Exploring Basic Processes Underlying Acceptance and Mindfulness

Abstract

There is little doubt that the ability to adapt to anxiety-related states and the aversive life events that traditionally accompany them is a critical component of psychological health and emotional adjustment. In the present chapter, we discuss issues relevant to basic research on acceptance and mindfulness in the study of anxiety and its disorders. In the first section of the chapter, we briefly summarize three broad-based areas in the study of acceptance and mindfulness in need of further work. In the second section of the paper, we provide a critical analysis of extant anxiety-relevant experimental psychopathology work on acceptance and mindfulness processes. We conclude in the third portion of the chapter by outlining particular domains of the study that we believe will be important to address in future basic research on acceptance and mindfulness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)