8th Annual Scientific Conference - Keynote Addresses

Thursday, April 8, 7:30-9:00 pm

Participatory Medicine: The Central Role of Mindfulness in this Emerging Field

Presented by Saki F. Santorelli, EdD, MA

With the publication of a seminal paper in 2000 by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, entitled, Participatory Medicine, the call by wellness pioneer Tom Ferguson, MD for “e-patients” – people who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their health and health care decisions, and the ascendancy of social networking, Participatory Medicine is becoming a growing cultural and planetary phenomena with powerful implications for both the patient-practitioner relationship and the public health of our citizenry.

During this address, Dr. Santorelli will describe this emerging field, detail key principles and processes, examine the foundational seeds of participation embedded in the dharmic, non-dual roots of MBSR and other mindfulness-based approaches, and explore the central role of mindfulness in both expressing and shaping this emerging field.

Friday, April 9, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm

Future Models of Health Care: The Role of Mindfulness

Presented by David Eisenberg, MD

In this presentation, Dr. Eisenberg will describe the design, implementation and testing of a novel integrative care approach to the treatment of persistent low back pain.  The relevance of mindfulness will be highlighted.  He will then describe plans to establish a prototype “Teaching Kitchen” whereby individuals with heightened cardiovascular risk factors can learn a combination of lifestyle techniques, including mindfulness, to enhance nutritional behaviors and improve overall health in a sustained fashion.  These models will be discussed in the larger context of envisioning future models of health care.

Lastly, Dr. Eisenberg will present the argument that future research involving mindfulness should be designed to track relevant financial outcomes, both direct and indirect, in addition to clinical outcomes to demonstrate the value of mindfulness practice on multiple levels. 

Friday, April 9, 11:00 am - 12:30 pm

Shifting the Culture: Integrating Mindfulness-Based Work into an Academic Health Center

Presented by Mary Jo Kreitzer, PhD, RN, FAAN

Over the past 15 years, the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota has integrated a mindfulness-based orientation into a broad spectrum of academic, research and outreach programs.  In this talk, Dr. Kreitzer will highlight undergraduate and graduate academic courses, the student initiated mindfulness-club, faculty development pilots, and MBSR classes that are offered in a variety of community-based settings including hospitals, wellness facilities and corporate settings. 

An MBSR program of research will be described that encompasses clinical studies with several populations and collaborations across multiple institutions that provide a model of interdisciplinary inquiry and a rich laboratory for student learning. Results of recently completed studies will be discussed in the context of describing a trajectory of research.  Lessons learned and future directions will also be described.

Saturday, April 10, 8:30-10:00 am

Reducing Mind-Wandering and Improving Meta-Awareness with Mindfulness Training

Presented by Amishi P. Jha, PhD

Mind wandering refers to the phenomenon of shifting attention away from a primary task and toward internal preoccupations, such as intrusive thoughts or emotions.  Mindfulness training (MT) aims to improve concentrative attentional focus and curb distraction. 

We conducted two experiments to investigate MT’s ability to improve attention and reduce distraction. In Exp. 1, individuals with considerable prior experience with MT (n=38) and control participants who had no experience with MT (n=28) performed the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) on two occasions 1 month apart.  Participants with MT experience attended a 1 month intensive MT retreat between the two testing sessions. While the groups did not differ in performance at Time 1, the Retreat group (compared to the control group) was slower and more accurate at Time 2. In addition, at Time 2, the Retreat group reported being more ‘on-task’ and ‘aware of the contents of present moment experience’ when periodically probed during the SART. 

While these results are consistent with MT’s ability to improve attention and reduce internal distractibility, group differences in motivation-level and self-selection to receive MT weaken this conclusion.  To overcome the potential short-comings of Exp. 1, we conducted Exp 2 in individuals with no prior experience with MT using random assignment and an active comparison group.  All participants were recruited into a “Healthy Living” course, and randomly assigned to take part in an 8-week MT program (MT; n=20) or an 8-week Nutrition Education (NE) course (NE; n=23).  Courses were matched for in and out of class time investment, psychosocial support, and instructor expertise and commitment to the course content. All participants performed the SART before and after their respective courses. There were no group differences in performance or subjective ratings at Time 1.  At Time 2, accuracy was significantly higher in the MT vs. NE group.  In addition, the MT group reported being more ‘on-task’ and ‘aware’.

Taken together, these results suggest that MT may, indeed, decrease mind wandering and improve meta-awareness.

Saturday, April 10, 4:15 – 5:45 pm

The Present Moment in Mindfulness Research: Scientific Progress and its Near Enemies

Presented by Paul Grossman, PhD

Research into mindfulness-based interventions for medical, psychological and psychosomatic disorders has increased exponentially in recent years: There are over 100 controlled trials employing mindfulness for a host of clinical disorders and conditions. Examining the online medical index MEDLINE, about half of these studies have been published in just the last two years.

This presentation examines what we know about the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions for different types of conditions, as well as what we may infer concerning the state of mindfulness research: how methodologically and conceptually sound it is, and whether an accelerated effort to evaluate mindfulness for health purposes may pose certain risks for accurate assessment.

Mindfulness research will be discussed in terms of the current decontextualization of mindfulness from its original Buddhist origins and its recontexualization into Western psychological paradigms. Finally, with an eye to the original Buddhist percept of mindfulness, I will point to evidence indicating the promise of mindfulness-based intervention as a generic approach to coping with those inevitable vagaries of life often known as chronic disorders  (i.e. long-lasting conditions).