Language-games in live mindfulness-based stress reduction: a philosophy of language analysis of participant-trainer dialogue

Introduction: It is important to explore how words are given to body awareness in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), as this impacts health and illness, while the literature on this topic is scarce. This study is the first to explore the learning process of enhancing one’s body awareness live in MBSR sessions through a philosophy of language lens. It is the first known application of Wittgenstein and Austin to full-course, live MBSR dialogue, and it analyzes language-games and all three speech acts in context. This is a suitable approach, as these philosophers focus on how language is used in real-life conversations.

Methods: We analyzed the full transcript of a complete MBSR training with interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Results: The results indicate that verbalizing body awareness was difficult for MBSR participants. Participants talked about emotions or they made rational judgments, while they found it hard to express what bodily sensations they felt. We suggest, using Wittgenstein’s concept of “language-games”, that in this case study, learning to verbalize one’s body awareness can be understood as learning a language-game of “reporting sense perceptions”. Referring to Austin’s concept, our findings also show what type of “speech acts” are done in MBSR.

Discussion: The results of this study align with insights one motion regulation therapy. The first step in these therapies is learning to feel bodily sensations instead of making rational judgments. In conclusion, we suggest that our results contribute to the scientific debate on the relation between language and body awareness. We also hypothesize the implications for the widespread use of mindfulness apps and recorded versions of the body scan, that both lack the feedback of the living trainer-participant dialogue.