Reddit reviews Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism

Very cool article. As someone who's passionate about meditation and has studied it intensely I think it's important to realize that meditation is (1) not for everyone and (2) to be very cautious about what mindfulness has actually been able to help with. Mindfulness Based Stress Relief and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy have repeatedly been shown to be effective. However, these types of studies rarely have adequate controls so it is difficult to make the strong claim that mindfulness itself is the cause of these seen benefits. Likewise, claims that mindfulness can treat more extreme disorders like PTSD are often banded about, but the research on these claims is thin.

Two books on this I would recommend:

Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism:

>Practicing mindfulness can be an effective adjunct in treating psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, and addiction. But have we gone too far with mindfulness? Recent books on the topic reveal a troubling corruption of mindfulness practice for commercial gain, with self-help celebrities hawking mindfulness as the next "miracle drug." Furthermore, common misunderstanding of what mindfulness really is seems to be fueled by a widespread cultural trend toward narcissism, egocentricity, and self-absorption.

>Thomas Joiner's Mindlessness chronicles the promising rise of mindfulness and its perhaps inevitable degradation. Giving mindfulness its full due, both as a useful philosophical vantage point and as a means to address various life challenges, Joiner mercilessly charts how narcissism has intertwined with and co-opted the practice to create a Frankenstein's monster of cultural solipsism and self-importance. He examines the dispiriting consequences for many sectors of society (e.g., mental health, education, politics) and ponders ways to mitigate, if not undo, them. Mining a rich body of research, Joiner also makes use of material from popular culture, literature, social media, and personal experience in order to expose the misuse of mindfulness and to consider how we as a society can back away from the brink, salvaging a potentially valuable technique for improving mental and physical wellbeing.

Joiner is one of, if not the most famous researcher on suicide in the world. One of the things he talks about, for example, he talks about how many depressed individuals struggle greatly with rumination, and not much has been done about the fact that meditation tends to make rumination worse for many people.

I also greatly enjoy Daniel Goleman's Altered Traits. Many are quick to point out that "thousands" of research articles have been published on mindfulness meditation. These guys are upfront and critical of the fact that, well, most of these studies are absolute trash with either biased experimenters, poorly defined definitons, and lack of proper controls (They're extremely critical of their own somewhat sloppy mindfulness research in the 70's - a refreshing moment of humbleness). They review over 1,000 studies and do a literature review of the 50 or so highest quality ones.

There really does seem to be an effect at work here with mindfulness. However, people often fail to differentiate between state effects and trait effects. For many beginners, Mindfulness is no different than a drug - you get a bump of relaxation and positive feeling when you're meditating, and then no difference when you resume your life. Real, permanent, lasting change is seemingly, but only after long, continued practice - not just glancing at a 10-minute mindfulness app on your phone three times a week.

They also mention how easy the news media and other snake oil salesmen can misrepresent research: a famous finding like meditation can increase the length of telomeres, a process related to cellular aging is reported as "Mindfulness is going to make you live much longer!!" And of course there's always companies trying to make a quick buck: A related example is the company Luminosity, a company that vaguely throws around the word "neuroplasticity" as proof playing their games will make you smarter, a claim not supported by much evidence.

Above all I think it helps to have a skeptical eye. Mindfulness has become an extremely hot topic in the past 15 years. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a self selection effect where most researchers really, really want mindfulness to be scientifically valid, and so they aren't really as critical of the research as they should be. Combine that with the fact that science journalism generally isn't great at actually reporting science, and marketing companies even less so, and that leads to a lot of misinformation floating around.