Premium
Pain regulation during mindfulness meditation: Phenomenological fingerprints in novices and experts practitioners
Author(s) -
Poletti Stefano,
Abdoun Oussama,
Zorn Jelle,
Lutz Antoine
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
european journal of pain
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.305
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1532-2149
pISSN - 1090-3801
DOI - 10.1002/ejp.1774
Subject(s) - mindfulness , psychology , meditation , mind wandering , psychotherapist , interpretative phenomenological analysis , flexibility (engineering) , experiential learning , metacognition , qualitative research , rumination , cognitive reappraisal , meaning (existential) , cognition , clinical psychology , cognitive psychology , psychiatry , social science , philosophy , statistics , theology , mathematics , mathematics education , sociology
Background The way people respond to pain is based on psychological mechanisms, beliefs and expectations. Mindfulness meditation (MM) has been shown to regulate pain and mental suffering through different mechanisms such as positive reappraisal, attentional and emotional regulation. Yet, subjective experience and meaning of pain in connection with MM are still largely unexplored. Methods The present mixed‐methods study combined an interpretative‐phenomenological qualitative approach with an experimental thermal pain paradigm to explore and compare the meaning of experiencing pain in 32 novices who received short meditation training and 30 experts in meditation practice (more than 10, 000 hr in life). We collected the qualitative data during in‐depth semi‐structured interviews where we probed participants’ response strategies. During the pain task, we collected self‐reports of intensity and unpleasantness, while after the task we collected self‐reports of avoidance, openness, vividness and blissfulness. Results Five phenomenological clusters (PhC) emerged from the interviews, including three which described pain as an unpleasant sensation calling for: (1) experiential avoidance‐suppression, (2) volitional agency‐distanciation, or (3) a positive cognitive reappraisal and flexibility. Two additional clusters (4–5), containing mostly expert meditators, thematized pain sensation as an opportunity to gain metacognitive insights about mental processes, and to deconstruct one's suffering through these insights. PhC5 further integrates these insights with the recognition that suffering is part of the shared human experience and with the aspiration to relieve others from suffering. Each PhC was correlated to a unique profile of self‐reports during the pain paradigm. Conclusion These findings need to be replicated in patients and practicing MM. They also warrant the integration of this mixed‐method approach with brain imaging data to refine the experiential neuroscience of pain. Significance We compared the meaning of experiencing and regulating pain in novices and expert meditators using qualitative interviews. We identified five phenomenological clusters describing relevant features implicated in pain response strategies and meditation. These clusters were organized along a pseudo‐gradient, which captured meditation expertise and predicted self‐reports related to a pain paradigm and psychometric scales associated with pain and its regulation. These findings advance our understanding of the metacognitive mechanisms and beliefs underlying mindfulness meditation and can inform pain treatment strategies.