measures of symptoms and well-being. Increases in mindfulness were found to mediate the relationships between formal mindfulness practice and improvements in psychological functioning, suggesting that the practice of mindfulness meditation leads to increases in mindfulness, which in turn leads to symptom reduction and improved well-being

Compassion has long been regarded as a core part of our humanity by contemplative traditions, and in recent years, it has received growing research interest. Following a recent review of existing conceptualisations, compassion has been defined as consisting of the following five elements: 1) recognising suffering, 2) understanding the universality of suffering in human experience, 3) feeling moved by the person suffering and emotionally connecting with their distress, 4) tolerating uncomfortable feelings aroused (e.g., fear, distress) so that we remain open to and accepting of the person suffering, and 5) acting or being motivated to act to alleviate suffering. As a prerequisite to developing a high quality compassion measure and furthering research in this field, the current study empirically investigated the factor structure of the five-element definition using a combination of existing and newly generated self-report items. This study consisted of three stages: a systematic consultation with experts to review items from existing self-report measures of compassion and generate additional items (Stage 1), exploratory factor analysis of items gathered from Stage 1 to identify the underlying structure of compassion (Stage 2), and confirmatory factor analysis to validate the identified factor structure (Stage 3). Findings showed preliminary empirical support for a five-factor structure of compassion consistent with the five-element definition. However, findings indicated that the 'tolerating' factor may be problematic and not a core aspect of compassion. This possibility requires further empirical testing. Limitations with items from included measures lead us to recommend against using these items collectively to assess compassion. Instead, we call for the development of a new self-report measure of compassion, using the five-element definition to guide item generation. We recommend including newly generated 'tolerating' items in the initial item pool, to determine whether or not factor-level issues are resolved once item-level issues are addressed.

This paper comments on an article by Monteiro, Musten, and Compson (Mindfulness 6: 1-13, 2015) and a series of replies that explored the issue of ethics training for participants in contemporary mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). The perceived need for explicit ethical training stems from concerns about potentially harmful or misguided applications of secular MBIs, particularly in settings whose activities may be inconsistent with the ethics of the Buddhist traditions from which mindfulness training originates. Much of the discussion in the target article and replies focused on whether ethical foundations of mindfulness in MBIs should remain implicit or should be taught from a Buddhist perspective. The present commentary argues that psychological science provides well developed alternatives for researchers and clinicians interested in secular approaches to ethics-related issues in MBIs. The experimental psychology literature provides a strong foundation for working with personally meaningful, prosocial values in MBIs. Positive psychology provides a complementary perspective on moral virtues and character strengths that have been widely recognized across cultures. Organizational psychology and related disciplines provide empirically based perspectives on the ethical implications of mindfulness training in the workplace. An approach to ethical issues in MBIs that is firmly grounded in psychological science and suitable for secular settings is recommended.

Although mindfulness meditation traditionally is viewed as a lifelong practice, much current knowledge about its effects is based on short-term practitioners who have participated in mindfulness-based treatment. In the current study, long-term meditators and demographically similar nonmeditators completed self-report measures of constructs expected to be related to the practice of mindfulness meditation. Extent of meditation experience was correlated in the expected directions with levels of mindfulness and with many other variables. Mean differences between meditators and nonmeditators were significant in most cases. Mediation analyses were consistent with the hypothesis that practicing meditation is associated with increased mindfulness in daily life, which is related to decreased rumination, decreased fear of emotion, and increased behavioral self-regulation. These mechanisms appear partially responsible for the relationships between mindfulness skills and psychological adjustment. Overall, the current study suggests that the long-term practice of mindfulness meditation may cultivate mindfulness skills and promote adaptive functioning.

This comprehensive review examined the effects of mindfulness-based interventions on the physical and emotional well-being of older adults, a rapidly growing segment of the general population. Search procedures yielded 15 treatment outcome studies meeting inclusion criteria. Support was found for the feasibility and acceptability of mindfulness-based interventions with older adults. Physical and emotional well-being outcome variables offered mixed support for the use of mindfulness-based interventions with older adults. Potential explanations of mixed findings may include methodological flaws, study limitations, and inconsistent modifications of protocols. These are discussed in detail and future avenues of research are discussed, emphasizing the need to incorporate geriatric populations into future mindfulness-based empirical research.

A growing body of evidence has tied borderline personality disorder (BPD) to heightened sensitivity to rejection; however, mechanisms through which rejection sensitivity contributes to BPD features have not been identified. Rejection may lead to the dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies common in BPD, such as impulsive responses to distress, anger rumination, difficulties engaging in goal-oriented behavior, nonacceptance of emotions, and low emotional clarity. The present study used self-report measures and bootstrapping procedures to investigate the role of difficulties in emotional regulation in the relationship between rejection sensitivity and borderline personality features in a cross-sectional sample of 410 undergraduates. Difficulties in emotion regulation accounted for significant variance in the relationships between rejection sensitivity and BPD features, with varying sets of deficits in emotion regulation skills accounting for associations with specific BPD features. Potential clinical implications and the need for replication in longitudinal studies are discussed.

Increased ruminative style of thought has been well documented in borderline personality disorder (BPD); however, less is known about how the content of rumination relates to domains of BPD features. Relationships between forms of rumination and BPD features were examined in an undergraduate sample with a wide range of BPD features. Participants completed self-report measures of rumination and a free-writing task about their repetitive thought. Rumination on specific themes, including anger rumination, depressive brooding, rumination on interpersonal situations, anxious rumination, and stress-reactive rumination were significantly associated with most BPD features after controlling for general rumination. Coded writing samples suggested that BPD features are associated with repetitive thought that is negative in valence, difficult to control, prolonged, unhelpful, and unresolved. Although rumination is often described as a form of self-focused attention, BPD relationship difficulties were correlated with greater other-focus in the writing samples, which may reflect more interpersonal themes. Across both self-reports and the writing task, the BPD feature of self-destructive behavior was associated specifically with anger and hostility, suggesting this content may play a particularly important role in fueling impulsive behavior. These findings suggest that both the style and the content of repetitive thought may play a role in BPD features.

Objectives Behavioral evidence suggests that parenting-focused mindfulness interventions can improve parenting practices and enhance family wellbeing, potentially operating through altered emotional processing in parents. However, the mechanisms through which parent mindfulness interventions achieve their positive benefits have not yet been empirically tested, a knowledge which is key to refine and maximize intervention effects. Thus, as part of a randomized controlled trial, the present study examined the affective mechanisms of an 8-week parenting-focused mindfulness intervention, the Parenting Mindfully (PM) intervention, versus a minimal-intervention Parent Education control. Methods Twenty highly stressed mothers of adolescents completed pre- and post-intervention behavioral and fMRI sessions, in which mothers completed a parent-adolescent conflict interaction, fMRI emotion task, and fMRI resting state scan. Mothers reported on their mindful parenting, and maternal emotional reactivity to the parent-adolescent conflict task was assessed via observed emotion expression, self-reported negative emotion, and salivary cortisol reactivity. Results Results indicated that the PM intervention increased brain responsivity in the left posterior insula in response to negative affective stimuli and altered resting state functional connectivity in regions involved in self-reference, behavioral regulation, and social-emotional processing. Changes in mothers’ brain function and connectivity were associated with increased mindful parenting and decreased emotional reactivity to the parent-adolescent conflict task. Conclusion Findings suggest that mindfulness-based changes in maternal emotional awareness at the neurobiological level are associated with decreased emotional reactivity in parenting interactions, illuminating potential neurobiological targets for future parent-focused intervention.

This paper comments on a recent study by Christopher et al. (Mindfulness 5:145–160, 2014), in which 14 Zen Buddhist priests and laypersons residing in a monastery in the Northwestern US were interviewed about the extent to which the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Toronto Mindfulness Scale capture the nature of mindfulness as they understand and practice it. Participants identified strengths and weaknesses of both questionnaires; findings were discussed in terms of the cultural validity of the measures. Because mindfulness is taught, practiced, and studied in both Buddhist and Western contexts, including contemporary medical, mental health, educational, and research environments, this commentary argues that at least three domains of knowledge are important in developing measures of mindfulness with broad applicability: (1) knowledge of mindfulness as described, taught, and practiced in Buddhist traditions; (2) knowledge of mindfulness as described, taught, and practiced in contemporary Western interventions and training programs; and (3) knowledge of psychological assessment, especially psychometrics and questionnaire construction. A balanced perspective that explicitly acknowledges the value for health and well-being of both Buddhist and Western psychological conceptions of mindfulness is recommended.