Incremental Mindfulness

Mindfulness Psychotherapy
by: Michael Logan

Mindfulness psychotherapy to me is somewhat like looking at the Necker Cube graphic.  When you look at one corner, for example, one side of the box appears to be closer, and when you look at a different corner, another side of the box appears to be closer.

I use this tool frequently with my domestic violence clients, to illustrate a couple of things.  If I see one of the boxes and you see another, who is ‘right?’  The best answer is that we are both ‘right’.

The Necker cube used that way is an interesting tool for illustrating that everyone has a perspective, and that they can be different and right.  Another question to ask about the Necker cube, once you have observed it for a moment, and seen the sides flip, is to ask when I have seen box A, for example, where does box B go?

Box B is still there, isn’t it, it has just moved to the background, and with a quick switch of attention, I can bring box B to the foreground, and move Box A to the background. I think mindfulness psychotherapy is like that.

I can bring my attention momentarily to the breath, or to my thinking, or to my feelings, and the external world and my striving there moves to the background, and when I have calmed or agitated my internal world, I switch my attention to the external again, and attention to my thinking, feelings, or behavior moves to the background.

I actually have a poster of the Necker Cube in my group room where I do my domestic violence psychoeducational programs, and when I see a victim-persecutor-rescuer belief system come into play, for example, I will point to the poster and ask where the belief system about offering choice has gone.

Using the Necker Cube that way is an excellent visual reminder of the need to quickly be mindful of our internal experience before it drives an external behavior which generates unpleasant consequences.