Avoidance vs Acceptance & Mindfully "Leaning In" with Curiosity

     “A wide range of research reviewed shows that many forms of psychopathology can be conceptualized as unhealthy efforts to escape and avoid emotions, thoughts, memories, and other private experiences.”  
       Hayes SC, Wilson KW, Gifford EV, Follette VM, Strosahl K. “Emotional avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1996; 64(6): 1152–68.

     “Elvin Semrad taught us that most human suffering is related to love and loss and that the job of therapists is to help people ‘acknowledge, experience, and bear’ the reality of life – with all its pleasures and heartbreak. ‘The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves,’ he’d say, urging us to be honest with ourselves about every facet of our experience. He often said that people can never get better without knowing what they know and feeling what they feel.”
       Bessel Van Der Kolk. “The Body Keeps the Score. Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.” Penguin Books, 2015.

     “The theoretical framework of mindfulness holds that the continual practice of bringing one’s attention to the present moment, and allowing what is in that moment simply to be, eventually leads to a shift in perception in which thoughts and feelings may be observed as arising events. With increased ability to become witness to thoughts, rather than immersed in their valence and content, there follows increased psychological flexibility, enhanced emotion regulation, and reduced rumination.
     An interesting observation in this study was that participation in MBSR was associated with reductions in PTSD symptoms, most strongly among them avoidance. Recent thinking in the field of trauma asserts that avoidance, the effort to escape or hide from traumatic thoughts, feelings, or memories, is the core psychological process underlying the development and continuation of PTSD. Avoidant coping strategies include attempts to suppress intrusive thoughts, to take oneself away from negatively evocative situations, engage in substance use, or through emotional numbing. Therapeutic approaches that prescribe the opposite of avoidance, i.e., acceptance, can serve as a form of exposure and work to alleviate avoidant tendencies. In offering acceptance of the present moment, MBSR may be such a therapy. The mindfulness approach is that through openness, curiosity, and acceptance of the present moment, one’s relationship with negative thoughts is altered. By fostering a greater comfort level with thoughts previously avoided, mindfulness practice allows them to surface and, as such, mindfulness may serve as a form of exposure in its impact on PTSD symptoms. 
     In addition to contributing to a survivor’s ability to be present to his or her own painful emotional experience, mindfulness skills also may enhance one’s capacity to be present in psychological therapy. In this way, mindfulness may potentiate therapeutic work. The exploration of this synergy should be a topic of future empirical investigation. Thus, MBSR may serve as a widely available, potentially cost-effective way for clients to gain a foundation in mindfulness skills.”  
       Kimbrough E, Magyari T, Langenberg P, Chesney M, Berman B. “Mindfulness intervention for child abuse survivors.” Journal of Clinical Psychology 2010; 66(1): 17–33.


 

Courtesy of Buddha Doodles www.buddhadoodles.com