Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

This paper investigated the effects of participation in an 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course on psychological health and attachment in ordinary adults. Twelve adults enrolled in the standard MBSR course that incorporated mindfulness meditation, yoga, stress management education, and daily homework using CDs (n=12). They were assessed pre-and post-intervention and 8-week follow-up, respectively. Ten people were assigned to a control group(n=10). Eight weekly sessions were led by an MBSR teacher with MBSR teacher training in the spirit of MBSR as practiced at the Center for Mindfulness (CFM) at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Results indicated that the intervention group showed positive improvements in terms of mindfulness, SCL-90-R, and attachment compared to those in the control group. The follow-up study showed that the treatment group maintained the improvements, compared to controls. These results suggest that the MBSR program, originally developed and implemented by Jon Kabat-Zinn, can increase mindfulness, which may mediate such positive outcomes as decrease in psychological symptoms measured with SCL-90-R and attachment level, regardless of cultural differences between Korea and the US. This study can be deemed meaningful in that the MBSR course was faithfully implemented in the spirit of the standard MBSR as taught in the Center for Mindfulness at the UMASS, while many reported local studies were conducted using modified MBSR contents and teaching methods, not consistent with those in the standard MBSR program developed by Jon-Kabat-Zinn. Limitations of this study include its relatively small sample size and heavy reliance on paper-and-pencil self-reports without physiological measures of mindfulness and stress.