Mindfulness: New Evidence of Efficacy

There's new evidence of the effectiveness of what is known as a "distancing" approach for dealing with one's uncomfortable emotions. This approach is closely related to the practice of mindfulness, within which one takes what is sometimes called an "observer" stance in recognizing emotions, without getting overly enmeshed in them. I have often taught this approach by using the term "optimal emotional distance." When distressing emotions occur, we have three possible stances that we can take. One could be described as a cool, dismissive, rejecting stance, in which we ignore or try to "get rid of" the emotional experience. Another is a hotter, over-involved stance, in which we tend to make matters worse by getting deeply engaged in the emotion (much like throwing gasoline onto a small fire). Most effective is a position somewhere in the middle range between the two, in which the emotion is recognized and named (it is observed), and it is felt ("I am feeling angry right now,") but the mind steps back just enough to prevent it from being overwhelming, and from allowing it to dominate one's entire experience.

The practice of mindfulness meditation appears to be helpful in learning this "middle" stance, because it encourages the consistent practice of adopting a "compassionate observer" stance toward all phenomena, including one's own emotional experience, thoughts, impulses, and sensations.

The Science Daily description of the study is found here. And here's an excerpt:

[There is a well-known] psychological paradox: Pocessing emotions is supposed to facilitate coping, but attempts to understand painful feelings often backfire and perpetuate or strengthen negative moods and emotions.*
The solution is not denial or distraction. According to University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross, the best way to move ahead emotionally is to analyze one's feelings from a psychologically distanced perspective...

"We aren't very good at trying to analyze our feelings to make ourselves feel better," said Kross, a faculty associate at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) and an assistant professor of psychology. "It's an invaluable human ability to think about what we do, but reviewing our mistakes over and over, re-experiencing the same negative emotions we felt the first time around, tends to keep us stuck in negativity. It can be very helpful to take a sort of mental time-out, to sit back and try to review the situation from a distance."

This approach is widely associated with eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism, and with practices like [meditation]. But according to Kross, anyone can do it with a little practice.

Kross and Ayduk randomly assigned 141 participants to one of three groups that required them to focus (or not focus) on their feelings using different strategies in a guided imagery exercise that led them to recall an experience that made them feel overwhelmed by sadness and depression.

In the immersed-analysis condition, participants were told, "Go back to the time and place of the experience, and relive the situation as if it were happening to you all over again…try to understand the emotions that you felt as the experience unfolded…why did you have those feelings? What were the underlying causes and reasons?"

In the distanced-analysis condition, they were told, "Go back to the time and place of the experience…take a few steps back and move away from your experience…watch the experience unfold as if it were happening all over again to the distant you… try to understand the emotions that the distant you felt as the experience unfolded…why did he (she) have those feelings? What were the underlying causes and reasons?"

In the distraction condition, participants were asked to think about a series of non-emotional facts that were unrelated to their recalled depression experience. Among the statements: "Pencils are made with graphite" and "Scotland is north of England."
After the experience, participants completed a questionnaire asking how they felt at the moment, and wrote a stream-of-thought essay about their thoughts during the memory.

Those who had used the distanced-analysis approach... showed lower levels of depression than those who had used self-immersed analysis and distraction, providing evidence to support the hypothesis that distanced-analysis not only helps people cope with intense feelings adaptively in the short-term, but critically also helps people work-through negative experiences over time.