Mindfulness at work (Glomb, Duffy et al, 2012) - Human Resources

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118THERESA M. GLOMB ET AL.professionals have been trained to teach MBSR techniques (Duerr, 2004b).Mindfulness has also emerged as a therapeutic practice in psychology (i.e.,Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy [MBCT]; Segal, Williams, &Teasdale, 2002). As a variant of MBSR, MBCT has integrated componentsof cognitive-behavioral therapy (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979) withmindfulness meditation. It has been shown effective in reducing clinicalsymptoms and relapses in patients with psychiatric disorders (for review, seeBaer, 2003; Chiesa & Serretti, 2010). Clinical psychologists have foundmindfulness practices to benefit both clinical populations and therapists;practices such as meditation may lead therapists to feel more empathytoward patients (Delmonte, 1990) and ‘‘enjoy their work more fully’’(Germer, 2005, p. 11). Preliminary evidence shows that mindfulnessmeditation training helped psychotherapists achieve significantly bettertreatment results for their patients (Grepmair, Mitterlehner, Rother, &Nickel, 2006).DefinitionsThe popular press and the scholarly literature have both used the termmindfulness to refer to a variety of related constructs, traits, practices, andprocesses (e.g., Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006; Bishopet al., 2004; Brown & Ryan, 2003; Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007; Chiesa &Serretti, 2010; Grossman, 2008). Grossman (2008) noted: ‘‘Mindfulness is adifficult concept to define, let alone operationalize’’ (p. 405). Despitesurface-level confusion about the nature and meaning of mindfulness,agreement exists on its fundamental nature, defined by Brown andcolleagues as ‘‘a receptive attention to and awareness of present events andexperience’’ (Brown et al., 2007, p. 212, italics in original; see also Brown &Ryan, 2003). Put simply, mindfulness is the process of paying attention towhat is happening in the moment – both internal (thoughts, bodilysensations) and external stimuli (physical and social environment) – andobserving those stimuli without judgment or evaluation, and withoutassigning meaning to them. Basic-level examples of mindfulness includeexperiences such as noticing ‘‘the positions of our hands and the sensationsof holding a knife and bagel,’’ being aware of ‘‘our bodies sitting in the carwhen we drive,’’ and noticing the traffic, the road, and the passing scenery(Siegel, Germer, & Olendzki, 2009, p. 21). Thus, awareness and attentionare at the heart of mindfulness, but mindfulness also involves attendingto stimuli without imposing judgments, memories, or other self-relevant
Mindfulness at Work 119cognitive manipulations on them (Brown et al., 2007). In the drivingexample, mindfulness involves noticing heavy traffic but refraining fromevaluating it negatively when it is tied up or moving slowly and fromruminating about what traffic might be like on another route. Our workingdefinition of mindfulness draws heavily from Brown and colleagues (seeBrown et al., 2007; Brown & Ryan, 2003). We define mindfulness as astate of consciousness characterized by receptive attention to and awarenessof present events and experiences, without evaluation, judgment, andcognitive filters. Our definition clearly establishes mindfulness as a state ofconsciousness, given empirical evidence of considerable within-individualvariation in mindfulness over time (Brown & Ryan, 2003) and evidence thatmindfulness can be cultivated or enhanced through practices and trainingsuch as mindfulness meditation (see Brown & Ryan, 2003), loving-kindnessmeditation (see Fredrickson et al., 2008), and MBSR and MBCT (seeGiluk, 2010).Although we define mindfulness as a state of consciousness, we alsorecognize that the average frequency with which individuals experiencestates of mindfulness may vary from person to person, suggesting thatpeople may have trait-like tendencies toward mindfulness (see Brown et al.,2007; Brown & Cordon, 2009; Brown & Ryan, 2003); indeed one line ofresearch treats mindfulness as a stable individual difference (i.e., traitmindfulness) similar to other personality traits (e.g., Brown & Ryan, 2003;Cardaciotto, Herbert, Forman, Moitra, & Farrow, 2008; Lakey, Campbell,Brown, & Goodie, 2007; Walsh, Balint, Smolira SJ, Fredericksen, &Madsen, 2009; Way, Creswell, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2010).The literature has also examined mindfulness training as a therapeutictechnique (e.g., MBSR; Kabat-Zinn, 1990, or MBCT; Segal et al., 2002) thataims to improve the capacity to create more mindful states. One centralelement of these programs is mindfulness meditation. Our definitionsuggests that none of these programs nor the mindfulness meditation theyincorporate are mindfulness, but rather meditation is a technique used todevelop mindfulness (see also Brown et al., 2007; Grossman, 2008).Moreover, we note that mindfulness meditation is just one specific type ofmeditation and differs from other practices such as concentrative meditationthat requires focused attention on a single stimulus such as a word, sound,or candle (see Goleman, 1977; but see also Cahn & Polich, 2006; Germer,2005; Lutz, Slagter, Dunne, & Davidson, 2008, for the counterargumentthat concentrative meditation may also develop mindfulness). Thus,mindfulness meditation, but perhaps not all meditation, develops themindfulness state of nonjudgmental awareness of and attention to internal
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