{"id":1936,"date":"2026-01-21T23:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T23:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/is-mindfulness-good-medicine\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T17:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:18:28","slug":"is-mindfulness-good-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mindful.org\/is-mindfulness-good-medicine\/","title":"Looking Honestly at the Challenges of Mindfulness Practices","content":{"rendered":"

Willoughby Britton<\/a>, a psychiatrist and mindfulness practitioner, has researched what he terms the “difficult or challenging mind states<\/a>” among advanced meditators and scholars that can occur as a result of intense meditation practice.<\/p>\n

The challenges of mindfulness are real. The truth is, meditation is not all calm and peace. Mental material can come up that can be uncomfortable or need to be addressed.<\/p>\n

Britton spoke generally with Mindful about how mindfulness has been marketed in this country as a “warm bath,” when in actuality, you have to deal with whatever comes up in the mind.<\/p>\n

“A lot of psychological material is going to come up and be processed. Old resentments, wounds, that kind of thing,” says Britton<\/a>, “But also some traumatic material<\/a> if people have a trauma history, it can come up and need additional support or even therapy.”<\/p>\n

Halliwell\u00a0asks<\/a>: “Does something beneficial have to be delivered perfectly\u2014and to bring about a perfect world\u2014before we will accept it as worthwhile?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ed Halliwell, mindfulness teacher and author of The Mindful Manifesto<\/em>, admits that meditation can be an emotional rollercoaster. “Mindfulness has a great many benefits,” Halliwell writes<\/a>, but he takes issue with mindfulness being touted as a cure-all. At the same time, there’s an all-or-nothing mentality brewing around the adoption of mindfulness practices, and Halliwell\u00a0asks<\/a>: “Does something beneficial have to be delivered perfectly\u2014and to bring about a perfect world\u2014before we will accept it as worthwhile?”<\/p>\n

Elisha Goldstein, clinical psychologist and mindfulness teacher, noted<\/a> that it’s not a question of whether mindfulness is harmful or not. When we’re assessing the challenges of mindfulness practices, the better question is where you’re getting that mindfulness training from. “It comes down to an education on mindfulness (and a variety of factors that it represents) and finding an experienced teacher as a guide to meet the practitioner where they are at.”<\/p>\n

Research is ongoing<\/b><\/h2>\n

Research on mindfulness and depression is still preliminary, but there are promising indicators.<\/p>\n

Scientific American<\/em> surveyed <\/a>findings and some of the key controversies regarding the application of mindfulness for depression and anxiety, and concluded:<\/p>\n

When it comes to treating diagnosed mental disorders, the evidence that mindfulness helps is mixed, with the strongest data pointing toward its ability to reduce clinical depression and prevent relapses.<\/p>\n

In particular, new research<\/a> has emerged indicating that an 8-week mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program might reduce the risk of relapses into depression. Study authors identified that mindfulness helped in the following ways:<\/p>\n