“Clinical Developmental & Health Psychology – Lecture 5 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM)”

Mindfulness refers to being deliberately aware of the present moment without judgement. Mindfulness is a relatively new intervention and was mostly rejected when it was first introduced.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) refers to an 8-week treatment employing mindfulness to reduce stress in participants. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) refers to a mindfulness-based therapy aimed at participants with a mental disorder (e.g. depression). Mindfulness-based approaches appear to be effective in treatment of disorders where rumination plays a central role.

Mindfulness improves executive functioning and meditation experience is negatively associated with emotional interference (i.e. disengaging attention from emotional stimuli). The mindfulness-based approaches may be effective by targeting six areas:

1. 1. 1. 1. Reducing parenting stress
            This affects parenting skill and mindfulness training may reduce parental stress and improve parenting skills. This, in turn, can also reduce parental reactivity.
         2. Reducing parental preoccupation
            Parents may be preoccupied with something and this biases and interferes with their attention. Mindfulness can reduce this and this may improve parenting. Parental preoccupation is typically the result of parent or child psychopathology.
         3. Improving parental executive functioning (i.e. reduce parental reactivity)
            The parental executive functioning may be improved through mindfulness and this may, in turn, reduce parental reactivity. Mindfulness may break the vicious cycle of negative reactivity. This may be especially effective in impulsive parents.
         4. Breaking the cycle of intergenerational transmission of parenting
            The parents may repeat dysfunctional parenting patterns and transmit these patterns through cognitive schemas. These schemas are likely to be activated under stress and mindfulness may reduce the occurrence of these schemas being used.
         5. Improving self-nourishing attention
            Mindfulness may improve parenting by improving self-nourishing attention. This may be particularly important for parents who suffer from mental disorders as they may not be able to provide positive attention to themselves due to growing up in an environment without positive attention.
         6. Improving marital functioning and co-parenting
            Mindfulness may improve this by improving marital conflict (1), marital satisfaction (2) and co-parenting (3).

The vicious cycle of negative reactivity refers to poorer executive functioning leading to more impulsivity eliciting more impulsivity in the partner and this goes on and on.

In MBCT, there are typically 8 sessions with different topics:

1. Automatic pilot
2. Dealing with barriers
3. Mindfulness of the breath
4. Staying present
5. Allowing and letting be
6. Thoughts are not facts
7. How I can best take care of myself
8. Using what has been learned to deal with future moods

There are different mindfulness-based treatments for different disorders, for different developmental stages (e.g. menopause; adolescence) and different settings (e.g. company; school).

For neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. ADHD), psychosis and bipolar disorder there is no consensus regarding the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions as more research is needed. For addictive disorders, neurocognitive disorders and PTSD there is also no consensus yet, although the results are promising. For sleep- and eating disorders, mindfulness-based interventions appear to be mostly effective for subjective measures. For anxiety disorders, it appears to be effective but possibly less effective than CBT. It is effective for depression.

The treatment as usual appears to be enhanced when mindfulness is implemented in chronic somatic conditions. Furthermore, mindfulness is associated with increased relationship satisfaction and a decrease in relationship stress and conflict. The parents’ mindfulness appears to promote child wellbeing.

Children are dependent on their parents for a very long time, compared to other animals. In the past, children were raised by a community (e.g. whole village). Overprotection can be explained evolutionary as constantly scanning the environment when parenting (i.e. being overprotective) increased the survival chance of the offspring.

Stress leads to a tunnel view as stress reduces the degree to which we use the frontal area of our brain. This leads to people using the short route in the brain (i.e. body preparing for fight/flight/freeze). This is parental reactivity. Overreactive parenting refers to being too angry, too fast without thinking. This is the result of stress, which leads to a fight/flight/freeze response and it is harmful to children.

There are information processing biases in parenting. For example, the parent will see their child through the lens of their diagnosis or clear trait (e.g. smart). This can be harmful as it prevents the parent from seeing their child in the best possible way. A positive bias can be harmful as well as it can prevent a child from fully growing into what they really are and can become.

Mindful parenting refers to the ongoing process of intentionally bringing moment-to-moment, non-judgemental awareness as best one can to the unfolding of one’s own lived experience, including parenting. Mindfulness in parenting starts with self-awareness and grows to include the following aspects:

1. Recognizing and keeping in mind each child’s unique nature, temperament and needs.
2. Developing the capacity to listen with full attention when interacting with one’s children.
3. Holding in awareness with kindness and sensitivity both one’s child and one’s own feelings, thoughts, intentions, expectations and desires.
4. Bringing greater compassion and non-judgemental acceptance to oneself and one’s children.
5. Recognizing one’s own reactive impulses in relationship to one’s children and their behaviour.

Attentive parenting refers to being present without judgement. Being your own parent refers to using self-care and self-compassion (i.e. taking care of yourself). Parental stress could be reduced by using a breathing space (i.e. short meditation exercise).

Parental expectations could negatively influence the child. Mindful parenting aims to make one’s expectations about the child clear and see how this influences the child. Mindful parenting also includes deepening the connection between the parent and the child (i.e. repairing the relationship after a fallout).

Co-parenting is important in raising a child and mindful parenting could improve co-parenting. Limit setting is also important in parenting and mindful parenting improves a parent’s limit setting abilities.

Guilt and shame are also important in parenting and forgiving, apologizing and connecting with the child are improved as a result of mindful parenting. Parenting cognitive schemes are based on the way the parent is raised and this is then demonstrated in the child again. Mindful parenting helps a parent become aware of this and change this where necessary.

Mindful parenting appears to improve both child and parent psychopathology. Increased general mindfulness decreased parental psychopathology. Increased mindful parenting but not increased general mindfulness mediated the decrease in child psychopathology. This means that general mindfulness decreases parental psychopathology but mindful parenting decreases child psychopathology.

Mindful parenting led to less parental stress, less overreaction, better parent-child relationship, better partner relationship and a higher well-being. There were fewer behavioural problems in children and they had a higher well-being. The improved mindful parenting mediated better child outcomes.

Online mindful parenting for mothers of infants was more effective than a waitlist for parental stress, reactivity, depression, anxiety, infant emotional reactivity and aggressive behaviour of the infant.

Typical interventions may be effective but not for parents with psychopathology while a mindfulness-based intervention may be effective even for parents with psychopathology.