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From Reified Self To Being Mindful: A Dialogical Analysis Of The Mbsr Voice, Michelle H. Mamberg, Thomas Bassarear

Psychology Faculty Publications

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs are being incorporated into healthcare systems worldwide. To cultivate present-moment, non-judgmental awareness, MBSR is taught using meditation instructions couched in particular forms of language. Yet the scholarly literature, while replete with empirical validation studies, has little to say about MBSR discourse. Further, although the program may be seen as a cultural hybrid (i.e., American Buddhism), drawing as it does upon traditional mindfulness practices and concepts, MBSR research paradoxically employs methods which presuppose Western notions of self. In contrast, we identify conceptual similarities between the Buddhist notion of anatta, or non-self, and Dialogical Self Theory’s …