Mechanisms of Meditation and Applications in Clinical Practice

As mindfulness-based interventions are now increasingly validated and widely implemented
in clinical settings and research into meditation and mindfulness is burgeoning, an important
question becomes: what are the mechanisms that underlie these practices? Although
sometimes heralded by the media as a panacea (Van Dam et al., 2018), a better
understanding is needed of exactly how, why and what aspects of practice have a positive
impact on different conditions. Such theoretical underpinnings are crucial in a research field
that is relatively young and where there are doubts about the reproducibility.

The development of theories in this workshop will focus on two themes: the attitude towards
the self, and the tendency to engage in “sticky” thinking patterns. The sense of self and
alterations in this sense of self play a key role in many clinical conditions such as depression
(where the self is seen as unworthy), eating disorders (where the self is seen as too big) and
trauma and dissociation (where the self becomes separated from the lived experience). It was
shown that mindfulness meditation practices impact on both, yet it is unclear how exactly.

The workshop will bring together Dutch, European and global leaders in the field of mental
health, mindfulness meditation research and philosophers working on these themes. They will
discuss and compare the different experimental and modeling approaches of their
laboratories. On the first day, they will define a common language and then outline the main
challenges in the field. On the second and third days, they will turn these main challenges into
a research agenda. On the fourth and fifth days, they will identify key methods and approaches
to answer these challenges and define steps for follow-up.

The outcomes of this workshop will lead to a research agenda for the field that is grounded in
the most rigorous theoretical and practical approaches. The workshop will be considered a
success if it leads to a draft of a position paper, and/or a plan for a multi-lab grant proposal in
the EU-H2020 framework. We hope that this workshop will contribute to moving research on
mindfulness meditation and its clinical application in Europe to the next level.