Psychology Chartered publishes Mindfulness Group for Stroke Patients study
15th April 2015
“We were told it didn’t matter how high we lifted our arms, but it mattered to me! Because I felt the whole point of the exercise was to lift our arms.” (Participant in mindfulness group for stroke patients)
It seems the ultimate paradox that mindfulness practice is making the well-trodden path in the British media from panacea to pants. Whilst every Sunday supplement dripped with stories of the benefits of mindfulness practice, now the headline writers have changed tone to confusion, indifference or worst still, rabid health warnings, as they trawl the internet forums and social media for the next psycho-fad. The inescapable irony of all this is that mindfulness has been around for a lot longer than you or I and will inevitably continue to be around long after we’re gone. However at the same time, to dismiss the media ramblings is also possibly to miss an important point. The overstatement of the benefits of mindfulness was somewhat inevitable in our quick fix, consumerist, immediate gratification world where hot yoga and fasting diets lead the dash towards accelerated self-improvement.
It is therefore possibly timely that our pilot study into the use of mindfulness (1), with a group of patients following stroke, has coincided with Edo Shonin and colleagues’ comprehensive review of mindfulness research in the “Psychologist”[1]. The task of demonstrating the effectiveness of psychological interventions is obviously incumbent upon us and Shonin clearly outlines the methodological weakness and lack of authenticity characteristic of many published studies in this domain (almost inevitable given the vast and sudden increase in the number of published papers relating to mindfulness). Our pilot study serves to reiterate the need for more clinical research in this area for different populations and sub-populations. A chat, cup of tea and a biscuit may have been equally effective in assisting our small group of stroke patients and the task is clearly to demonstrate the utility of this approach in a more nuanced and informative way.
However, to simply echo the medical model mantra of more and bigger RCT’s is missing the point. Mindlessly pursuing and publishing more mindfulness research is not necessarily the answer; asking the right research questions is more likely to help practitioners and patients adapt the use of an approach with significant clinical potential. As psychologists we are ideally placed to ask questions regarding patients capacity to use this approach, the implications of their pre-existing coping styles, particular “belief systems”, mindfulness attitudes or psychological mindedness.
As our quote at the top of this story indicates, the goal of acceptance and non-striving is probably counter-intuitive for many of our patients, particularly those who have been through the psychologically and physically arduous process of neurorehabilitation following a sudden and catastrophic brain injury. The task, as clinicians, is to find ways of helping clients understand the potential value of a psychological approach.
In short, if mindfulness, as a clinical intervention, is not to be thrown out with last week’s newspapers, there does need to be a commitment to providing the right kind of evidence that Edo Shonin and his colleagues are talking about.
(Copies of the published pilot study can be obtained via Psychology Chartered Ltd, Ground Floor, 96A London Road, Widley, Waterlooville, Hampshire, PO7 5AB or from office@psychologychartered.co.uk)
1 The Development of a Mindfulness Group for Stroke Patients: A Pilot Study, Juanita Merriman, Sarah Walker-Bircham, Simon Easton & Richard Maddicks. Clinical Psychology Forum, Division of Clinical Psychology, No. 267, March 2015
2 Mindfulness in Psychology – a Breath of Fresh Air, Edo Shonin, William Van Gordon & Mark D Griffiths, The Psychologist, January 2015, Vol 28 (pp28-31)