Meditation practice is associated with a values-oriented life: the mediating role of decentering and mindfulness

Clarification of personal values and meditation practice has been associated in most meditation traditions and in academic texts. Both values-related behavior and meditation practice increases well-being, but their relationship has not been well studied. It has been suggested that values, together with self-regulation, psychological flexibility, and exposure, are key mechanisms of action in mindfulness. The aims of this study were to explore the association between meditation and values and to examine the processes involved in this relation. A sample of 235 meditation-na < ve participants and 274 subjects with varying levels of experience in meditation practice completed an online assessmen…

Assessing decentering: validation, psychometric properties, and clinical usefulness of the Experiences Questionnaire in a Spanish sample.

Decentering is defined as the ability to observe one’s thoughts and feelings in a detached manner. The Experiences Questionnaire (EQ) is a self-report instrument that originally assessed decentering and rumination. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of EQ-Decentering and to explore its clinical usefulness. The 11-item EQ-Decentering subscale was translated into Spanish and psychometric properties were examined in a sample of 921 adult individuals, 231 with psychiatric disorders and 690 without. The subsample of nonpsychiatric participants was also split according to their previous meditative experience (meditative participants, n = 3…

Propiedades psicométricas de la versión española de la Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale

Resumen Introduccion La Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale (PHLMS) es un cuestionario breve que evalua 2 componentes clave de la atencion plena: la conciencia en el momento presente y la aceptacion. El presente estudio evalua las propiedades psicometricas de la version espanola de la PHLMS tanto en una muestra control de estudiantes universitarios como en poblacion con patologia psiquiatrica. Material y metodos Se administro la version espanola de la PHLMS a 395 voluntarios (256 con patologia psiquiatrica y 139 estudiantes). Resultados El analisis factorial exploratorio de la version espanola de la PHLMS apoya la solucion bifactorial de la version original con una varianza explicada del 44,02%.…

Fostering Self-Compassion and Loving-Kindness in Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder: A Randomized Pilot Study

The aim of this randomized pilot study is to investigate the effects of a short training programme in loving-kindness and compassion meditation (LKM/CM) in patients with borderline personality disorder. Patients were allocated to LKM/CM or mindfulness continuation training (control group). Patients in the LKM/CM group showed greater changes in Acceptance compared with the control group. Remarkable changes in borderline symptomatology, self-criticism and self-kindness were also observed in the LKM/CM group. Mechanistic explanations and therapeutic implications of the findings are discussed. Highlights: Three weeks of loving-kindness and compassion meditations increased acceptance of the pres…

Relationship between effortful control and facets of mindfulness in meditators, non-meditators and individuals with borderline personality disorder

As dimensions of effortful control (EC), activation control, attentional control, and inhibitory control could mediate the relationship between mindfulness meditation practice and the facets of mindfulness (i.e., observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging and non-reacting to inner experience). In this study, we tested whether participant status: meditators (n = 330), healthy non-meditators (n = 254) and individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) diagnosis (n = 46) predicted the facets of mindfulness and if these potential effects were mediated through the three effortful control (EC) dimensions (activation, attentional and inhibitory control). Meditators scored hi…

Corrigendum to “Assessing Decentering: Validation, Psychometric Properties, and Clinical Usefulness of the Experiences Questionnaire in a Spanish Sample” [Behavior Therapy 45 (2014) 863- 871]

Replication of previous genome-wide association studies of psychiatric diseases in a large schizophrenia case-control sample from Spain.

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) has allowed the discovery of some interesting risk variants for schizophrenia (SCZ). However, this high-throughput approach presents some limitations, being the most important the necessity of highly restrictive statistical corrections as well as the loss of statistical power inherent to the use of a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) analysis approach. These problems can be partially solved through the use of a polygenic approach. We performed a genotyping study in SCZ using 86 previously associated SNPs identified by GWAS of SCZ, bipolar disorder (BPD) and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) patients. The sample consisted of 3063 independent cases wit…