The Integration of the Workable Range Model into a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course: a Practice-Based Case Study

Abstract

Didactic teaching about stress is part of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) curriculum. The content and methods of integrating conceptual teaching within the experiential pedagogy are rarely explored. Workable range is a model of stress and emotion regulation that illustrates patterns of physical, emotional and cognitive reactivity in relation to mindful presence. This is a qualitative case study of the inclusion of the workable range model into an MBSR course as a refinement of the didactic teaching about stress. The focus is to illuminate how the inclusion worked in practice. Ten staff, on a MBSR course in a higher educational setting, were recruited as participant researchers with an overlap between their own first-person investigation during the course and the research data. Adapted diagrams and written answers to two question schedules, completed as reflective exercises within the course, were analysed thematically using template analysis. This revealed how participant researchers engaged with and intuitively used the model to notice and describe their own patterns of feeling balanced or stressed and explore how they related to those experiences. How learning the model integrated with MBSR and the applicability of workable ranges as a teaching resource in MBSR is discussed. The study highlights questions about how conceptual and experiential teaching and learning interrelate in mindfulness-based interventions. There is scope for further research using mindfulness practice as a first-person methodology to investigate the processes within mindfulness-based programs.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s12671-017-0787-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

How Is Stress Reduced by a Workplace Mindfulness Intervention? A Qualitative Study Conceptualising Experiences of Change

“…Participant resources included CDs of guided meditations and home practice logs. Adaptations from the standard programme were as follows: shorter sessions (2 rather than 2.5 hours); exclusion of the full practice day; and inclusion, in sessions 4 and 5, of the workable ranges model of stress regulation (Rose 2014;Rose et al 2017) which is used by the SCPSS as a psychoeducational tool. The model proposes a Bwindow of tolerance^ (Siegal 2010) and optimal functioning between two different reactions to stress, namely highly charged mobilisation and low energy immobilisation.…”

Mapping, Meeting and Modulating Stress and Emotion: Combining Mindfulness and the Workable Ranges Model

“…The inclusion of the WRM within MBSR courses was evaluated in a qualitative study where data were collected from learning activities as part of the curriculum [21]. Following a presentation of the model, participants generated visual and written data from two reflective exercises, one after the presentation of the model in session four and another in session seven.…”

“…The first author uses the Workable Ranges Model (WRM) within MBSR courses for higher education staff [21]. The WRM built on the autonomic arousal model used in sensorimotor trauma psychotherapy [22].…”

“…Lines are drawn across the diagram from left to right to describe changes over time, with gentle waves depicting more regulated states and more pronounced ups and downs depicting dysregulation. See Rose et al [21] for a fuller account of the teaching method.…”

Impact of citalopram combined with mindfulness-based stress reduction on symptoms, cognitive functions and self-confidence in patients with depression

“…It has been reported that MBSR is highly convenient and effective [5]. Previous evidence indicates that MBSR effectively relieves physical and psychological stress, as well as stress-induced anxiety and depression [6]. Mindfulness-based stress reduction can be implemented in a healthy and sub-healthy population, as well as patients with chronic diseases, cancer and mental illness.…”