Contemplative Pedagogy: Frequently Asked Questions

Contemplative Pedagogy is a new and sometimes controversial pedagogical practice. Faculty often have basic questions about how to implement the pedagogy in their classrooms, in addition to questions that challenge the educational value and appropriateness of the practice. Assembled here are the most frequently asked questions about Contemplative Pedagogy, with responses from six contemplative professors, each from a different institutional and philosophical location. The respondents are founding members of the Contemplative Studies Consultation of the American Academy of Religion. The diversity of views expressed by the respondents invites the reader to see that there is no single theory or praxis of contemplative pedagogy.     

Meditation has stronger relationships with mindfulness,kundalini, and mystical experiences than yoga or prayer

Contemplative practices can have profound effects on mindfulness and on physical and sensory and mystical experiences. Individuals who self-reported meditation, yoga, contemplative prayer, or a combination of practices and their patterns of practice were compared for mindfulness, kundalini effects, and mystical experiences. The results suggest that the amount of practice but not the pattern and social conditions of practice influences mindfulness and possibly mystical experiences. Meditation, yoga, contemplative prayer, or a combination of practices all were found to be associated with enhancements of mindfulness, kundalini effects, and mystical experiences, but meditation had particularly strong associations and may be the basis of the associations of yoga and prayer with these outcomes. The results further suggest that the primary association of contemplative practices is with the real time awareness and appreciation of sensory and perceptual experiences which may be the intermediary between disparate practices and mindfulness, kundalini effects, and mystical experiences.     

THE "OPEN COUNTRY WHOSE NAME IS PRAYER": APOPHASIS, DECONSTRUCTION, AND CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICE

While much has been written on the dialogue between postmodernism and the Christian apophatic tradition, there has been little focus on the role of what lies at the heart of this tradition: the practice of contemplation. By looking at contemplative authors such as Evagrius Ponticus and others, this article shows that contemplative practice, situated in a life of contemplation, relates closely to postmodernism's critique of ontotheology. Contemplative practice deconstructs the epistemologically constituted self that knows itself as knowing and God as known (to paraphrase Mary‐Jane Rubenstein).     

Adding Silence to Stories: Narrative Therapy and Contemplation

A review of the literature reveals that one particular form of contemplation—mindfulness—has been integrated into cognitive-behavioral therapy. Built upon this background, this article raises the issue of combining contemplation and narrative therapy. It first examines the unique experiences that occur when one enters into silence. Then, it explores the implications of these experiences for narrative therapy. A contemplative-based approach to narrative therapy differs from traditional narrative therapy in that it utilizes: (a) contemplative skills, (b) contemplative and narrative metaphors, (c) modified interventions, and (d) broader views of reality and self. The outcome is an enlarged narrative approaches that possess numerous benefits and possibilities for future treatment models. P. Gregg Blanton is a Professor of Human Services at Montreat College. He is a Clinical Member and Approved Supervisor of AAMFT.     

The mesmerists inquire about “Oriental mind powers”: West meets East in the search for the universal trance

Contemporary interest in Asian meditation raises questions about when Westerners began investigating these practices. A synopsis of Western‐originating scientific meditation research is followed by a brief introduction to mesmerism. Next, the unappreciated ways the mesmerists explored Oriental mind powers is recounted. How the mesmerists' cultural positioning, philosophy, and interest in mind—body practices facilitated their inquiries of Oriental medicine and Hindu contemplative practices is explored, followed by a consideration of why these investigations were unique for the era. The way this work subverted Western cultural imperialism is examined. A consideration of the historical continuities and discontinuities between the mesmerists' inquiries and twentieth‐century meditation research concludes the article. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Contemplative/emotion training reduces negative emotional behavior and promotes prosocial responses

Contemplative practices are believed to alleviate psychological problems, cultivate prosocial behavior and promote self-awareness. In addition, psychological science has developed tools and models for understanding the mind and promoting well-being. Additional effort is needed to combine frameworks and techniques from these traditions to improve emotional experience and socioemotional behavior. An 8-week intensive (42 hr) meditation/emotion regulation training intervention was designed by experts in contemplative traditions and emotion science to reduce "destructive enactment of emotions" and enhance prosocial responses. Participants were 82 healthy female schoolteachers who were randomly assigned to a training group or a wait-list control group, and assessed preassessment, postassessment, and 5 months after training completion. Assessments included self-reports and experimental tasks to capture changes in emotional behavior. The training group reported reduced trait negative affect, rumination, depression, and anxiety, and increased trait positive affect and mindfulness compared to the control group. On a series of behavioral tasks, the training increased recognition of emotions in others (Micro-Expression Training Tool), protected trainees from some of the psychophysiological effects of an experimental threat to self (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST), appeared to activate cognitive networks associated with compassion (lexical decision procedure), and affected hostile behavior in the Marital Interaction Task. Most effects at postassessment that were examined at follow-up were maintained (excluding positive affect, TSST rumination, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia recovery). Findings suggest that increased awareness of mental processes can influence emotional behavior, and they support the benefit of integrating contemplative theories/practices with psychological models and methods of emotion regulation.     

Beyond Theory: Martin Buber’s I and Thou and the Role of Contemplation in Integrated Relational Counseling

The current paradigm in mental health practice does not completely protect practitioners from theory-induced blindness. Many clinicians continue to rely on stable theoretical frameworks, which, although helpful, can become a hindrance to integrated relational practice. Overreliance on a particular theory or set of techniques can prevent clinicians from adopting a genuinely relational orientation. This article describes the nature of the contemplative-relational orientation using concepts from Martin Buber’s I and Thou and proposes that clinicians wishing to build competency in integrated relational counseling may benefit from contemplative prayer, meditation, and other mindfulness practices. A clinical vignette is provided and illustrates general features of an integrated relational approach, and empirical evidence is advanced to support the benefits of contemplative practice for mental health practitioners.     

Trigger warnings,covenants of presence,and more: Cultivating safe space for theological discussions about sexual trauma

Sexual assault is prevalent, but many educators find themselves ill‐prepared to address it in the classroom. This article conceptualizes a trauma sensitive pedagogy that engages the psychological, social, and theological implications of sexual assault for classroom conversations about sex and sexuality. First, the article examines the impact of the classic power disparity between student and teacher as a dynamic that can trigger recall of the abuse of power inherent in sexual violence. Next the article reframes understandings of trigger warnings to consider how they can be used to support educators in taking seriously the vulnerability of those who have experienced sexual assault. The article also presents perspectives on the role of “teacher self‐disclosure” in facilitating conversations that acknowledge sexual assault, followed by a teaching strategy that demonstrates pedagogical sensitivity to trauma. Suggestions on how to support students through and beyond conversations that can trigger traumatic stress conclude the article.     

A Constructivist Pedagogue's Personal Narrative of Integrating Faith with Learning: Epistemological and Pedagogical Challenges

This article offers a personal narrative about integrating the Christian faith into the process of teaching and learning. The author begins by describing his understanding of pedagogy that framed his beliefs about teaching in higher-education environments. Understanding the author's beliefs provides a context for his experiences in integrating faith with learning. Specifically, the author offers three tensions of faith integration and describes how pedagogy helped him overcome these tensions.     

Fighting the Elephant in the Room: Ethical Reflections on White Privilege and Other Systems of Advantage in the Teaching of Religion

This article contends that teaching more effectively for diversity requires a radical re‐envisioning of pedagogical practice. Drawing on qualitative interviews with religion and theology professors of color throughout the United States, it explores how faculty can re‐imagine their teaching by engaging students where they are, acknowledging the reality of oppression, and dealing with resistance. Stressing mindfulness of social location, it provides examples of liberating teaching activities and competences and shows how literary and visual “texts” from the margins and personal metaphors of embodiment can challenge captivities to hegemonic paradigms in the classroom. The article concludes with responses from colleagues who have worked closely with the author. Ethicist Melanie Harris brings Hill's method into dialogue with Womanist pedagogy, and historian of religion Hjamil Martínez‐Vázquez reflects on the role of suffering in building a revolutionary/critical pedagogy.     

Ethics and practices of re‐presentation: Witnessing self and other

Context: The challenge of producing ethical representational practices is of critical interest to both practitioner‐researchers and research theorists. For practitioners becoming researchers a central ethical question may be how to manage a relational presence in writing their research, in ways that acknowledge participants, the research relationship, and a researcher's own subjectivity. Focus: The article offers examples from practitioner research to illustrate and theorise how researcher subjectivity is managed through the use of witnessing practices as a representational strategy. Witnessing practices – translated into counselling research from narrative therapy – offer researchers a strategy to take up a reflexive, relational presence in research reports. Discussion: Researcher witnessing honours the contributions of research participants as well as making visible the shaping effects of the research on a researcher's life. Through witnessing self and other, and thus declaring presence, privilege and partiality, re‐presentational ethics are made transparent.     

Negotiating Multiple Identities,Constructing Western‐Muslim Selves in the Netherlands and the United States

This article evaluates the psychological processes, discursive practices, and sociopolitical mechanisms underlying the identity reconstruction of Muslim immigrant women in the United States and the Netherlands. Specifically, it focuses on the ways in which Muslim immigrant women who are embedded in both Islamic and Western cultures negotiate their traditional and modern identities and self‐representations and construct a coherent self‐narrative about their bicultural existence as “Western‐Muslim.” The qualitative evidence presented here expands existing theoretical and empirical discussions on biculturalism and acculturation by demonstrating the ways in which contextual factors define the negotiation repertoire that is available to bicultural individuals. The findings of this article also call into question some of the earlier findings on cultural conflict hypothesis, because it shows that successful negotiation of bicultural identities depends not so much on whether the individual perceives these identities and cultures to be compatible with each other, but rather on the availability of a coherent self‐narrative of belonging to both cultural worlds.     

Secularizing Religious Practices: A Study of Subjectivity and Existential Transformation in Naikan Therapy

Adapted from a Shin Buddhist style of meditation, Naikan  (" inner-looking ")  is a week-long contemplative practice that involves reviewing one's life from the perspectives of others and has been called an indigenous Japanese psychotherapy due to its effectiveness in treating a variety of disorders. Data collected during an extended ethnographic study of Naikan in both Japan and Austria reveal that Naikan, a "secularized" practice that removes overtly Buddhist references and practices, effects changes in clients' subjectivity that are strikingly similar to those sought after in Buddhist traditions. This suggests that Naikan operates therapeutically on an existential level and employs cognitive techniques that, while originating in Buddhism, remain efficacious outside a Buddhist context. The potential for certain contemplative practices to effect transformations of subjectivity across religious and cultural contexts may be greater than commonly assumed.     

Meditation and Health: The Search for Mechanisms of Action

Psychological interest in the impact of mental states on biological functioning is growing rapidly, driving a need for new methods for inducing mental states that last long enough, and are sufficiently impactful, to have significant effects on physical health. The many traditions of meditative practice are one potential pathway for studying mind‐body interactions. The purpose of this review is to introduce personality and social psychologists to the field of meditation research. Beginning with a brief introduction to meditation and the heterogeneity of meditative practices, we showcase research linking meditative practice to changes in immune and cardiovascular functioning and pain perception. We then discuss theoretical and empirical evidence that meditation works by inducing changes in psychological capacities such as emotion regulation and self‐regulation or through repeated induction of specific mental states such as love or meta‐cognitive awareness. At the frontier of the science of meditation is the need to empirically test whether meditation‐driven changes in cognitive and affective processes are the cause of improvements in physical health. Emerging challenges in meditation research include a need for large studies using randomized controlled and dual‐blind designs with active control groups and an increased focus on measuring mechanisms of action as well as outcomes. Meditation represents a potentially powerful tool for generating new knowledge of mind‐body interactions.     

Power and Caution: The Ethics of Self‐Disclosure

Abstract. Good teaching is both powerful and cautious. It is powerful insofar as it creates engaged students. Because an engaged mind is particularly receptive, however, good teaching is also cautious insofar as it provides students with focused guidance through the process of appropriating the learning material. This article reflects critically on expressionist pedagogy by evaluating a classroom situation in which students reacted in unexpected ways to the professor's disclosure of a personal story. It concludes that effective teaching exceeds the goal of merely facilitating student engagement. That is, the use of self‐disclosure has the power to create engaged students, but it also requires cautious content consideration when facilitating post‐disclosure learning. If, by using the powerful expressionist pedagogy of self‐disclosure, we engage students but fail to cautiously guide them through the learning material, we have not taken seriously the ethical responsibility that teaching also implies.     

The Contemplative Bow in Teaching and Learning Pastoral Care

This article elucidates theoretical underpinnings for the use of one's self in the pastoral theological classroom. The contemplative bow is developed as a capacious metaphor to describe appropriate self use and its necessary importance in the teaching and learning of pastoral arts in a theological curriculum. Central to the argument is the assumption that effective teaching and learning in pastoral care emerges from awareness and knowledge of self as well as letting go of self in beneficial service with others. Analytical engagement of educational, theological, and psychological theory informs practice for the professional school classroom.