Mindfulness Subjectivity through Q Methodology: Training and Practising Mindfulness in an Educational Program as Influential and Transformative

Abstract

This study investigated the experience of mindfulness practice with a group of students who had participated in a one-year college program that included mindfulness-based training. The specific question was: How does learning about mindfulness through training and practising various mindful activities in an educational program influence and transform participants’ lives? A two-factor solution was chosen with one factor expressing a new found and deeply-felt generous acceptance, being in touch with and at one with oneself, with others and with nature. The other factor reflected the experience of being in an on-going learning process with a yet to be realized hope of gradual and explicit integration of the whole self-in- relation with others. Discussion of the two factors focuses on the different stages of the developmental processes that the participants associated with each factor seem to be in, with Factor 1 exemplifying a mature phase of mindfulness and awareness and Factor 2 revealing itself to be in an earlier less comfortable phase. In both cases, the attitude towards and experience of mindfulness is positively oriented in terms of life changes.