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Beginning with the Context: The Mind–Body Conundrum

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Cultivating Mindfulness in Clinical Social Work

Part of the book series: Essential Clinical Social Work Series ((ECSWS))

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Abstract

Conceptualizing mindfulness as a whole body experience rejoins the mind and the body in a way that the western world has historically had difficulty reconciling and operationalizing. Clinical social workers, physicians, and healers in many if not all cultures recognize that our bodies can be understood as conduits or carriers of messages if we listen carefully. Consequently, this chapter looks at results of empirical study and the narratives surrounding the study of both mind and body in the United States to gain a more complete understanding of how to best intervene clinically that respects these messages.

In fact ‘connection’ understates the case: in the yoga tradition [and Āyurveda] the mind is said to be the most subtle aspect of the body, and body the most tangible aspect of mind. They exist on a continuum

Wallis (2016).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    e.g., the discovery of cells under a microscope advancing to examination of these same cells under greater magnification for the presence of DNA and even genetic markers.

  2. 2.

    e.g., poems or paintings lose their beauty and value if appreciation and understanding is restricted to a dissection of each word or brush stroke.

  3. 3.

    The procedures for exorcism by priests “remained on the books” until 1999 when the “rules for the millennium” were changed as part of the liturgical reform (Harrington 2008, p. 37, and endnote on p. 260).

  4. 4.

    (e.g., Freud’s texts, Jones 1955; Mitchell and Black 1996; Berzoff et al. 2016; Heller and Gitterman 2011; http://www.dualdiagnosis.org/mental-health-and-addiction/history; http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/our-history, etc.).

  5. 5.

    Dunbar foreshadowed current work on emotional regulation as being one of the cornerstones in understanding personality syndromes considered for DSM5 and further research (e.g., Bradley et al. 2011; Carpenter and Trull 2013; Cole et al. 1994; Hoermann et al. 2013; etc.).

  6. 6.

    Alfred North Whitehead challenged Skinner to “account for utterances that allude to stimuli conspicuously absent from the environment of the speaker and that therefore appear to require conceptual tools unavailable to the behaviorists” (Palmer 2006, p. 253). Ultimately Skinner wrote Verbal Persuasion (1957) to try to demonstrate that all verbal and nonverbal behavior could be explained by the conceptual tools of behaviorism.

  7. 7.

    For a full discussion of Chomsky’s critique of behaviorism, see Palmer (2006).

  8. 8.

    (See Beck 1976; Messer and Gurman 2011; Turner 2011; Northcut et al. 2016; etc.).

  9. 9.

    However, Jacobson et al. (1996) provide a critique of the theory of change proposed by Beck and associates by breaking down the treatment into its specific components (i.e., behavioral activation, modifying automatic thoughts, or the full cognitive therapy treatment protocol).

  10. 10.

    For example, Zen focuses on the need to move beyond or not to be confined by the basic dialectics.

  11. 11.

    This research will be discussed in subsequent chapters when relevant.

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  1. School of Social Work, Loyola University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Terry B. Northcut

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Correspondence to Terry B. Northcut .

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    Terry B. Northcut

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Northcut, T.B. (2017). Beginning with the Context: The Mind–Body Conundrum. In: Northcut, T. (eds) Cultivating Mindfulness in Clinical Social Work. Essential Clinical Social Work Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43842-9_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43842-9_2

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