The term "mindfulness" has its roots in contemplative meditation traditions. Recently however, mindfulness has entered the scientific discussion in clinical psychology, psychiatry, and in the neurosciences. Moreover, various mindfulness-based interventions have been developed in psychotherapy and psychosomatics.

In this presentation we give a brief overview of some psychological and neuroscience approaches to mindfulness and discuss possible implications for clinical interventions and for research.

Mindfulness practice requires (1) a constant, non-avoiding direction of attention towards an object, mostly an inner object, regardless whether it is pleasant or unpleasant for the individual or not, (2) a relaxing setting, in which experiences are observed and it usually involves (3) regular repeated practice. Neuroscience studies on neuroplasticity showed the relevance of similar factors for learning processes through facilitating the reorganization of cortical networks. Mindfulness meditation practice was found to be associated with brain activity corresponding to a more positive and approach oriented affective style. Consistent with this, several authors found mindfulness meditation to be related to a better modulation of experimental induced negative emotions. Clinical interventions involving mindfulness meditation were found to influence prefrontal brain activity. 8-week mindfulness based programs showed to induce positive changes in the asymmetry patterns of prefrontal brain activity.

Clinical and basic research on mindfulness provides opportunities to investigate domains of mental functioning that are crucial in many mental disorders and were underresearched in the past. Psychological and neuroscience approaches are complementary in this research into helpful change.