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Co-creating the Ethical Space of Mindfulness-Based Interventions

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Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness

Part of the book series: Mindfulness in Behavioral Health ((MIBH))

Abstract

This chapter shifts the discussion of ethics in applications of mindfulness to look directly at the actions of those who are learning to practice mindfulness together and describe what happens. Four decades of MBI research have focused almost exclusively on quantitative analysis of individual outcomes of participants. Such an individualistic view obscures the group as essential in the delivery of the interventions, considering its relationships and resonances that build and thicken among participants and teachers across the weeks of the course. Through narrative illustrations and descriptions drawn from neurophysiology, social psychology, and aesthetics, this chapter offers a model of the interactions and relational forces at work, suggesting that an ethical space is created through the deeply shared process of the co-creation of the teaching and learning of mindfulness. The model of the relational space is then applied to ethical questions in practice, in the group.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Contemplative Studies, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, West Chester, PA, USA

    Donald McCown

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  1. Donald McCown
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Correspondence to Donald McCown .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

    Steven Stanley

  2. Department of Management, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, USA

    Ronald E. Purser

  3. Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, USA

    Nirbhay N. Singh

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McCown, D. (2018). Co-creating the Ethical Space of Mindfulness-Based Interventions. In: Stanley, S., Purser, R., Singh, N. (eds) Handbook of Ethical Foundations of Mindfulness. Mindfulness in Behavioral Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76538-9_8

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