scholarly journals Facilitating Adaptive Emotion Processing and Somatic Reappraisal via Sustained Mindful Interoceptive Attention

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia J. Price ◽  
Helen Y. Weng
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Interoceptive Awareness ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
Clinical Theory ◽  
New Associations ◽  
Subjective Awareness ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Mental And Physical Health ◽  
The Brain

Emotions are by nature embodied, as the brain has evolved to quickly assess the emotional significance of stimuli and output signals to the body’s viscera and periphery to aid adaptive responses. Emotions involve both implicit bodily and explicit narrative processes, and patients may experience transdiagnostic distress when bodily signals are not attended to and holistically integrated with explicit narratives about experience. Similarly, therapists may be trained in more implicit body-based approaches (i.e., massage/bodywork, physical and occupational therapy, and nursing/medicine) or more explicit narrative-based approaches (i.e., psychotherapy), and may lack training in skills that integrate both levels of emotion processing to aid healing and growth. To address these gaps, we propose a framework where the bridge between implicit bodily sensations and explicit narratives lies in cultivating mindful awareness of bodily sensations associated with emotions. This process brings subjective awareness to notice inner body experience (or interoceptive awareness) that is often outside of conscious awareness, so that it may be understood and re-integrated in more adaptive ways, which we call somatic reappraisal. Using clinical theory and example vignettes, we present mindful interoceptive awareness for adaptive emotion processing as a framework to cultivate and enhance somatic reappraisal. Mindful interoceptive awareness brings more focused and sustained attention to inner body experience; likewise, internal sensations associated with emotions become more granular, vivid, and can shift in ways that facilitate somatic reappraisal. Learning to sustain interoceptive awareness when engaged with mindfulness qualities of nonjudgment and compassion promotes an experience where new associations between emotions, meanings, and memories can be made that generate insights that are holistic and integrative. A clinical vignette is used in this paper to provide examples of this approach in psychotherapy. An example script for use in mindfulness groups is included, and resources are suggested for clinicians to gain more experience. Mindful interoceptive awareness for adaptive emotion processing is a clinical process that can be learned and applied by a range of clinicians to treat mental and physical health conditions that may benefit greater embodied awareness.

scholarly journals P075 Multidimensional assessment of interoceptive abilities, emotion processing and the role of early life stress in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S177-S178
Author(s):  
K Atanasova ◽  
T Lotter ◽  
W Reindl ◽  
S Lis
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Trauma ◽  
Life Stress ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Interoceptive Awareness ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Multidimensional Assessment ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Interoceptive Accuracy

Abstract Background Perception of internal bodily sensations includes three dissociable processes: interoceptive accuracy, interoceptive sensibility, and interoceptive awareness. Interoception plays a crucial role in emotional processing and alterations of these processes have been already observed in gastrointestinal disorders. Although impairments in interoception may contribute to the burden of disease in IBD, no study has investigated interoceptive processing in IBD as a multidimensional concept. The aim of the current study was to investigate the associations between the different dimensions of interoception and emotional processing in IBD, while taking childhood traumatization into account. Methods We recruited 35 remitted IBD patients and 35 healthy control participants (HC) matched for age, sex and education. Interoception was assessed as a multidimensional construct using the Heartbeat tracking task and the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire. Emotional processing was measured using an experimental task, where participants were asked to rate the valence and arousal when presented with affective visual stimuli. Childhood traumatization was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Results IBD patients reported greater awareness of the connection between bodily sensations and emotional states and showed a stronger tendency to use distraction from unpleasant sensations compared with HC. Our findings suggest that emotional processing in IBD is related to interoceptive sensibility and not to the objective interoceptive accuracy. The association between interoception and emotional processing was modulated by the severity of childhood traumatization in both groups. Conclusion This is the first study showing that IBD patients did not differ in their ability to detect visceral signals but in their subjective perception of these. Psychotherapeutic interventions in IBD might profit from taking the interplay between emotion processing, interoception and childhood trauma into account.

scholarly journals Parents still matter! Parental warmth predicts adolescent brain function and anxiety and depressive symptoms 2 years later

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind D. Butterfield ◽  
Jennifer S. Silk ◽  
Kyung Hwa Lee ◽  
Greg S. Siegle ◽  
Ronald E. Dahl ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Brain Function ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Psychological Disorder ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Parental Warmth ◽  
Maternal Warmth ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Anxiety is the most prevalent psychological disorder among youth, and even following treatment, it confers risk for anxiety relapse and the development of depression. Anxiety disorders are associated with heightened response to negative affective stimuli in the brain networks that underlie emotion processing. One factor that can attenuate the symptoms of anxiety and depression in high-risk youth is parental warmth. The current study investigates whether parental warmth helps to protect against future anxiety and depressive symptoms in adolescents with histories of anxiety and whether neural functioning in the brain regions that are implicated in emotion processing and regulation can account for this link. Following treatment for anxiety disorder (Time 1), 30 adolescents (M age = 11.58, SD = 1.26) reported on maternal warmth, and 2 years later (Time 2) they participated in a functional neuroimaging task where they listened to prerecorded criticism and neutral statements from a parent. Higher maternal warmth predicted lower neural activation during criticism, compared with the response during neutral statements, in the left amygdala, bilateral insula, subgenual anterior cingulate (sgACC), right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex. Maternal warmth was associated with adolescents’ anxiety and depressive symptoms due to the indirect effects of sgACC activation, suggesting that parenting may attenuate risk for internalizing through its effects on brain function.

scholarly journals Cortical activation in alexithymia as a response to emotional stimuli

2008 ◽  
Vol 192 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasse Karlsson ◽  
Petri Näätänen ◽  
Hanna Stenman
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Physical Symptoms ◽  
Cortical Activation ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Healthy Women ◽  
The Brain

BackgroundAlexithymia has been shown to be related to many psychiatric and somatic illnesses. Aberrant emotion processing in the brain may underlie several psychiatric disorders. However, little is known about the neurobiological underpinnings of alexithymia.AimsTo determine the way in which the brain processes emotion in alexithymia.MethodThe participants were 10 healthy women with alexithymia and 11 healthy women without this condition, recruited into the study on the basis of their scores on the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Four films were projected on a video screen to induce each of three emotional conditions (neutral, amusement, sadness). The brain areas activated during emotional stimuli in the alexithymia group were compared with those activated in the non-alexithymia group. Scans of the distribution of [15O]H2O were acquired using a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner operated in three-dimensional mode.ResultsIn response to emotional stimuli participants with alexithymia activated more parts of their sensory and motor cortices and insula, especially on the left side, and less of their anterior cingulate, compared with the control group.ConclusionsWomen with alexithymia seem to over-activate their ‘bodily’ brain regions, implying a different mode of emotion processing. This may be related to their tendency to experience physical symptoms.

scholarly journals Giving Up on Consciousness as the Ghost in the Machine

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter W. Halligan ◽  
David A. Oakley
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Subjective Awareness ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Cognitive Neurosciences ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Brain

Consciousness as used here, refers to the private, subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to generate and control actions and psychological contents. This compelling, intuitive consciousness-centric account has, and continues to shape folk and scientific accounts of psychology and human behavior. Over the last 30 years, research from the cognitive neurosciences has challenged this intuitive social construct account when providing a neurocognitive architecture for a human psychology. Growing evidence suggests that the executive functions typically attributed to the experience of consciousness are carried out competently, backstage and outside subjective awareness by a myriad of fast, efficient non-conscious brain systems. While it remains unclear how and where the experience of consciousness is generated in the brain, we suggested that the traditional intuitive explanation that consciousness is causally efficacious is wrong-headed when providing a cognitive neuroscientific account of human psychology. Notwithstanding the compelling 1st-person experience (inside view) that convinces us that subjective awareness is the mental curator of our actions and thoughts, we argue that the best framework for building a scientific account is to be consistent with the biophysical causal dependency of prior neural processes. From a 3rd person perspective, (outside view), we propose that subjective awareness lacking causal influence, is (no more) than our experience of being aware, our awareness of our psychological content, knowing that we are aware, and the belief that that such experiences are evidence of an agentive capacity shared by others. While the human mind can be described as comprising both conscious and nonconscious aspects, both ultimately depend on neural process in the brain. In arguing for the counter-intuitive epiphenomenal perspective, we suggest that a scientific approach considers all mental aspects of mind including consciousness in terms of their underlying, preceding (causal) biological changes, in the realization that most brain processes are not accompanied by any discernible change in subjective awareness.

scholarly journals Emotional representations of space vary as a function of peoples’ mental health and interoceptive awareness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Galvez-Pol ◽  
Marcos Nadal ◽  
James Kilner
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Interoceptive Awareness ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Emotional Representation ◽  
Representation Of Space ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Psychophysiological Correlates ◽  
Emotional Representations ◽  
Spatial Locations ◽  
Representations Of Space

As people interact in extensive environments, their space becomes intertwined with emotions. Yet, beyond the study of spatial appraisal and navigation1–3, the emotional representation of space remains elusive. Here we developed a method that, even without mobility (during Covid-19 lockdown), allows examining participants’ emotional representation of space and psychophysiological correlates. We gave participants blank maps of the region where they lived and asked them to apply shade where they had happy/sad memories, and where they wanted to go after the lockdown. They also completed self-reports on mental health and interoceptive awareness (appraisal of inner bodily sensations). By adapting neuroimaging methods, we examined shaded pixels instead of brain voxels to quantify where and how strong emotions are represented in space. The results revealed that happy memories were consistently associated with similar spatial locations. Yet, this mapping response varied as a function of participants’ mental health and interoceptive awareness. Interestingly, maps of happy memories and desired locations after lockdown overlay significantly with natural environments (vs. non-natural). These results suggest that our relationship with the environment relates to how we feel and appraise bodily sensations (i.e., allostasis in space). Our method may provide a spatially ecological marker for physical and mental disorders.

scholarly journals The Mindful Body: A Phenomenology of the Body With Multiple Sclerosis

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (14) ◽  
pp. 2239-2249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanneke van der Meide ◽  
Truus Teunissen ◽  
Pascal Collard ◽  
Merel Visse ◽  
Leo H Visser
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Sclerosis ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Body ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
Phenomenology Of The Body ◽  
Health And Illness

For people living with multiple sclerosis (MS), one’s own body may no longer be taken for granted but may become instead an insistent presence. In this article, we describe how the body experience of people with MS can reflect an ongoing oscillation between four experiential dimensions: bodily uncertainty, having a precious body, being a different body, and the mindful body. People with MS can become engaged in a mode of permanent bodily alertness and may demonstrate adaptive responses to their ill body. In contrast to many studies on health and illness, our study shows that the presence of the body may not necessarily result in alienation or discomfort. By focusing the attention on the body, a sense of well-being can be cultivated and the negative effects of MS only temporarily dominate experience. Rather than aiming at bodily dis-appearance, health care professionals should therefore consider ways to support bodily eu-appearance.

CRF

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Schulkin
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorders ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Catecholaminergic Neurons ◽  
Chronic Anxiety ◽  
Mental And Physical Health ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Do So

Chapter 5 explains how excessive fear is tied to anxiety disorders, and vulnerability to the breakdown of mental and physical health. CRF in the brain is tied to these events. CRF, for instance, may be constrained by the neurotransmitter GABA in key regions of the forebrain and is mobilized by brainstem catecholaminergic neurons that are critical in coping with and adapting to everyday life; and of course, one is less able to do so when these information molecules are compromised by genetic predispositions and social duress. One hypothesis about CRF and the brain is that at least two forebrain sites are differentially involved in regulating both adaptive fear and deleterious chronic anxiety. There are great varieties of events that can cause fear in individuals: anything from downsizing at work to acts of terrorism and crime.

Was Descartes right after all? An affective background for bodily awareness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frédérique de Vignemont
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Interoceptive Awareness ◽  
Experimental Literature ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Bodily Awareness ◽  
Privileged Status ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
The Many

Recent accounts of interoception have highlighted its role for self-awareness, but what gives it such a privileged status compared to other sources of information about the body, and is it actually warranted? This chapter first explores the many ways one might understand the notion of interoception, rejecting most definitions that are too liberal. It further focuses on the interoceptive feelings that we spontaneously experience, such as thirst, fatigue, or hunger, highlighting the limits of the attentional notion of interoceptive awareness in use in the experimental literature. Interoceptive feelings inform us about the welfare of the organism as a whole and their spatial principle of organization is holistic. This chapter then assesses the contribution of these feelings for the awareness of one’s body as one’s own. In brief, their role is not to fix the spatial boundaries of the body but rather to provide an affective background to our bodily sensations.

Stage 2: The Cardiovascular Mechanisms of Interoceptive Awareness: Effects of Resonance Breathing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateo Leganes-Fonteneau ◽  
Marsha Bates ◽  
Neel Muzumdar ◽  
Anthony Pawlak ◽  
Shahriar Islam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Interoceptive Awareness ◽  
Conscious Perception ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Interoceptive Accuracy ◽  
And Control ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Afferent Signaling

Interoception, the ability to perceive internal bodily sensations, and heart rate variability (HRV) share common physiological pathways, including the baroreflex feedback loop. The baroreflex can be activated by resonance breathing, wherein respiration is paced at 6 times per minute (0.1Hz), eliciting immediate physiological changes and longer-term therapeutic responses.This registered report characterizes baroreflex functioning as a cardiac mechanism of interoception in a two-session study (n=67). The heartbeat discrimination task was used to obtain indices of interoceptive accuracy, sensibility and metacognition. Baroreflex functioning was measured as HRV at 0.1Hz and baroreflex sensitivity (BRS); high frequency (HF) HRV was calculated as a control. Cardiovascular indices were measured at baseline and during active and control paced breathing after which changes in interoception were measured.The first hypothesis was that baseline baroreflex functioning would predict individual differences in interoceptive awareness. The second hypothesis was that resonance breathing would increase participants’ ability to detect their own heartbeats, and that this effect would be mediated by increases in 0.1Hz HRV and BRS. Data were collected upon in principle acceptance of the manuscript.We found a negative relationship of interoceptive accuracy with baseline HF HRV and BRS, and a positive relationship between metacognitive interoception and 0.1HZ HRV, BRS and HF HRV. We found that changes in 0.1Hz HRV and BRS during resonance breathing positively correlate with increases in interoceptive accuracy. Our results show that the extent to which breathing recruits the resonant properties of the cardiovascular system can facilitate the conscious perception of participants’ heartbeats. We interpret this as an increase in vagal afferent signaling and baroreflex functioning following resonance breathing. We put forward an alternative explanation that HRV modulation can reduce interoceptive prediction errors, facilitating the conscious perception of interoceptive signals, and consider the role of resonance breathing on mental health from an interoceptive inference perspective.

The Advent of Parapsychology and the Figuration of “Out-of-the-Body Experiences” (1880–1930)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Schlieter
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
William James ◽  
Life Review ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
Filter Theory ◽  
Body Experiences ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Near Death Experiences ◽  
The Brain

This chapter outlines how the term “out-of-the-body experience” emerged in spiritualist and parapsychological literature. As is shown, “psychical researchers” such as Frederic W. Myers and William James made a significant contribution. The chapter also deals with the “filter” theory or “transmission” theory, i.e., the idea of the brain as a means for the inhibition of consciousness. This theory, as is shown, has been developed in close interaction with phenomena “near death”—in particular, the “panoramic life review.” The filter theory, discussed in subsequent chapters 2.6. and 2.7, too, is still favored by many recent protagonists of near-death experiences (e.g., Moody). Finally, the chapter turns to the increase of autoscopic out-of-body experiences, discussed as a phenomenon attesting a changing relationship of the disembodied consciousness toward its own body.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document