Awareness Of Thoughts Research Articles

Does Mindfulness Training Enhance the Professional Development of Residents? A Qualitative Study.

In addition to developing diagnostic and clinical skills, postgraduate medical education should stimulate residents' professional development. Teaching medical professionalism is challenging and is often left largely to the informal and hidden curricula. An intervention that might be beneficial for medical residents is mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). The authors implemented MBSR as an optional course for residents and qualitatively explored how it influenced residents professionally. Between 2014 and 2016, the authors conducted 19 in-depth, face-to-face interviews with residents who had participated in an MBSR course at Radboud university medical center, The Netherlands. Medical and surgical residents, across a range of disciplines, participated. The authors used the constant comparison method to analyze the data. The analysis of the data resulted in five themes: awareness of thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, and behavior; increased self-reflection; acceptance and nonjudgment; increased resilience; and relating to others. Residents indicated that the MBSR training increased their awareness and self-reflection at work, and they were more accepting toward themselves and toward their limitations. Furthermore, they mentioned being more resilient and better at setting priorities and limits. They improved their self-care and work-life balance. In addition, residents indicated that the training made them more aware of how they communicated. They asked for help more often and seemed to be more open toward feedback. Lastly, they indicated an increased sense of compassion for others. This study indicated that mindfulness training can serve as a tool to cultivate important professional competencies for residents.

Computer-assisted cognitive behavioural therapy: The experiences of adults who have an intellectual disability and anxiety or depression.

Despite its evidence base in the general population, computerized cognitive behavioural therapy (cCBT) has not yet been adapted for use with people with intellectual disability. This study aimed to explore the experiences of adults with an intellectual disability who played a cCBT program. Twenty-four adults (with a mild or moderate intellectual disability and clinically significant anxiety or depression) who were in the treatment arm of a pilot randomized controlled trial evaluating the cCBT program were individually interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyse and report themes within the data. Participants found playing the program to be an enjoyable and novel experience and that it was challenging and helpful. It allowed them to develop and reflect on relationships and increased their awareness of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Combining technology with CBT is an effective way to reduce barriers to accessing mental health interventions and technology for this population.

A dyadic Mbsr intervention for Parkinson’s disease patients/caregivers: Effects on distress, cortisol, and inflammation

As Parkinson’s disease (PD) progresses, stressors increase among PD patients and their caregivers, often impacting psychological and physical health. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs have been widely disseminated among clinical and healthy populations, demonstrating improvements in psychological and physical well-being. The present RCT examined pre-to-post changes in psychological and physiological outcomes of PD patients and their caregivers in an MBSR intervention compared to patients and caregivers in wait-list control. Repeated-measures ANOVA analyses comparing PD patients across conditions revealed an unexpected increase in psychological distress for PD patients in MBSR (p = 0.032), driven by a significant increase in intrusive thoughts (p = 0.015). However, as hypothesized, PD patients in MBSR demonstrated a significant decrease in nighttime cortisol (p = 0.021) and a significant decrease in IL-1β (p = 0.004), suggesting improvement in HPA functioning and inflammation stress markers, respectively. Repeated-measures ANOVA analyses comparing caregivers across conditions also revealed a significant decrease in diurnal cortisol slope (p = 0.044) for MBSR caregivers. Findings suggest that the effects of MBSR may increase psychological distress in the form of increased awareness of thoughts. However, MBSR appears to improve patients’ response to stress at the biological level – impacting both HPA functioning and inflammatory response. The effects of MBSR also demonstrated physiological benefit for PD caregivers in regard to their own internal stress response, suggesting clinical implications for the use of MBSR within the family system experiencing illness.

A Psychobiographical Study of Intuition in a Writer's Life: Paulo Coelho Revisited.

Intuition is defined as a form of knowledge which materialises as awareness of thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. It is a key to a deeper understanding and meaningfulness. Intuition, used as a psychological function, supports the transmission and integration of perceptions from unconscious and conscious realms. This study uses a psychobiographical single case study approach to explore intuition across the life span of Paulo Coelho. Methodologically, the study is based on a single case study, using the methodological frame of Dilthey's modern hermeneutics. The author, Paulo Coelho, was chosen as a subject of research, based on the content analysis of first- and third-person perspective documents. Findings show that Paulo Coelho, as one of the most famous and most read contemporary authors in the world, uses his intuitions as a deeper guidance in life, for decision-making and self-development. Intuitive decision-making is described throughout his life and by referring to selected creative works.

Decentering increases approach motivation among distressed individuals

Decentering is the process of observing one's thoughts from a self-distanced (i.e. third-person) and non-judgmental perspective, and it is clinically known for its anxiolytic and anti-depressive effects. However there is only preliminary evidence relating decentering to improved motivation, and no studies have controlled for changes in affect which can obscure the measurement of motivation (Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, & Price, 2013). In the current investigation, two experiments tested the hypothesis that decentering increases approach motivation, a buoyant state characterized by goal pursuit, independently of changes in affect. In Study 1 (N=148), decentering was induced using a self-distancing manipulation (i.e. fly-on-the-wall; Kross & Ayduk, 2011), and in Study 2 (N=143) decentering was induced using brief instructions on applying non-judgmental awareness of thoughts. Following previous research showing that decentering is most effective against negative emotional reactivity for distressed people (Kross & Ayduk, 2009), our hypothesis focused on high trait distress participants. Trait distress was operationalized as the average of standardized distress-related scales (e.g. rumination, depression, uncertainty aversion), and state affect was operationalized using the Felt Uncertainty Scale and the PANAS. Analyses revealed that decentering increased self-reported approach motivation for high trait distress individuals, and that this effect was not mediated by changes in state affect.

Mobile Health Technology Using a Wearable Sensorband for Female College Students With Problem Drinking: An Acceptability and Feasibility Study.

BackgroundAn increasing number of mobile app interventions have been developed for problem drinking among college students; however, few studies have examined the integration of a mobile app with continuous physiological monitoring and alerting of affective states related to drinking behaviors.ObjectiveThe aim of this paper was to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of Mind the Moment (MtM), a theoretically based intervention for female college students with problem drinking that combines brief, in-person counseling with ecological momentary intervention (EMI) on a mobile app integrated with a wearable sensorband.MethodsWe recruited 10 non-treatment seeking, female undergraduates from a university health clinic who scored a 3 or higher on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test–Consumption (AUDIT-C) to participate in this pilot study. Study activities involved an in-person baseline intake and 1 follow-up assessment, 2 in-person alcohol brief intervention counseling sessions, and use of MtM technology components (sensorband and EMI on a mobile app) for approximately 3-4 weeks. The intervention used motivational interviewing (MI) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies for reducing risks associated with drinking. We used both qualitative and quantitative assessments to measure acceptability of the intervention and feasibility of delivery. Use patterns of the sensorband and mobile app were also collected.ResultsQuantitative and qualitative data indicated high levels of acceptability for the MtM intervention. Altogether, participants made reports on the app on 26.7% (78/292) the days the technology was available to them and completed a total of 325 reports with wide variation between participants. Qualitative findings indicated that sensorband-elicited alerts promoted an increase in awareness of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to current environmental stressors and drinking behaviors in theoretically meaningful ways. Specific challenges related to functionality and form of the sensorband were identified.ConclusionsDelivering intervention material “just-in-time,” at the moment participants need to use behavioral strategies has great potential to individualize behavioral interventions for reducing problem drinking and other health behaviors. These findings provide initial evidence for the promise of wearable sensors for increasing potency of theoretically grounded mobile health interventions and point to directions for future research and uptake of these technologies.

The Role of Mindfulness in Enhancing Self-Care for Nurses

The Role of Mindfulness in Enhancing Self-Care for Nurses

The psychophysiological mechanisms of alexithymia in autism spectrum disorder.

Accumulating evidence indicates that co-occurring alexithymia underlies several facets of the social-emotional difficulties common in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The mechanisms involved, however, remain poorly understood because measuring alexithymia relies heavily on self-report. To address this issue, carefully matched groups of individuals with autism spectrum disorder and comparison participants rated 70 emotion-inducing pictures on subjectively experienced arousal while skin conductance responses were monitored objectively. The results demonstrated reliable correlations between these subjective and objective measures, and in both groups, around 25% of individual differences in this correlation (i.e. in emotion-relevant interoception) were accounted for by self-reported alexithymia. In the context of the wider literature, this suggests that alexithymia involves a disruption in how physiological arousal modulates the subjective experience of feelings in those with and without a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Since mindfulness-based therapies foster greater awareness of thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations, the findings also have implications for how the symptoms and consequences of alexithymia (e.g. anxiety) might be ameliorated.

The Role of Mindfulness in Urinary Urgency Symptoms

Stress, anxiety, depression and patient perception play critical roles in bothersome urinary urgency and related syndromes overactive bladder and bladder pain syndrome. A robust body of brain imaging literature has identified brain changes that occur in patients with urinary urgency and urgency incontinence, and conversely, brain changes that occur after successful treatment of urinary urgency. In an effort to directly target the role central nervous system (CNS) abnormalities in urinary urgency, which occur in regions for high-order function areas for attention, awareness, emotion, and interoception, mindfulness therapies have emerged as a promising treatment option. Mindfulness is the practice of nonreactive awareness of thoughts and sensations, which may reorient cognitive and emotional responses to bladder sensations. Recent studies examining mindfulness therapy for urinary urgency show promising results for a conservative intervention that directly targets the relevant CNS mechanisms now being elucidated.

A Metacognitive Perspective on Mindfulness: An Empirical Investigation.

BackgroundThe primary aim of this study was to explore how metacognition, as implicated in Wells and Matthews’ metacognitive theory of emotional disorder, might relate to the concept of mindfulness, and whether metacognition or mindfulness best predicted symptoms of emotional disorder.MethodsData was collected from 224 community controls on the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30), the Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item (PHQ-9), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7), and the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory Revised (OCI-R).ResultsThe MCQ-30 and FFMQ subscales constituted two latent factors which appeared to assess metacognition and mindfulness. The FFMQ subscales nonjudging of inner experience and acting with awareness loaded on metacognition, while observing, nonreacting to inner experience and describing formed a unique mindfulness factor. Metacognition correlated strongly with symptoms of depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Regression analyses found metacognition to be an important predictor of symptoms explaining between 42 % and 49 % of the variance when controlling for age and gender, while mindfulness was a weaker predictor explaining between 0 % and 2 % of the variance in symptoms.ConclusionsThe structure amongst scales and the pattern of correlations with symptoms were generally consistent with the metacognitive theory which focuses on metacognitive beliefs, enhancing awareness of thoughts and disengaging extended processing.

Failure in Clinical Education: Using Mindfulness as a Conceptual Framework to Explore the Lived Experiences of 8 Physical Therapists

INTRODUCTIONClinical education requires a seamless transition from classroom to clinic1. However, some students struggle to integrate affective domain skills and have difficulty applying generic abilities1 during real-time patient care. abilities include interpersonal skills, professionalism, stress management, and commitment to learning. These can be difficult to measure and even more difficult for faculty members to talk about.1 In response to these deficits, Wolff-Burke2 and colleagues3 coined the term Generic Inabilities to describe unprofessional behaviors of student physical therapists (PTs). These behaviors included poor communication, lack of interest, arrogance, irresponsibility, poor patient rapport, unresponsiveness to clinical instructor (Cl) feedback, and poor critical thinking during patient care.3 To date, it remains unknown how students think as they near failure, how they conceptualize it, and how they reemerge to find success and graduate.In response to similar concerns,4 ' physician educators815 developed mindful practice, defined as a purposeful awareness of one's internal affective states, practiced regularly, to enhance the intrapersonal relationship with oneself.14'18 This internal relationship has a direct influence on performance because it provides immediate information about emotions.9,11,18 The opposite of mindfulness is mindlessness, characterized by multitasking, self-deception, covering up deficiencies, excessive reliance on facts, excessive speed, and reactivity.10'12,16 While mindfulness has been added to the formal curriculum in medical training,13 occupational therapy,19'21 and psychology,12,22 little direct application has been studied in the field of physical therapist education.The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the personal accounts of 8 physical therapists that failed a graduate school clinical education course, remediated, and graduated successfully. Given the context of mindfulness theory and practice, research questions inquired whether mindless thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occurred prior to failure (Appendix A), and whether mindful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occurred after remediation and success (Appendix B).LITERATURE REVIEWDistinctions Between Reflective Practice and Mindful PracticeSome authors conflate reflection in action with mindful practice. Schon23 first described reflection in action as appraising or thinking about an activity while engaged in it,23' 25 whereas Epstein10,11,14,13 defined mindful practice as a purposeful awareness of internal affective states. Both, therefore, encourage students to examine their own values and beliefs, formulate thoughtful questions, and consider the health care environment as a whole.25 However, despite some apparent commonalities, there are distinct differences between them.Functional MRI studies26,27'29 have demonstrated that users of mindful practice activate different neural circuits in the brain. Mindful practice teaches students to develop an interoceptive awareness by pausing to focus on the body.22,26,2' In doing so, right brain structures promote self regulation with awareness of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations.29'31 The insula cortex, critical for self-assessment, feeds this information forward to the prefrontal cortex in what is described as a functional shift to the left brain or executive functioning centers.18,26,29,32'34This way, users of mindfulness learn to attend to their thoughts and the effect these have on the body so that they can act with awareness. In contrast, the default mode,2''29 characterized by midline neural circuitry, automaticity, and poor self-awareness, allows personal narrative, memory bias, and other stress reactions to dictate the outcome.18,27,30,34,35 To illustrate, a student who is about to enter a patient's room may pause intentionally to notice their thoughts (fondness/aversion) and the associated senses within their body (openness/tightness). …

Mindfulness Meditation Training for Graduate Students in Educational Counseling and Special Education: A Qualitative Analysis

Students of teaching and counseling training programs are exposed to relatively high levels of stress during their studies, and later during their work. They are expected to help their pupils deal with stress and frustration; however, few professional development programs specifically address this issue in their curricula. I developed a two-semester training course to provide theories and research on mindfulness meditation, training of self-application techniques, and instruction in fieldwork teaching of these techniques to children. Over the academic year, students completed weekly journals. Qualitative analysis of students’ journal summaries yielded three core themes related to students’ mindfulness training: process, experiences, and outcomes. Most students lacked previous experience in meditation and reported difficulties as the process began. Changes in experiences emerged, sometimes following a turning point, together with a change in the relationship to thoughts, accepting them in a more compassionate manner. Outcomes included a better awareness of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, a perceived reduction in stress, and a better sleep quality. The study suggests that mindfulness practices can be successfully introduced into traditional academic settings and integrated as part of preservice course curricula to enhance professionals’ personal mental health and their ability to transmit the benefits of meditation to their pupils.

Physiotherapy students find guided journals useful to develop reflective thinking and practice during their first clinical placement: a qualitative study

ObjectiveThis study evaluated physiotherapy students’ perception of a reflective journal in developing reflective thinking and practice and identified the main concepts recorded by students in the journal. DesignA mixed methods study with qualitative content analysis of student journals and quantitative analysis of questionnaire responses. Participants131 (74 female, 57 male) physiotherapy students undergoing their first clinical placement. InterventionsOn completion of their placement, students submitted a reflective journal electronically and completed a questionnaire of closed and open ended questions. Main outcome measuresQuestionnaires were analysed using frequencies for the responses of the closed questions and thematic analysis of the open ended questions. Journals were de-indentified and underwent a content analysis using Leximancer© software to obtain a concept map and frequencies of the main concepts identified in the journals, with specific examples. ResultsThe majority (88%, 79/90) of respondents found the journal useful in assisting them to learn from their experiences, and to develop reflective thinking and practice. 54% (49/90) indicated they would continue to use the journals. The most frequently identified concepts were residents, time and exercises; representing more than 5000 of the total concepts identified in the journals. Analysis of the reflective journals indicated that students demonstrated improvements in the three stages of reflective practice: awareness of thoughts and feelings, critical analysis of situation, and development of new perspectives. ConclusionsGuided journal writing may be a useful tool in facilitating reflective thinking and practice during clinical placements of physiotherapy students.

P.2.009 The effect of acutely induced anxiety in a successive negative contrast task in humans

Decentering is the process of observing one's thoughts from a self-distanced (i.e. third-person) and non-judgmental perspective, and it is clinically known for its anxiolytic and anti-depressive effects. However there is only preliminary evidence relating decentering to improved motivation, and no studies have controlled for changes in affect which can obscure the measurement of motivation (Harmon-Jones, Harmon-Jones, & Price, 2013). In the current investigation, two experiments tested the hypothesis that decentering increases approach motivation, a buoyant state characterized by goal pursuit, independently of changes in affect. In Study 1 (N = 148), decentering was induced using a self-distancing manipulation (i.e. fly-on-the-wall; Kross & Ayduk, 2011), and in Study 2 (N = 143) decentering was induced using brief instructions on applying non-judgmental awareness of thoughts. Following previous research showing that decentering is most effective against negative emotional reactivity for distressed people (Kross & Ayduk, 2009), our hypothesis focused on high trait distress participants. Trait distress was operationalized as the average of standardized distress-related scales (e.g. rumination, depression, uncertainty aversion), and state affect was operationalized using the Felt Uncertainty Scale and the PANAS. Analyses revealed that decentering increased self-reported approach motivation for high trait distress individuals, and that this effect was not mediated by changes in state affect.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is associated with impairments in cognition, including difficulties in executive functioning, even when patients are euthymic (neither depressed nor manic). The purpose of this study was to assess changes in self-reported cognitive functioning in patients with bipolar disorder who participated in an open pilot trial of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). Following MBCT, patients reported significant improvements in executive functioning, memory, and ability to initiate and complete tasks, as measured by the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) and the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe). Changes in cognitive functioning were correlated with increases in mindful, nonjudgmental observance and awareness of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and were not associated with decreases in depression. Improvements tended to diminish after termination of treatment, but some improvements, particularly those in executive functioning, persisted after 3 months. These results provide preliminary evidence that MBCT may be a treatment option that can be used as an adjunct to medication to improve cognitive functioning in bipolar disorder.

What can GIS offer history?

As the papers in this volume and elsewhere testify, there is ample evidence that GIS has been embraced successfully as a tool to explore and visualize historical events. This is no surprise since GIS is a generic tool that in the hands of a creative tool user can be applied to any field or situation that has a spatial component. I use ‘spatial’ here deliberately since it helps illustrate where thinking about GIS is now and how much further it can, and needs to, evolve. Put simply, fully benefiting from the use of GIS in History, as in any other field, requires much more than simply applying the tool. Importantly, proper use of the tool of GIS requires an understanding of what happens to knowledge when it is transformed to information and digital data in the computer. A mostly untapped value in the scholarly use of GIS lies in the opportunities for new understanding that arise through thoughtful awareness of what changes are made during these transformations. So, let us consider the nature of GIS use in History today, how GIS might be differently used, and how the major changes on the horizon for GIS may impact all users whether they are ready or not.

Adolescents Talking about Personal Responsibility

The role of personal responsibility in the lives of adolescents remains a largely overlooked area in the psychological and educational fields. The present study used focus groups of 20 white, middle-class adolescents to examine how they understand and integrate the notion of personal responsibility into their lives. Key themes, including awareness of thoughts and feelings, behavioural choices and control, and consideration of consequences were found to be important components of the personal responsibility variable. Interesting gender differences were noted, with females and males identifying different emotions as being within or outside their control, and only females said that concern for the feelings of others was a major factor in decision-making. The key themes served to generate parameters with which to define the personal responsibility variable.

Global Business Citizenship and Voluntary Codes of Ethical Conduct

This article describes the theory and process of global business citizenship (GBC) and applies it in an analysis of characteristics of company codes of business conduct. GBC is distinguished from a commonly used term, “corporate citizenship,” which often denotes corporate community involvement and philanthropy. The GBC process requires (1) a set of fundamental values embedded in the corporate code of conduct and in corporate policies that reflect universal ethical standards; (2) implementation throughout the organization with thoughtful awareness of where the code and policies fit well and where they might not fit with stakeholder expectations; (3) analysis and experimentation to deal with problem cases; and (4) systematic learning processes to communicate the results of implementation and experiments internally and externally. We then identify and illustrate the three attributes of a code of conduct that would reflect a GBC approach. The three attributes are orientation, implementation, and accountability. The various components of these attributes are specified and illustrated, using website examples from six global petroleum companies.

It’s the Thought That Counts: The Role of Intentions and Meta-Awareness in Cognitive Therapy

It is usually assumed that cognitive therapy helps patients to reassess the validity of the content of their thinking, resulting in thoughts which are more realistic and less negative, thereby alleviating emotional distress. This paper proposes that negative cognitions may be dysfunctional, not only in terms of inaccurate propositional content, but also through fostering unhelpful or maladaptive intentions. Some benefits of cognitive therapy may result from helping patients to give up unhelpful intentions or adopt novel intentions in situations where they are experiencing distress. The process of adopting new intentions is facilitated by development of awareness of thoughts as mental events, here called meta-awareness. The effects of different components of cognitive therapy on intentions and on meta-awareness are described. Making intentional effects explicit clarifies the process of action of cognitive therapy, and may facilitate clinical practice, empirical investigation and training.

Metacreativity: Awareness of Thoughts and Feelings During Creative Experiences

The Journal of Creative BehaviorVolume 22, Issue 2 p. 112-122 Metacreativity: Awareness of Thoughts and Feelings During Creative Experiences CATHERINE B. BRUCH, Corresponding Author CATHERINE B. BRUCHUniversity of Georgia, Department of Psychology, Athens, GA 30602Search for more papers by this author CATHERINE B. BRUCH, Corresponding Author CATHERINE B. BRUCHUniversity of Georgia, Department of Psychology, Athens, GA 30602Search for more papers by this author First published: June 1988 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1988.tb00672.xCitations: 14AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume22, Issue2June 1988Pages 112-122 RelatedInformation