Positive psychological states in the arc from mindfulness to self-transcendence: extensions of the Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory and applications to addiction and chronic pain treatment

ABSTRACT:

The Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory (MMT) is a temporally dynamic process model of mindful positive emotion regulation that elucidates downstream cognitive-affective mechanisms by which mindfulness promotes health and resilience. Here we review and extend the MMT to explicate how mindfulness fosters self-transcendence by evoking upward spirals of decentering, attentional broadening, reappraisal, and savoring.

Savoring is highlighted as a key, potential means of inducing absorptive experiences of oneness between subject and object, amplifying the salience of the object while imbuing the sensory-perceptual field with affective meaning. Finally, this article provides new evidence that inducing self-transcendent positive emotions and nondual states of awareness through mindfulness-based interventions may restructure reward processing and thereby produce therapeutic effects on addictive behavior (e.g. opioid misuse) and chronic pain syndromes.

CITATION:

Garland, E.L. & Fredrickson, B.L. (2019). Positive psychological states in the arc from mindfulness to self-transcendence: Extensions of the Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory and applications to addiction and chronic pain treatment. Current Opinion in Psychology, 28, pp. 184-191. 

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