No time like the present: Mindfulness, temporality and the therapeutics of kairos

Abstract

While mindfulness is often portrayed as attention to the present moment, this article investigates its variable temporality in social practice. Using the example of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), designed to prevent relapse in recurring depression, mindfulness emerges as an ‘instantly effective’ intervention; as a discipline to be practised for one's future health; and as a perennial property of human attention, to be experienced in any present moment. Demonstrating that these entail different obligations and possibilities for mindfulness practitioners, I analyze the therapeutic timeliness of temporalization itself – arguing that there is a right time to live by certain notions of time.