Main description:

This book critically examines the development of mindfulness, tracing its development from Buddhist meditation to its variety of popular applications today, including the treatment of mental disorders, wellbeing and improvement of performance. The book begins with a chapter on the meaning of mindfulness, then moves on to chart the spread of Buddhism into the western world and examine the development of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). The second half of the book considers some of the growing concerns related to mindfulness such as the loss of the moral and communitarian values of Buddhism, and the psychologicization and medicalization of existential problems into a capitalist society.

Contents:

Dedication

Introductory note

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter 2: What is mindfulness ?

Chapter 3: The spread of Buddhism from East to West

Chapter 4: Psychologists and psychiatrists became interested in Buddhism

Chapter 5: The applications of mindfulness in psychology and medicine

Chapter 6: The marketing of mindfulness in the United States and Great Britain

Chapter 7: Methodological flaws and the evidence of efficacy

Chapter 8: Epilogue