Mapping Stress and healthy balance with the workable ranges model in mindfulness-based stress reduction: First-person embodied reflections

Abstract

During Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) courses, participants are taught to be more present with stressful experience in order to respond to it more effectively. The meditation-based experiential pedagogy is supported by didactic teaching about stress to increase awareness of patterns of reaction and to support the application of mindfulness to self-regulation. The content of teaching about stress, and how it is best taught within the pedagogy, is an important practical and theoretical consideration. This thesis addresses a gap in knowledge by focussing on this little-regarded area of practice. The aim of this research was to develop practical and theoretical knowledge about the inclusion in the MBSR curriculum of the Workable Ranges Model of stress and emotional regulation, developed by the author. This visual model lays out regulated states and both mobilised and immobilised threat-based reactions in relation to each other. The main research question was: how does the Workable Ranges Model complement MBSR? Three key themes were identified in the literature and began to address the research questions. They were: the role of didactic teaching about stress; the notion that how difficult experiences are negotiated is a paradoxical mechanism; and that the Workable Ranges Model provides a novel perspective on participants’ progression through mindfulness-based programmes. Qualitative research was conducted as an illuminative evaluation of the practice innovation. An enactivist, embodied-mind epistemology was used to consider both embodied and verbal forms of knowledge. The application of mindfulness-based, first-person phenomenological methodology, within the frame of the conceptual encounter method, functioned as both learning and data-collection processes. The first phase focussed on the inclusion of the model in three MBSR courses. Data were gathered from participants in classes using diagrams and a question schedule. A template analysis elucidated engagement and resonance, awareness of the features of regulated and dysregulated states and patterns of reactivity, ways of responding to dysregulated states and applications linked with MBSR. In the second phase, seven course graduates engaged in a diary exercise, post-meditation reflective inquiry and a group discussion. Thematic analysis identified an overarching theme that the Workable Ranges Model provides a dynamic map for the mindful exploration of stability and stress. Three interrelated processes were evident: charting regulated and dysregulated states, embodied application in mindfulness practice, and orienting to and resourcing regulation and self-care. The themes from phase two shaped a broader meaning to both data sets. Three functions of the model as a map were identified and discussed. It worked: (i) as a method for teaching about healthy balance and stress; (ii) as a heuristic for self-exploration and developing insight; and (iii) as a guide for mindfulness-based self-regulation and self-care. Together, these aspects acted as aids to teaching and learning about mindfulness-based self-regulation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.