present moment awareness · savoring · focusing
Mindfulness occupies an unusually contested position within the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a contemplative inheritance, a clinical skill-set, and a neurobiologically grounded intervention. The major voices treat it neither uniformly nor merely instrumentally. Harris situates it within a trans-religious lineage predating Buddhism and reframes it, within ACT, as attentional flexibility rather than meditative absorption. Epstein reads Buddhist Right Mindfulness as a specifically temporal discipline — a shift from spatial selfhood to moment-to-moment flux — rendering it continuous with psychoanalytic inquiry into the evanescence of self. Siegel approaches mindful awareness as a developmental and relational capacity that confers neural integration and vitality. The body-oriented traditions — Gendlin's Focusing, Ogden's Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Levine's somatic work — treat present-moment awareness as the necessary precondition for accessing the felt sense and releasing procedurally encoded trauma; here mindfulness is less a meditation practice than the attentional ground required for somatic change. Garland's neuroscientific framing targets mindfulness as a retraining of prefrontal-mediated cognitive control degraded by addiction, and links savoring to reward-system recalibration. Dana employs savoring as a polyvagal micro-practice consolidating ventral vagal states. The central tension across the corpus runs between mindfulness as open receptivity — non-judgmental, accepting — and mindfulness as disciplined redirection of attention toward somatic and affective specificity.
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 Buddhist Right Mindfulness reorients the meditator from a fixed spatial self toward the moment-to-moment temporal flux of mind and body, exposing the constructed nature of 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 defines mindfulness transculturally as attentional flexibility rather than meditative absorption, distinguishing the ACT lineage from Buddhist-derived models.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009thesis
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 mindful awareness in relational neuroscience, presenting it as the antithesis of automatic-pilot functioning and as a capacity that confers measurable vitality and neural integration.
, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020thesis
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 specifies present-moment anchoring and non-judgmental compassion as the structural core of mindfulness, distinguishing it from mere relaxation or meditation.
, The body remembers Volume 2, Revolutionizing trauma, 2024thesis
mindfully savoring food items increased pleasure from eating, and mindfulness training amplified positive stimulus evaluations and increased positive emotional information processing.
Garland demonstrates that mindfulness-based savoring replenishes the reward system attenuated by addiction, offering a neurocognitive rationale for mindfulness as counter to craving and relapse.
, Mindfulness training targets neurocognitive mechanisms of addiction at the attention-appraisal-emotion interface, 2014thesis
Core Mindfulness provides the foundation of present-moment awareness and non-judgmental observation.
Within DBT's four-module framework, Core Mindfulness is designated the foundational skill upon which emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance all rest.
, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021supporting
focusing mindful attention on a single sense perception in present time usually regulates arousal.
Ogden operationalizes mindfulness within Sensorimotor Psychotherapy as single-sense focusing that reduces dysregulation, especially for dissociative clients who cannot sustain ordinary present-moment contact.
, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015supporting
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 frames mindfulness-based interventions as neuroplasticity-inducing exercises that restore prefrontal cognitive control degraded by substance addiction.
, Mindfulness training targets neurocognitive mechanisms of addiction at the attention-appraisal-emotion interface, 2014supporting
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.
Dana reframes savoring as a polyvagal micro-practice of mindful present-moment attention whose duration must be calibrated to individual autonomic capacity, linking mindfulness to vagal tone.
, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation, 2018supporting
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's polyvagal model redefines savoring as conscious capture of ventral vagal moments, integrating mindfulness practice with autonomic nervous system regulation.
, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection A Guide for, 2018supporting
Contact statements are simple and short, intended to facilitate self-observation rather than analysis... clients aware of present experience and minimize the effort required to think about the therapist's words.
Ogden's therapeutic contact statements function as mindfulness prompts that direct attention to present somatic experience without interpretive overlay, strengthening the client's internal locus of control.
, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting
notice whatever negative thoughts and emotions you have that distract your awareness from the present moment... naming your thoughts and emotions as occurring in the present moment.
Ogden's worksheet exercises train mindful labeling of thoughts and emotions as present-moment events, a technique that links cognitive defusion to somatic awareness.
, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015supporting
Don't just stick to the same old classic mindfulness exercises... there are so many other ways we can teach these skills. So be playful and imaginative; think outside the box.
Harris advocates a pragmatic, creative pluralism in mindfulness instruction within ACT, resisting the ritualization of any single practice format.
, 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 fusion as the antagonist of mindful engagement, arguing that unhooking from thoughts restores present-moment contact with experience.
, ACT Made Simple: An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, 2009supporting
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's somatic exercises train discrimination between sensing and thinking as a foundational mindfulness skill for trauma processing.
, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010supporting
Focusing begins with that odd and little known 'felt sense', and then we think verbally, logically, or with image forms—but in such a way that the felt sense shifts.
Gendlin positions Focusing as a disciplined mode of present-moment bodily attention that neither abandons thinking nor remains in abstract analysis, but brings both into productive contact.
, Focusing: How to Gain Direct Access to Your Body's Knowledge, 2010supporting
perfect liberation achieved each moment which is fully lived in the light of interdependence.
Thich Nhat Hanh locates mindful present-moment living within the Yogācāra doctrine of interdependence, treating full presence as both the means and the fruit of liberation.
, The Sun My Heart, 1988supporting
both share a subjective sense of decreased self-salience and an increased sense of connectedness with other people and one's environment.
Yaden identifies mindfulness and awe as members of a family of self-transcendent states sharing reduced self-salience, positioning mindfulness within a broader taxonomy of consciousness alteration.
, The Varieties of Self-Transcendent Experience, 2017aside
The client's own capacity for samadhi then comes out. Actually we never lose the childhood ability to enjoy happy absorption.
Brazier draws a parallel between the therapist's contemplative calm and the client's latent capacity for absorbed present-moment awareness, grounding mindfulness in an innate rather than acquired faculty.
, Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind, 1995aside
DBT is a comprehensive therapeutic approach that incorporates key concepts such as dialectics, mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, and validation.
Scott situates mindfulness as one structural pillar within DBT's integrative framework, noting its role alongside dialectics and emotion regulation without elaborating its mechanism.
, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021aside