How Social is Your Mindfulness?

Abstract

The proliferation and popularity of mindfulness therapies in recent years has enabled many people to access Buddhist theories and practices that are helpful in addressing distress. However, most of the therapies that have been developed so far seem to adopt the dualistic modern Western way of understanding experience rather than taking seriously the non-dualistic approach within which Buddhist understandings are embedded. In this chapter I argue that a biopsychosocial perspective is more in keeping with the theoretical foundations of mindfulness, while also being in line with more recent Western theories. Such a perspective requires giving serious attention to the social context in which we struggle, which has been neglected by the internal focus of much psychotherapy. Specifically, we need to engage with the self-monitoring culture of acquisition and avoidance that currently pervades Western society. I refer to such an approach as ‘social mindfulness’ to distinguish it from those mindful approaches that engage less explicitly with the social.