Mindfulness has without doubt been the fastest spreading and most popular concept in psychotherapy in the last two decades. Its influence exceeds that of any other individual concept or approach in modern psychotherapy. However, there are many dilemmas, open questions and controversies related to this rapid, almost fanatic spread, which obviously compensates for a certain lack in modern Euro- and Americo-centric societies. Similarly, we are witnessing in the West a lack of reflection, a process of limitless idealization, and the search for a panacea. This all flows with a tint of colonialism, presumptuously taking over ideas, concepts and techniques without a proper study of the primary sources, and with all the accompanying negative side-effects: profiteering, self-promotion, unethical conduct, empty promises of instant rewards, and so on. In the present paper, the development of interest in mindfulness in psychotherapy, as well as the research findings and dilemmas, and concepts and mechanisms of applying mindfulness in psychotherapy, will be reviewed. The main purpose of the paper is to contribute to the critical reflection in studying and applying mindfulness in psychotherapy.
C.07 Other editorial board
COBISS.SI-ID: 32800217Schizophrenia exerts its devastating effects mostly by causing a profound and poorly understood inability to function, affecting different aspects of everyday life from daily activities to a lack of social contacts, unemployment, and the consequences of stigmatisation. In empirical studies, so- cial dysfunction is de ned as a social performance measure, commonly based on the principles of cognitivism, and usually evaluated in laboratory and everyday settings. In schizophrenia, it is thought to be caused by cognitive dysfunction, related to brain dysfunction. From a medical perspective, schizophrenia is understood as a neurodevelopmental disorder resulting in a pattern of disconnection between important brain areas. Nevertheless, measures of neurocognition do not explain the expected amount of variance in social functioning. Other explanatory models of social dysfunction include structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, and clinical phe- nomenology. Phenomenological accounts relate to the classical tradition in psychopathology, which describes schizophrenia as being marked by a certain “Gestalt”, which is in turn recog- nised as a distinctive and pervasive change in an individual’s self-experience and attunement to the surrounding world, thus emphasising the subjective experience of others. In the present paper, we intend to empirically explore the dilemma concerning the causes of social dysfunction in schizophrenia and to show how the comprehension, gained via a neuroscienti c approach to a complex brain phenomenon can be meaningfully expanded by adding insights from different explanatory models. These models need to be operationalised so that all the data can be incorpo- rated into a comprehensive statistical analysis.
C.07 Other editorial board
COBISS.SI-ID: 3395244