Developing self-report measures of the fears, blocks and resistances to mindfulness and their relationship with experiences of compassion, self-criticism, depression, anxiety, stress and wellbeing

The last 10 years has seen a rapid expansion in research into mindfulness training. Mindfulness can be defined in many ways but one of the most common is learning to pay attention to the present moment, on purpose, without judgement (Gilbert & Choden, 2013; Zabat-Zinn, 2010; Siegel, 2010). However, sitting and allowing one’s mind to settle or be focused on the breath, a body scan or mantra, can also be stressful for some people. Indeed, despite many benefits of mindfulness practice there is increasing recognition that for some individuals mindfulness is difficult and can actually make them feel worse (Farias & Wikholm, 2015). In addition, that mindful meditation is difficult to do and people are at times resistant and feel blocked (Wellings, 2015).

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To date there is no measure on the possible fears, blocks and resistances to mindfulness but such measures could be useful in predicting people who are likely to have difficulties with mindfulness. Our department has already established and developed a fears, blocks and resistances to compassion scale which is now being used around the world in many studies (Gilbert et al. 2010, 2013). We now plan to develop similar measures for the fears of mindfulness.

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This study therefore will test the psychometric properties of the new scale of the fears blocks and resistances to mindfulness and explore their association with other established measures including fears of compassion, depression anxiety and stress, self-criticism and mindful abilities. We hypothesised that people who struggle with being mindful or allowing themselves to focus on the content of their minds in any one moment will be more vulnerable to self-criticism, depression, stress and anxiety, and will have lower scores on mindfulness attributes.