When Mindfulness Is Therapy: Ethical Qualms, Historical Perspectives

In the past 20 years, mindfulness therapeutic programs have moved firmly into the mainstream of clinical practice and beyond. As they have, we have also seen the development of an increasingly vocal critique. At issue is often less whether or not these mindfulness practices "work," and more whether there is a danger in dissociating them from the ethical frameworks for which they were originally developed. Mindfulness, the argument goes, was never supposed to be about weight loss, better sex, helping children perform better in school, helping employees be more productive in the workplace, or even improving the functioning of anxious, depressed people. It was never supposed to be a merchandized commodity to be bought and sold. The larger clinical and religious community, however, has not always been troubled by the idea that meditation might sometimes be used as a highly pragmatic remedy for various ailments. Why, then, are people troubled now? This essay is an effort to recapture a bigger historical perspective on current ethical qualms: to move beyond criticism and instead to try to understand the anatomy of our discontent.