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Mindfulness as a generative resource in healthcare
Abstract
This paper examines how the practice of mindfulness can serve as a generative resource in transformative and compassionate healthcare. I present a view of mindfulness that acknowledges its common usage in contemporary research but also includes other characteristics that originate from Buddhist tradition and are congruent with a socio-constructionist and a relational orientation. It includes qualities such as inquiry, discernment, and compassion and expands our understanding of its practice into the relational domain, viewing it as an invitation to participate in a form of life that acknowledges our basic interconnectedness and emerges from and thrives in relationship. I discuss how mindfulness can operate as an embodied relational presence that is attuned to the changing manifestations of the relational field. I examine how its practice can help craft relational processes in health care that are both compassionate and caring. Focusing on the creation of relationally responsive relationships between caretakers and patients, where the latter can feel included, listened to, and attended in ways that respect their humanity and allow them to be full participants in their care.
This chapter addresses a previous unexplored relationship between mindfulness and generative dialogue. Following Kabat-Zinn (La práctica de la atención plena. Editorial Kairós, Barcelona, 2007) and Thich Nhat Hanh (Interbeing: the 14 mindfulness trainings of engaged Buddhism. Parallax, 2020), I understand mindfulness to be a space of full attention and dialogic connection with one’s self and with others. The generative perspective and practice invite participation in a process of creative work with and in dialogue with the persons or groups who come for a consultation to deal with problems, conflicts, or crises. The process is geared to expanding the resources and possibilities that enable transformations and the construction of viable and sustainable futures. Full attention and presence are inherent to this dialogic process, and discernment is what holds together the generative exercise. In that, dialogic process is akin to mindfulness.
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