Dr Edo Shonin

Awake to Wisdom Centre for Meditation, Mindfulness & Psychological Research · Psychology

Interest into the rehabilitative utility of Buddhist-derived interventions (BDIs) for incarcerated populations has been growing. The present paper systematically reviews the evidence for BDIs in correctional settings. Five databases were systematically searched. Controlled intervention studies of BDIs that utilized incarcerated samples were include...

During 2012, over 500 scientific articles on mindfulness were published. This was more than the total number of mindfulness articles published between 1980 and 2000. A recent survey by the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) found that 75% of general practitioners in the UK believe that mindfulness is beneficial for patients with mental health problems...

There are concerns that participants of some modern mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are receiving a superficial form of mindfulness training. However, empirical investigation of this issue according to participants’ first-hand experiences has been limited. Thus, this qualitative study aimed to capture the first-hand perspectives relating to...

Ontological Addiction Theory is a metaphysical theory of mental illness which conceptualises psychological suffering in terms of excessive ego-centeredness. This study aimed to develop and validate the Ontological Addiction Scale (OAS) and compare OAS scores with mental health measures. A 31-item prototype scale was developed based on traditional B...

Contemplative psychology is concerned with the psychological study of contemplative processes and practices, such as meditation, mindfulness, yoga, introspection, reflection, metacognition, self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-consciousness. Although contemplative psychology borders with other psychological and nonpsychological disciplines, so...

The Way of the Mindful Warrior provides a fresh, authentic, and structured path to using mindfulness to embrace living in awareness and reconnecting with our innermost nature of peace, wisdom, and compassion. Mindfulness is a 2,500-year-old Buddhist meditation practice that involves focusing awareness on the present moment, the only place where an...

Objectives. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of Attachment-Based Compassion Therapy (ABCT) ‒a standardized programme that includes practices to improve compassionate awareness with the aim of addressing maladaptive attachment‒ for improving mindfulness and self-compassion in fibromyalgia (FM) patients, and to determine whether gai...

Attachment-based compassion therapy (ABCT) is a new protocol of compassion based on attachment theory. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of this protocol for improving self-compassion in a healthy population and determine whether improvements in self-compassion mediate changes towards a more secure attachment style. The study consist...

Objectives School-based mindfulness interventions have recently shown promise for treating and preventing mental health issues in young people. However, the literature lacks a high-level perspective of the impact of mindfulness on young people’s mental health according to their own first-hand accounts. Therefore, the objective of this study was to...

While scientific understanding concerning the role of biological pathogenic agents in the transmission of communicable diseases has increased markedly in recent decades, the possibility of a psychological pathogenic agent that underlies the transmission of a number of key global public health concerns has largely been overlooked. The present paper...

Mental illness, obesity, and problematic leisure activities such as gambling, video gaming, and social media use arguably reflect some of the most pressing global public health concerns currently affecting children and adolescents. For example, between 10-20% of children and adolescents worldwide experience a mental health problem during any given...

Research suggests that mindfulness can induce changes in the social domain, such as enhancing emotional connection to others, prosocial behavior, and empathy. However, despite growing interest in mindfulness in social psychology, very little is known about the effects of mindfulness on social cognition. Consequently, the aim of this study was to ex...

Between 10 and 20% of adolescents worldwide experience a mental health problem within a given 12-month period. Mental health problems impact on an adolescent’s potential to live a fulfilling and productive life and lead to challenges such as stigma, isolation and discrimination. To address this need, in recent years, there has been growing interest...

Children and adolescents constitute more than half of the global refugee population, and almost one‑third of first‑time asylum seekers in the European Union (EU) during 2015 were under 18 years of age. Syria, in particular, accounts for a substantial proportion of young refugees and asylum seekers because the ongoing civil war has led to almost 5 m...

While scientific understanding concerning the role of biological pathogenic agents in the transmission of communicable diseases has increased markedly in recent decades, the possibility of a psychological pathogenic agent that underlies the transmission of a number of key global public health concerns has largely been overlooked. The present paper...

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are life transformational events that are increasingly being subjected to empirical research. However, to date, no study has investigated the phenomenon of a meditation-induced near-death experience (MI-NDE) that is referred to in ancient Buddhist texts. Given that some advanced Buddhist meditators can induce NDEs at a...

Wisdom-based Buddhist-derived practices (BDPs) are concerned with transmuting suffering by cultivating insight into the ultimate nature of both the self and reality. Arguably the most important wisdom-based BDP is emptiness (Sanskrit: śūnyatā) that implies that although phenomena are perceptible to the human mind, they do not intrinsically exist. D...

Background Ontological addiction theory (OAT) is a novel metaphysical model of psychopathology and posits that human beings are prone to forming implausible beliefs concerning the way they think they exist, and that these beliefs can become addictive leading to functional impairments and mental illness. The theoretical underpinnings of OAT derive f...

There are an increasing number of people interested in prac-ticing mindfulness. Perhaps this reflects a growing wishamongst people to live a more peaceful life and connect witha deeper part of themselves. Or perhaps it simply reflectspeople’s wish to be fashionable and partake in a recent life-style trend. Either way, if as little as 5% of the popu...

Van Gordon, W., Shonin, E., & Richardson, M. (2018). Mindfulness and nature. Mindfulness, Advance Online Publication, DOI:10.1007/s12671-018-0883-6.

Objective There is a growing interest in evaluating the effectiveness of compassion interventions for treating psychological disorders. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of “attachment-based compassion therapy” (ABCT) in the treatment of fibromyalgia (FM), and the role of psychological flexibility as a mediator of improvements.MethodsA...

Montero-Marín, J., Navarro-Gil, M., Puebla, M., Luciana, J. V., Van Gordon, W., Shonin, E., & García-Campayo, J. (2017). Efficacy of ‘Attachment-Based Compassion Therapy’ in the treatment of fibromyalgia: A randomized controlled trial. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8, 307, DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00307.

In recent decades, there has been growing assimilation of ancient Buddhist practices and principles into Western research and applied psychological settings. One Buddhist principle currently receiving an increasing amount of scientific interest is emptiness. Emptiness asserts that all phenomena-including the "self"-are empty of intrinsic existence....

Amidst the burgeoning enthusiasm for mindfulness in the West, there is a concern that the largely secular ‘de-contextualized’ way in which it is being harnessed is denuding it of its potential to improve health and wellbeing. As such, efforts are underway to ‘re-contextualize’ mindfulness, explicitly drawing on the wider framework of Buddhist ideas...

Mindfulness programs are now taught in more than 50 countries worldwide (Kabat-Zinn et al., 2016), including Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of Europe and the Americas (encompassed by the term “Latin” in this paper). Such Latin countries share obvious cultural influences and similarities—and during the implementation of mindfulness in th...

Van Gordon, W., Shonin, E., & García-Campayo, J. (2017). The mandala of the present moment.Mindfulness, 8, 1720-1722.

Keynote Speach

Background and aims Workaholism is a form of behavioral addiction that can lead to reduced life and job satisfaction, anxiety, depression, burnout, work–family conflict, and impaired productivity. Given the number of people affected, there is a need for more targeted workaholism treatments. Findings from previous case studies successfully utilizing...

Findings supporting the clinical applications of mindfulness have stimulated research into other meditation techniques. In particular, there is growing scientific enquiry into the effectiveness of Buddhist-derived compassion techniques for treating a wide variety of health-related disorders. Compassion-Based Interventions (CBIs) usually employ comp...

Findings supporting the clinical applications of mindfulness have stimulated research into other meditation techniques. In particular, there is growing scientific enquiry into the effectiveness of Buddhist derived compassion techniques for treating a wide variety of health-related disorders. Compassion-Based Interventions (CBIs) usually employ comp...

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to conduct the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of a second-generation mindfulness-based intervention (SG-MBI) for treating fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Compared to first generation mindfulness-based interventions, SG-MBIs are more acknowledging of the spiritual aspect...

Van Gordon, W., & Shonin, E. (2017). Mindfulness: The art of being human. Mindfulness, Advanced Online Edition, DOI: 10.1007/s12671-017-0819-6.

“Mandala” is a Sanskrit word generally used to refer to a painting, diagram, or architectural structure with a particular symbolic meaning. Mandalas are often artistically beautiful and can be used to depict stages of the spiritual journey, the teachings or realm of a spiritual adept, or even life or the universe more generally. Perhaps the most we...

There is consensus amongst both the scientific and Buddhist community that mindfulness – when correctly taught and practised – leads to a range of beneficial outcomes. However, there has been little evaluation of what happens when mindfulness is incorrectly taught, or is practised with a selfish rather than selfless intention. Nowhere is the import...

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to conduct the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of a second-generation mindfulness-based intervention (SG-MBI) for treating fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Compared to first-generation mindfulness-based interventions, SG-MBIs are more acknowledging of the spiritual aspect...

Consistent with its growing popularity amongst the general public and medical community, throughout recent decades there have been increasing attempts to understand the mechanisms that underlie therapeutic improvement in individuals receiving mindfulness training. The current paper draws upon findings from various remits of scientific enquiry and s...

Background Sex addiction is a disorder that can have serious adverse functional consequences. Treatment effectiveness research for sex addiction is currently underdeveloped, and interventions are generally based on the guidelines for treating other behavioral (as well as chemical) addictions. Consequently, there is a need to clinically evaluate tai...

Recent meta-analyses point towards the effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) in the treatment of various psychopathologies, particularly anxiety and depression. However, there is a scarcity of research investigating whether mindfulness is an effective treatment for psychosis. This chapter assesses the state of the art of mindfulne...

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that derives from Buddhist practice and is one of the fastest growing areas of psychological research. Studies investigating the role of mindfulness in the treatment of behavioral addictions have, to date, primarily focused on gambling disorder. Recent pilot studies and clinical case studies have demonstrated tha...

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a complex and poorly understood psychosomatic pain disorder. The illness has been the subject of controversy, both in terms of the alleged lack of interest and capability of the medical community to understand and support patients with FMS, and the burden that such individuals place upon economic and healthcare resour...

Despite the fact that there is increasing integration of Buddhist principles and practices into Western mental health and applied psychological disciplines, there appears to be limited understanding in Western psychology of the assumptions that underlie a Buddhist model of mental illness. The concept of ontological addiction was introduced and form...

Mindfulness involves regulating ruminative thought processes by focusing awareness on the present moment.The technique derives from Buddhist practice and has received substantial interest and uptake among the scientific and medical community, as well as the public more generally. Based on emerging empirical evidence, the UK’s Mental Health Foundati...

Until a few decades ago, there was limited public and scientific interest in the West concerning the properties, correlates and applications of mindfulness. However, mindfulness is now arguably one of the fastest growing areas of mental health research. The first part of this chapter summarises some of the key developments in mindfulness research a...

Despite the fact that there is increasing integration of Buddhist principles and practices into Western mental health and applied psychological disciplines, there appears to be limited understanding in Western psychology of the assumptions that underlie a Buddhist model of mental illness. The concept of ontological addiction was introduced and form...

Background: Sex addiction is a disorder that can have serious adverse functional consequences. Treatment effectiveness research for sex addiction is currently underdeveloped, and interventions are generally based on the guidelines for treating other behavioral (as well as chemical) addictions. Consequently, there is a need to clinically evaluate ta...

Working on the assumption that the average healthy individual completes 15 breath cycles each minute, an individual that is fortunate enough to live until they are 100 years old will take approximately 786 million in-breaths and the same number of out-breaths. From the meditator’s perspective, this equates to almost 1.6 billion opportunities to att...

Mindfulness has been defined as the process of paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental manner.In the early stages of mindfulness training, awareness of breathing is typically used as an attentional anchor to regulate ruminative thinking, but mindfulness encompasses much more than observing the breath. It derives from Buddhist pra...

Although clinical interest has predominantly focused on mindfulness meditation, interest into the clinical utility of Buddhist-derived loving-kindness meditation (LKM) and compassion meditation (CM) is also growing. This paper follows the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines and provides an evaluati...

The paper by Monteiro et al. (2015) is to be commended for providing a comprehensive discussion of the compatibility issues arising from the integration of mindfulness—a 2500-year-old Buddhist practice—into research and applied psychological domains. Consistent with the observations of various others (e.g. Dunne 2011; Kang and Whittingham 2010), Mo...

We read with interest the recent commentary paper by Baer (2015). Although Baer used different terminology, her paper essentially discussed the different approaches adopted by what have been termed first-generation mindfulness-based interventions (FG-MBIs) and second-generation mindfulness- based interventions (SG-MBIs) in terms of how they concept...

We recently had the pleasure of talking with Thupten Jingpa, who has been the principal English translator of the Dalia Lama for the past 30 years. The theme of the conversation was the interrelated practices of compassion and mindfulness, including (i) their role in contemporary society, (ii) the traditional context for learning and applying these...

The Four Noble Truths are recorded as being the first teaching given by the Buddha after he attained enlightenment, and they represent the foundations for the entire collection of teachings that the Buddha subsequently expounded. Indeed, every aspect of Buddhist practice is somehow encompassed by this simple yet profound teaching, and no study or p...

Emptiness is a fundamental Buddhist principle that refers to the fact that phenomena are devoid of intrinsic existence. This absence of intrinsic existence refers as much to the true and absolute nature of the individual that practices mindfulness, as it does to the present moment they are supposed to be observing. Therefore, if an individual is to...

Shakyamuni Buddha expounded a path to spiritual awakening approximately 2500 years ago. He recognised that the human mind has a propensity to be eternally distracted, and taught mindfulness as a means of helping individuals regulate maladaptive thinking patterns and introduce spiritual awareness, calm, and focus into their minds. This chapter begin...

We never cease to be amazed by how popular mindfulness is becoming and by the number of individuals wishing to train as mindfulness teachers. The explanations people provide for wanting to become mindfulness teachers are numerous and wide-ranging but the most common reasons we have come across are spiritual development, personal development, profes...

If a person is referred to as ignorant then according to the widely accepted meaning of this term, it is generally understood that they have a low level of knowledge or intelligence. However, within Buddhism and other Eastern contemplative traditions, the term ignorance assumes a somewhat different meaning. According to Buddhist thought, if a perso...

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that derives from Buddhist practice and is one of the fastest growing areas of psychological research. Studies investigating the role of mindfulness in the treatment of behavioral addictions have, to date, primarily focused on gambling disorder. Recent pilot studies and clinical case studies have demonstrated tha...

In addition to featuring in the practice guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association and the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for the treatment of recurrent depression in adults, emerging evidence suggests that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have applications for treating diverse psychopathologies an...

Whenever we are travelling or teaching in the West and we meet new people, they invariably initially respond in one of three ways. The first way is to immediately state or exclaim that ‘you are monks’. We haven’t quite worked out yet whether this is supposed to be a manner of greeting, an expression of shock or just a statement of fact. The second...

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that derives from Buddhist practice. It is the process of engaging a full, direct and active awareness of experienced phenomena that is spiritual in aspect and that is maintained from one moment to the next. Mindfulness is arguably one of the fastest growing areas of psychological empirical inquiry. For example,...

This book explores a wide range of mindfulness and meditative practices and traditions across Buddhism. It deepens contemporary understanding of mindfulness by examining its relationship with key Buddhist teachings, such as the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eight-Fold Path. In addition, the volume explores how traditional mindfulness can be more...

Psychological approaches to treating mental illness or improving psychological wellbeing are invariably based on the explicit or implicit understanding that there is an intrinsically existing ‘self’ or ‘I’ entity. In other words, regardless of whether a cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic, or humanistic psychotherapy treatment model is employed, t...

It is increasingly asserted that mindfulness represents one of the fastest growing areas of mental health research (Shonin et al., 2014). In addition to featuring in the practice guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association and the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for the treatment of recurrent depression in adults, emer...

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that derives from Buddhist practice and is one of the fastest growing areas of psychological research. Studies investigating the role of mindfulness in the treatment of behavioural addictions have – to date – primarily focused on gambling disorder. Recent pilot studies and clinical case studies have demonstrated...

If a person is referred to as ignorant then according to the widely accepted meaning of this term, it is generally understood that they have a low level of knowledge or intelligence. However, within Buddhism and other Eastern contemplative traditions, the term ignorance assumes a somewhat different meaning. According to Buddhist thought, if a perso...