On Being Mindful, Emotionally Aware, and More Resilient: Longitudinal Pilot Study of Police Recruits

I don't tend to read much research about the study of law enforcement. Consequently, it was with great curiosity that I came across a recent study by a group of researchers at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia.

Dr. Williams--along with Dr. Ciarrochi, who authored another study I recently wrote about on adolescent well-being--examined changes in police recruits between becoming trainees to being "probationary constables." Of the 592 recruits who completed the initial assessment through a Bachelor of Policing course, 60 completed the follow-up measures.

According to the authors, police are encouraged to not show emotions within the law enforcement culture. Research has shown that police become more emotionally detached within 18 months of service. As there's a large body of research suggesting that detachment from emotions can have detrimental consequences to emotional health, the researchers were interested in the interaction of these variables over time.

Perhaps the most striking finding of this study was that police recruits showed an increase in depression and other mental health problems after starting the job. What's really interesting, though, is that officers who were more mindful, less likely to suppress thoughts, and more able to identify feelings, showed smaller increases in depression. Moreover, of the variables measured by the researchers, low mindfulness was the strongest predictor of depression. (This indirectly supports the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy research.) Results suggest that mindfulness and the ability to identify one's feelings may have a protective factor for police recruits.

This study measured dispositional mindfulness. As the authors suggest, it would be really interesting to see if a mindfulness-based intervention may help to foster these abilities in police recruits. There could be significant long-term benefits for law enforcement agencies.

To download a copy of the study, click on the citation below:

Williams, V., Ciarrochi, J., & Deane, F.P. (2010). On Being Mindful, Emotionally Aware, and More Resilient: Longitudinal Pilot Study of Police Recruits. Australian Psychologist, 45(4), 274-282.

University of California-San Diego Center for Mindfulness

The Center for Mindfulness at UCSD has opened up a number of social networking opportunities.

For professionals interested in mindfulness-based treatments, there's a Mindfulness-Based Interventions Linked In group. (Click on the link to access.) From there, one can join subgroups, including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, and Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention, among others.

In addition, there's a Center for Mindfulness Facebook Fan Page. (Click on the link to access.)

I just became aware of these sites today, so I haven't had a chance to fully explore them. However, the Center for Mindfulness has been an excellent resource for mindfulness-based training an resources for several years now. Their resources are well-worth checking out!

The Wall Street Journal Article on Mindfulness-Based Treatments

The 01/02/2011 issue of the The Wall Street Journal features an article by Melinda Beck on mindfulness-based treatments. The article quotes Dr. Steven Hayes, the prime originator of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dr. Zindel Segal, one of the developers of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and Dr. Marsha Linehan, the prime originator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). According to the article:

This new psychology movement centers on mindfulness—the increasing popular emphasis on paying attention to the present moment. One of its key tenets is that urging people to stop thinking negative thoughts only tightens their grip—"like struggling with quicksand," Dr. Hayes says. But simply observing them like passing clouds can diffuse their emotional power, proponents say, and open up more options. ("Here's that old fat feeling again. You know, this happens every time I look at fashion magazines. I am sure judging myself harshly. Do I want to go to the gym? Or I could go to a movie. Or I could stop reading magazines.")

To read the full article, click here.

Self-Compassion is a Better Predictor Than Mindfulness of Symptom Severity and Quality of Life in Mixed Anxiety and Depression

Way back in June, I wrote about some data Dr. John Forsyth had collected about his self-help book, The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety. Dr. Forsyth's lab is still collecting data for the second part of the study; in the meantime, they've used some of it to look at the relationship between mindfulness and self-compassion to anxiety and depression. Self-compassion, which SM has posted about before, was developed by Dr. Kristin Neff and is based on Buddhist notions of compassion. The three components of self-compassion are mindfulness, kindness to one's self (as opposed to self-judgment), and feeling part of a common humanity (as opposed to isolation).

Dr. Forsyth's lab analyzed some of the data they've been collecting from 504 people to look at what processes may be most important to anxiety and depression. They used Dr. Neff's Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003) and--for their measure of mindfulness--the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003). The articles uses some very precise statistical terms that I'll try to translate for a more general audience, but please bear in mind that my descriptions below lose some of the nuance of the original.

Interestingly, self-compassion was a much better measure than mindfulness in accounting for problems with anxiety, depression, and overall quality of life. The SCS has several subscales: the most important one for anxiety and depression was the self-judgment subscale. Greater self-judgment showed a comparatively larger relationship with greater anxiety and depression. What this means is that the SCS appears to be a better than the MAAS in measuring treatment outcomes for people with anxiety and depression. It also suggests that awareness of thoughts and emotions may be less important than how one relates to them. What this means is that self-compassion may be a particularly important component in mindfulness-based treatments, and that it is a useful predictor of psychological health.

A caveat to these findings is that the MAAS is only one of several mindfulness measures. Some of the other mindfulness measures such as the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) measure 4-5 aspects of mindfulness whereas the MAAS measures one. What is does suggest, though, is that self-compassion, as it is measured by the SCS, may be an extremely important construct in measuring treatment outcome for mindfulness-based therapies. This study contributes to a growing body of literature suggesting the importance of self-compassion as a construct.

To download a copy of the article, click on the full citation below:

Van Dam, N.T., Sheppard, S.C., Forsyth, J.P., & Earlywine, M. (2011). Self-Compassion is a Better Predictor Than Mindfulness of Symptom Severity and Quality of Life in Mixed Anxiety and Depression. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 25, 123-130.