Psychological Mindedness as a mediatior between MBSR and perceived stress

Psychological Mindedness (PM) or the ability and motivation to describe and understand psychological processes has long been suspected to play a critical role in the effectiveness of psychological interventions. However, empirical research on the subject is scarce. This study thus set out to investigate how change in PM mediates the effect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on perceived stress. The participants in this study (N = 147) were recruited via a newspaper advertisement for a intervention to reduce stress. They were randomized over a waiting list condition or a treatment condition where they received an eight week MBSR intervention. Participants filled in questionnaires regarding their trait mindfulness, PM and perceived stress before and after the eight weeks. Results indicated that change in PM fully mediated the relationship between condition and perceived stress. Those in the treatment condition showed a larger increase in PM which was also related to a larger decrease of perceived stress compared to the waiting list condition. We thus conclude that increasing insight in one?s own psychological processes is an important factor for the effectiveness of mindfulness based interventions.