Objectives Treatments of female sexual dysfunction have been largely unsuccessful because they do not address the psychological factors that underlie female sexuality. Negative self-evaluative processes interfere with the ability to attend and register physiological changes (interoceptive awareness). This study explores the effect of mindfulness meditation training on interoceptive awareness and the three categories of known barriers to healthy sexual functioning: attention, self-judgment, and clinical symptoms. Methods Forty-four college students (30 women) participated in either a 12-week course containing a “meditation laboratory” or an active control course with similar content or laboratory format. Interoceptive awareness was measured by reaction time in rating physiological response to sexual stimuli. Psychological barriers were assessed with self-reported measures of mindfulness and psychological well-being. Results Women who participated in the meditation training became significantly faster at registering their physiological responses (interoceptive awareness) to sexual stimuli compared with active controls (F(1,28) = 5.45, p = .03, ηp2 = 0.15). Female meditators also improved their scores on attention (t = 4.42, df = 11, p = .001), self-judgment, (t = 3.1, df = 11, p = .01), and symptoms of anxiety (t = −3.17, df = 11, p = .009) and depression (t = −2.13, df = 11, p < .05). Improvements in interoceptive awareness were correlated with improvements in the psychological barriers to healthy sexual functioning (r = −0.44 for attention, r = −0.42 for self-judgment, and r = 0.49 for anxiety; all p < .05). Conclusions Mindfulness-based improvements in interoceptive awareness highlight the potential of mindfulness training as a treatment of female sexual dysfunction.

Contemplative practices, which engage the subjective or "fi rst-person" perspective, are being incorporated into systems of higher education that have traditionally relied on didactic or "third-person" approaches (Dederer . The students who are learning these new fi rst-person methodologies will eventually become the scientists, doctors, and professors who make up the fields of science and medicine. What might be some of the long-term consequences of contemplative pedagogies on academia in general and on science and medicine in particular?The content of this chapter is not merely speculation but rather is a collective consensus from university-level students who have received this new fi rst-person training. Brown University' s Contemplative Studies Initiative is one of the fi rst to incorporate intensive fi rst-person training into traditional course curricula as part of a concentration at both the university and medical school levels (see Roth, forthcoming, for details). First-person training includes mind-training technologies drawn from both ancient contemplative traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism, as well as modern mind sciences like psychology and neuroscience. These This chapter describes the potential far-reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fi elds of science and medicine.