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Present Moment Contact and Nonjudgment: Pilot Data on Dismantling Mindful Awareness in Trauma-Related Symptomatology

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Abstract

Conventional views purport that mindfulness includes two components: present moment contact (PMC) and nonjudgment. While mindfulness-based interventions that target a broad spectrum of psychopathology, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), emphasize “being present” as a key mechanism toward wellness, researchers have struggled to measure PMC and assess its clinical utility. Is there any inherent value in PMC or is its clinical utility contingent upon simultaneously engaging in nonjudgment? This pilot study introduces an experimental paradigm designed to dismantle mindfulness and examine the utility of these two components. Forty women with interpersonal victimization histories were assigned to either a nonjudgment condition or a control condition. Next, participants recalled their trauma and then wrote down whatever information was present in their awareness. PMC was measured in both conditions by assessing the frequency of present tense verbs used within these written protocols. As predicted, in the absence of nonjudgment, PMC was related to high negative affect and low positive affect, though unrelated to trauma intrusion frequency. In the nonjudgment condition, PMC was no longer related to state affect and inversely related to trauma intrusion frequency. These pilot data suggest that isolating PMC from nonjudgment may be unhelpful and perhaps iatrogenic.

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Notes

  1. Linear regression analyses examining an interaction effect between T2 PMC and experimental condition, controlling for T1 PMC, was not significant for T2 trauma intrusions (β = −0.32, t = −0.10, p = .925) and T2 NA (β = −0.51, t = −1.49, p = .145), but was significant for T2 PA (β = 0.94, t = 2.91, p = .006); T2 PMC was a greater predictor of T2 PA for those in the control condition than the nonjudgment condition.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, San Francisco, Trauma Recovery Center, 2727 Mariposa, Suite 100, San Francisco, CA, 94110, USA

    Christine E. Valdez

  2. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Andrew M. Sherrill & Michelle Lilly

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  1. Christine E. Valdez
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Correspondence to Christine E. Valdez.

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This research was funded in part by the Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault at Northern Illinois University as part of a dissertation grant awarded to the first author.

Conflict of Interest

Christine E. Valdez and Andrew M. Sherrill declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Experiment Participants

The experimental protocols were approved by Northern Illinois University's institutional review committee and met the guidelines set forth by the Institutional Review Board. Participants provided informed consent prior to their participation in the study.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Valdez, C.E., Sherrill, A.M. & Lilly, M. Present Moment Contact and Nonjudgment: Pilot Data on Dismantling Mindful Awareness in Trauma-Related Symptomatology. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 38, 572–581 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-016-9548-8

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