The difference between mindfulness and meditation therapy

Meditation therapy is a collective name for a series of clinical psychological intervention programs centered on meditation technology, with clear treatment goals and operating specifications.； Mindfulness is a psychological technology that “consciously and non-judgmentally be aware of the present moment”. It can be a core component of meditation therapy, or it can be separated from clinical scenarios and used as a general method for ordinary people to regulate their emotions in daily life. The two are both intertwined and independent, and there is no absolute affiliation.

In the five years that I have been leading offline emotion regulation groups, almost every first class of the camp I am always asked by new members: "Teacher, do we have to sit cross-legged for an hour today?" Does it count as a failure in practice if your legs are numb? ”Basically, these two concepts are confused - everyone has the impression that the form of "sit with eyes closed for half a day and relax following the instructions" is actually a standardized operation of most meditation therapies, but it is not necessarily a necessary requirement for mindfulness.

It's interesting to say that I met a scholar who studied Theravada Buddhism before, and he was particularly opposed to including mindfulness in the category of meditation therapy. In his opinion, the ultimate goal of mindfulness practice is to eliminate worries and obtain ultimate liberation. How can it be used for such "shallow" purposes as relieving workplace anxiety and improving insomnia? But from the perspective of clinical psychology, we have indeed only taken the core attribute of mindfulness of "awareness of the present moment", stripped it of the religious attribute, and integrated it into intervention programs to assist in the treatment of mental illness. There is actually no problem with either view, but the applicable scenarios are completely different.

From a practical perspective, the goals of the two are actually quite far apart. The meditation treatment you go to the clinical psychology department of a regular hospital or a registered psychologist, whether it is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for depression relapse, mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy (MBSR) for stress regulation, or SMART meditation therapy for addiction problems, all have clear K PI's: After 8 weeks of intervention, how much the depression scale score will drop, how much the desire for tobacco and alcohol will drop by a few percentage points, and to what extent the sleep quality will improve. All the practice procedures are designed around clinical indicators, and there are even complete plans for which groups are not suitable for practice and how to deal with emotional flashbacks during practice.

But the "eating raisins mindfully" and "walking mindfully" that you usually learn from watching short videos do not need to have any treatment goals at all. I often tell students that when you were on the subway during the morning rush hour and someone stepped on you, and suddenly you noticed that you were clenching your fists and hunching your shoulders, and you took two deep breaths without quarreling with anyone, this is righteousness. While you were eating, you were originally thinking about the project you were going to submit in the afternoon, but suddenly you realized that you had been chewing for a long time and you still couldn’t taste the tomato scrambled eggs. You brought your attention back to the taste of the food. This is also mindfulness. There is no such thing as meeting the standard or not. If you get distracted, just pull it back and it will be over.

To give an example I encountered recently, a client previously signed up for an Internet celebrity meditation class to treat anxiety. The teacher required him to "empty his mind for 15 minutes" every time he practiced mindfulness. He scolded himself for being useless whenever his mind wandered. After practicing for half a month, his anxiety became more serious. This is to misapply the assessment standards of meditation therapy to daily mindfulness practice, completely contradicting the logic of both.

To use an inappropriate analogy: Meditation therapy is like a training plan for building muscle and losing fat customized by a coach in the gym. It has movement standards, training frequency, effect indicators, and even corresponding taboo groups. If you have a knee injury, you cannot practice weight-bearing squats hard. You must listen to the guidance of professionals. Mindfulness means consciously raising your head and chest when walking, adding half the sugar when drinking milk tea, and climbing two more flights of stairs when commuting. These are small habits that can be integrated into your life at any time. You don’t need to be a fitness expert to do it. It will be beneficial if you do it.

Of course, the boundary between the two is indeed becoming increasingly blurred. For example, many Internet companies offer EAP "mindfulness meditation classes" to their employees. What do you think it is? If the teacher leading the class has clinical qualifications and can identify students with depression tendencies and make timely referrals, and the course content is designed according to MBSR specifications, then it actually has the attributes of meditation therapy ； If you just find a celebrity blogger to lead everyone to sit and listen to white noise for 10 minutes, then it is essentially a relaxation activity, and it is neither a standard meditation therapy nor a systematic mindfulness practice.

Really, there is no need for ordinary people to worry about whether they practice mindfulness or meditation therapy. If you have been diagnosed with a mental illness such as anxiety, depression, or PTSD, don’t blindly follow the audio exercises at home. See a qualified therapist for standardized meditation therapy intervention to avoid improper operation and aggravating emotional problems. If you are usually stressed and can’t help but regret the past and worry about the future, mindfulness exercises that you can do at any time are much more useful than forcing yourself to sit cross-legged for half an hour - after all, no matter what the name is, it can make you less internally consumed and live more in the present, which is the core purpose.