Mindfulness-Based Symptom Management: Mindfulness as Applied Ethics

Abstract

The principles of mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy present a challenge to teleological, conceptual, and relational aspects of Western concepts of health care. The directional aim of health care was, and likely still is, predominantly about reversing or excising the causes of illness with wellness left to evolve as it may. Conceptually, the targets of interventions are categorized as physical (focused on the body) or psychological (focused on the mind) with the intent of reducing symptoms and the discomfort they produce. Not only are body and mind seen through a lens of dualism, the concepts of illness and wellness are dichotomized, with wellness defined as the absence of illness and illness as a circumscribed event ranging from acute to chronic. Relationally, traditional models of care are portrayed with the health care provider holding unique expertise and the patient as the recipient of that expertise. The relationship is hierarchical with primacy given to knowledge and its flow from the professional to the patient. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)