Kelsey L. Larsen & Elizabeth A. Stanley. “Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT): Mindfulness Training for High-Stress and Trauma-Sensitive Contexts,” in The Handbook of Mindfulness-Based Programmes: Mindfulness Interventions from Education to Health and Therapy, ed. Itai Ivtzan (London: Routledge, 2019), 55-63.
Abstract:
Though empirical evidence of the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions is wide-ranging across clinical and healthy populations, high-stress environments—those in which individuals are subjected to prolonged stress and/or trauma—come with distinct challenges that many traditional mindfulness-based interventions were not designed to address. Additionally, individuals in high-demand occupations often bear heavy allostatic loads as a direct consequence of their day-to-day professional roles. Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training (MMFT)® was explicitly designed to offer a more robust approach for mindfulness-based training in high-stress, high-demand settings. Drawing from two lineages—mindfulness training and body-based trauma therapies—MMFT has been shown to allow for better functioning and more complete recovery after stressful experiences. This chapter provides an overview of MMFT®, its intended populations, and its goals. It then reviews research about its efficacy among U.S. service-members before combat deployment.