First Taxonomy of Mindfulness Skills Targets Greater Precision in Managing Chronic Conditions

BOSTON, MA – Oct. 15, 2019 – One size does not fit all, but the same mindfulness and resilience interventions are often applied generically across distinct behavioral health conditions. Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers, in collaboration with eMindful, the leading provider of purpose-driven mindfulness programs, today presented groundbreaking findings for a new taxonomy that will advance the field to a targeted, skills-based approach allowing for greater precision in applying mindfulness to clinical conditions. These findings were presented at the 2019 Resilience at Work Conference in Boston.

“As mindfulness becomes more mainstream and as the market evolves, so does the demand for more sophisticated programs,” said Ruth Q. Wolever, PhD, speaker, Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Chief Science Officer for eMindful. “Similar to how the Precision Medicine Model aims to tailor treatments to certain subpopulations to allow for better outcomes using data, standardization and taxonomy, applied mindfulness programs can now be created using more targeted approaches that build specific skills needed to address a given condition.”

Using ratings from highly experienced subject matter experts (SMEs), researchers set out to develop and validate a categorization of skills learned through mindfulness practice, named the eMindful Mindfulness Classification Construct™ (eMCC™). The original skills list included more than 30 skills, which the SMEs organized into major categories and subcategories. The primary tier contains broader categories like awareness, and the secondary tier breaks it down further, cultivating awareness of specific things.

“Someone who struggles with social anxiety may need to build different skills than someone who has a major depression or an opioid addiction,” Dr. Wolever added. “Creating a validated taxonomy will allow clinicians to develop more targeted applications of mindfulness to build specific skills lacking in particular conditions for maximum impact.”

Originally published on PR Newswire. View original release here.