6 to 12 months, includes multihour groups where participants learn a skill, practice it, and then utilize it in the milieu. Other unique components of DBT include a systematic implementation and dialectic framework. For example, clients utilizing multiple systems (e.g., outpatient mental health, inpatient, case management, therapy) will encounter DBT-trained persons who utilize similar language during crisis. The dialectic is a broad framework supporting acceptance and change as central opposites occurring simultaneously. Practically, this means accepting ourselves just as we are while concurrently moving toward change in particular (Linehan, 1993, 2020). One similarity to Kabat Zinn’s MBSR is including both formal practice time and informal learning experiential practices as part of the group meetings and extending into daily life.
MBSR and other mindfulness programs should be adapted to meet the needs of marginalized populations (Vallejo & Amaro, 2009). Professionals, researchers, educators, and program specialists modify both DBT and MBSR curriculum to meet developmental needs and contexts as well. Mindfulness with youth emerged much later and programs such as Mindful Schools have an intensive manualized training path (see McKeering & Hwang, 2018 for review of adolescent programs). A few programs designed specifically for families, although sometimes inaccessible to highly stressed families, include mindfulness-based relationship enhancement (Carson et al., 2004), a family program similarly structured to MBSR although targeting nondistressed couples in order to cultivate their relationships. Participants show improved relationship stress, overall stress, happiness, and coping efficacy with greater improvements among those who practice more (Carson et al., 2004). The Mindfulness-Enhanced Strengthening Families Program (MSFP), combines mindfulness activities with an already evidence based family program (Coatsworth, Duncan, Berrena, Bamberger, Loeschinger, Greenberg, Nix, 2014).
Perspective Taking
Perspectives change as a result of mindfulness in various ways. Participating in mindfulness meditation exercises may impact one’s experience of time (Droit-Volet, Chaulet, & Dambrun, 2018). At its inception, MBSR targeted adults experiencing chronic pain (Kabat-Zinn, 1982) and as a result of MBSR mindfulness instruction, the intensity of physical pain is not reduced, rather the unpleasantness of it is reduced (Perlman, Salomons, Davidson, & Lutz, 2010). Mindfulness shifts the emotional appraisal of that pain (Brown & Jones, 2010). Our family relationships are influenced by how we perceive each other (Adair & Frederickson, 2015). There is a direct link between mindfulness and an individual family member’s perception of the quality of their relationships (Parent et al., 2014).
What about when we consider mindfulness without connecting it to practice? Langer (1989), inquired about mindfulness as a cognitive phenomenon where mindlessness is contrasted with mindfulness. She explores what it means to be mindful. When mindful, one allows new cognitive categories to be created, is aware of more than one perspective, and open to new information and flexible perspective taking. In a sense this is also about how individuals see and experience each moment when more or less mindful. Later researchers wonder about mindfulness as a disposition (DM) or trait. DM is (a) inversely related to psychopathological symptoms (depression), (b) associated with better emotional regulation and processing, and (c) positively linked to “adaptive cognitive processes” (decreased pain catastrophizing and rumination) (Tomlinson, Yousaf, Vitterso, & Jones, 2018).
Structural Support for Mindfulness Practice
There are many universities and organizations exploring mindfulness from a variety of perspectives: the Mindfulness Center at Brown University; UMass Medical School Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society; and UCSD Center for Mindfulness, to name a few. The mission varies widely across centers and institutions, but all generally include the provision of services engaging in and teaching mindful practices within the university and local community, as well as promoting research in this area. For example, the Miami University Mindfulness & Contemplative Inquiry Center placed within the College of Education, Health, and Society and part of the Institute for Community Justice and Well-Being is a university-wide center serving students, faculty, researchers, and the wider community through the creation, co-creation, and development of related interdisciplinary scholarship and research, curricular initiatives, and public events. This collaboration fosters a culture of contemplation and holistic engagement and actively pursues a just, compassionate, and sustainable society. Part of the Center’s mission is to work with individuals, groups, organizations, and communities requesting evidence-based mindfulness program facilitation, targeted support or programming based on identified wants and needs, or create community around mindfulness and other contemplative practices. This chapter derives from some of that work.
Integrating Mindfulness into Family Stress Literature
The following case examples highlight mindfulness entry points and specific ways mindfulness can provide families with a resource for coping with stress (B in the ABC-X model) or shift perceptions of stress (C in the ABC-X model). These cases and this chapter situate mindfulness in the context of families and their intersection with alternative education and after-school programs, spaces often part of the lives of minoritized or systematically oppressed families.
Case 1: Managing Chronic Stress Through Mindfulness
This case begins with a White female teacher, Jean,1 with a long history living in a midwestern rural town and family she describes as “Appalachian with a family holler.” Growing up was difficult for Jean although she did make it to college later in life and became a teacher. She grew up in a chaotic and emotionally and sometimes physically abusive family and is no longer connected with her family of origin. She has three children of her own and a life partner, Kelly, who was recently diagnosed with a chronic health issue. Kelly can no longer work and Jean continues to work at Mendon Alternative High School and has increased home responsibilities. Mendon students are referred from multiple public rural and urban districts due to behaviors their home schools have deemed unmanageable, disruptive, and unable to be supported at their home school. Facilitators trained in MBSR, DBT, Mindful Schools, and other evidence-based programs work in partnership with a cluster of similar schools and begin by asking students and employees about their strengths, needs, and wants. Jean participates in a focus group. Jean is not interested in mindfulness for herself although she thinks that students would benefit after she learns about initial school-based research related to mindfulness and schools. A mindfulness facilitator visits her classroom once or twice a week and Jean listens to the information about mindfulness and participates in practices along with youth twice a week. She comments to the facilitator, “I could have used this when I was young.” After positive feedback from the teachers, staff, and many students, the programming continues and is extended to meet the particular needs and wants of teachers and other staff. Jean participates in these abbreviated and teacher–staff-targeted MBSR components. The facilitator emphasizes “acceptance and change” (DBT) as part of this program delivery. School-based data indicate improvements in overall staff and teacher morale. When asked about the program during its mid and end point, Jean’s reflections are focused more on her interactions with her partner than at school. In particular, she has more patience and care toward her partner and “doesn’t get as worked up.” Jean reports sleeping through the night for the first time in months toward the end of the 6-week mindfulness program.
1 These cases derive from actual cases and are adjusted slightly to protect participants.
In this case, the family was dealing with a chronic stressor that created additional hardships and crises for the family (A). Though the family no doubt had resources to help them get along, those tools did not appear to drastically change family dynamics for the better. However, through a university partnership, the family member (Jean) was introduced to a tool, mindfulness (B), which she utilized at work and brought home to her family in order to help cope with the stressor. Subsequently, through gaining this tool, Jean’s perception of family members and improved workplace morale
