Mindfulness research and applications in the context of neoliberalism: A narrative and critical review

Abstract

This narrative and critical review outlines the implications of scientific production on Mindfulness and the widespread diffusion of the practice under neoliberal capitalism. This scientific, therapeutic and economic high-value object is a fruitful research field in medical and social sciences. Since exiting the confines of mental and somatic health it has also flourished as a self-care and self-improvement technique. Drawing on a psychosocial perspective where Mindfulness is considered both a psychological and a social phenomenon, we explore the reasons why institutions and corporations have regularly considered Mindfulness as the universal panacea to address mental health, social and environmental problems, and how this contributed to transferring the consequences of structural and systemic issues from the State to the realms of individual management and responsibilization, and fostering social inequalities. We expose the role of Buddhist Modernism, psychology and social psychology into the consolidation of Mindfulness as a product of knowledge and a form of governmentality. The effects on Mindfulness users and researchers of a mainstream neoliberal psychological science, including social psychology, are discussed. Avenues for mindful resistance, such as theoretical and methodological perspectives for a critical social psychology of Mindfulness, are developed.