present moment awareness · savoring · focusing
Within the depth-psychology corpus, mindfulness is neither monolithic nor narrowly Buddhist: it emerges as a contested, multi-tradition cluster of attentional practices whose therapeutic significance varies dramatically depending on the theoretical framework through which it is filtered. Harris locates mindfulness across four millennia of contemplative heritage and defines it instrumentally as psychological skill—openness, curiosity, and flexibility in attending—distinguishing ACT’s secular derivation from mainstream Buddhist-derived approaches. Siegel situates mindful awareness within developmental neuroscience, arguing that moment-by-moment, non-judgmental presence restructures the brain-relationship-mind triad. Epstein reads it through a Buddhist lens as a specifically temporal reorientation: the shift from spatial selfhood to flux-awareness that concentration practices alone cannot deliver. Ogden and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy reframe mindfulness as present-moment somatic tracking, a vehicle for disrupting automaticity and building interoceptive self-regulation in trauma survivors. Garland extends the concept into addiction neuroscience, demonstrating that mindfulness-based interventions reactivate atrophied prefrontal control networks and restore reward sensitivity through savoring. Dana operationalises savoring—the brief, intentional amplification of ventral vagal moments—as a polyvagal-inflected form of present-moment awareness. Gendlin’s Focusing, while rarely invoking the term directly, functions as mindfulness from the inside out: a disciplined, non-analytic attending to the pre-conceptual felt sense that moves the body-mind forward. The corpus thus reveals a productive tension between mindfulness as broad attentional skill, as Buddhist liberative practice, as somatic regulation tool, and as neurocognitive intervention.
being mindful involves a way of paying attention, on purpose, to present experience as it emerges, moment by moment, without getting swept up by judgments.
Siegel grounds mindfulness in developmental neuroscience as purposive, non-judgmental present-moment attention that counters automatic-pilot functioning and enables new vitality of subjective experience.
, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020thesis
mindfulness means being aware of exactly what is happening in the mind and body as it is occurring: what it reveals is how much of a flux we are in at all times.
Epstein argues that the Buddha’s mindfulness teachings require contemplating the Four Foundations in temporal flux rather than retreating into concentrated absorption, producing a shift from spatial to moment-to-moment selfhood.
, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, 1995thesis
Mindfulness is a set of psychological skills for effective living that involves paying attention with openness, curiosity, kindness, and flexibility.
Harris proposes a pan-traditional, skill-based definition of mindfulness that deliberately decouples it from Buddhism, positioning ACT’s formulation as a secular and behaviourally specific alternative.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009thesis
Integral to mindfulness is that the attention must be held on something that is occurring in the present moment, not thoughts or images of the past or future.
Rothschild provides a clinically precise account of mindfulness as non-judgmental, compassionate attention anchored to present-moment targets, with the breath as the traditional training object.
, The body remembers Volume 2, Revolutionizing trauma, 2024thesis
mindfulness training can increase reward experience and positive emotion in both healthy and clinical populations … mindfully savoring food items increased pleasure from eating.
Garland demonstrates that mindfulness-based interventions reverse reward-deficiency syndrome in addiction by training savoring, thereby replenishing dopaminergic reward circuitry atrophied by substance use.
, Mindfulness training targets neurocognitive mechanisms of addiction at the attention-appraisal-emotion interface, 2014thesis
MBIs may be fruitfully conceptualized as means of training or exercising prefrontally mediated cognitive control networks which have become atrophied or usurped in the service of drug seeking.
Garland provides a neuroplasticity rationale for mindfulness in addiction treatment, showing that meditation rebuilds gray matter in prefrontal and hippocampal regions that regulate cognitive control.
, Mindfulness training targets neurocognitive mechanisms of addiction at the attention-appraisal-emotion interface, 2014thesis
focusing mindful attention on a single sense perception in present time usually regulates arousal … Learning how to be mindful of the present moment is an especially difficult endeavor for dysregulated and dissociative clients.
Ogden recasts mindfulness as a somatic regulation skill central to sensorimotor psychotherapy, arguing that five-sense present-moment focusing is indispensable yet uniquely challenging for traumatised and dissociative clients.
, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015thesis
To savor is to take a moment of ventral vagal regulation and the feeling of a sense of safety and experience a story of connection to self, to another, or to nature.
Dana operationalises savoring as a polyvagal-specific form of mindfulness: a brief, deliberate capture of ventral vagal moments that trains the autonomic nervous system toward sustained regulation.
, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection A Guide for, 2018supporting
Although savoring for 20-30 seconds sounds easy, for some clients 20 seconds, even with support, is too great a challenge for the capacity of their vagal brake.
Porges quantifies the neurophysiological demands of savoring, showing that even brief mindful positive-state amplification can exceed the vagal brake capacity of dysregulated clients.
, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, 2011supporting
These savoring exercises are meant to be quick moments of resourcing. Sharing their story of savoring is a way for clients to strengthen the experience.
Dana demonstrates that mindful savoring gains additional regulatory potency when the experience is narrated within a safe relational context, linking present-moment awareness to co-regulation.
, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation, 2018supporting
Core Mindfulness provides the foundation of present-moment awareness and non-judgmental observation.
Scott situates mindfulness as the foundational module of DBT, upon which emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness are built.
, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021supporting
Clients are not required to think about or translate a short, uncomplicated statement … Because the focus is on the organization of present experience, the therapist does not try to interpret or make meaning of the client’s physical phenomena.
Ogden frames therapist contact statements as a vehicle for present-moment somatic mindfulness, keeping the client in organismic experience rather than conceptual analysis.
, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting
Don’t just stick to the same old classic mindfulness exercises (such as body scans, breathing, and eating a raisin) … be playful and imaginative; think outside the box.
Harris advocates for a flexible, creative delivery of mindfulness skills in ACT, emphasising that the practice extends far beyond formal meditation into any activity that cultivates flexible attention.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009supporting
When we’re hooked by our thoughts and feelings, we miss out on enjoyable, pleasurable, or satisfying aspects of the experience—and so it becomes dissatisfying or unfulfilling.
Harris frames cognitive defusion and present-moment awareness as prerequisites for genuine engagement, arguing that attentional inflexibility is what robs experience of its savoring quality.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009supporting
notice whatever negative thoughts and emotions you have that distract your awareness from the present moment … How does naming your thoughts and emotions as occurring in the present moment affect your body?
Ogden’s worksheets make explicit the somatic dimension of present-moment naming, directing clients to observe how labelling thoughts in real-time changes bodily states.
, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015supporting
Allow yourself to become aware of when you switch from feeling or sensing to thinking, and then gently draw yourself back to inner sensing.
Levine prescribes a somatic mindfulness practice that trains moment-to-moment discrimination between sensation, emotion, and thought as a foundation for trauma resolution.
, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010supporting
perfect liberation achieved each moment which is fully lived in the light of interdependence … when we live in the present moment in harmony with all beings, we do not need the concept of interdependence.
Nhat Hanh situates present-moment living as the culmination of meditative insight into interdependence, where conceptual scaffolding dissolves into direct, non-dual awareness.
, The Sun My Heart, 1988supporting
Dialectical Behavior Therapy … incorporates key concepts such as dialectics, mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, and validation.
Scott positions mindfulness as one of six interlocking pillars of DBT, integral to its comprehensive framework for addressing emotional dysregulation.
, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021supporting
The calm we are referring to is a deep inner stillness, the fruit of much inner work … The therapist’s calm has a stabilizing effect. The client’s own capacity for samadhi then comes out.
Brazier draws a parallel between meditative samadhi and therapeutic equanimity, suggesting that the therapist’s sustained contemplative practice transmits present-moment calm to the client through relational resonance.
, Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind, 1995aside
mindfulness … is a very different mental state than awe … both share a subjective sense of decreased self-salience and an increased sense of connectedness.
Yaden classifies mindfulness among self-transcendent experiences, noting that despite its distinctiveness it shares with awe a reduction of self-salience and an expansion of felt connectedness.
, The Varieties of Self-Transcendent Experience, 2017aside
There are several possible approaches to modulate how an individual processes and integrates afferent sensing from the inside of the body.
Paulus provides the interoceptive neuroscience backdrop for mindfulness-based approaches in addiction, identifying insula dysfunction as the pathological substrate that mindful body-awareness training seeks to correct.
, Treatment approaches for interoceptive dysfunctions in drug addiction, 2013aside