Cognitive Defusion Is a Core Cognitive Mechanism for the Sensory-Affective Uncoupling of Pain During Mindfulness Meditation
Psychosomatic Medicine March 31, 2021 Jelle Zorn, Oussama Abdoun, Sandrine Sonié et al. 32 citations
Cognitive defusion—a form of psychological distancing from internal experiences—plays a central role in how mindfulness meditation regulates pain, especially the unpleasantness aspect. Expert meditators with over 10,000 hours of practice reported much lower pain catastrophizing (6.9 vs. 17.2) and higher cognitive defusion (39.4 vs. 28.9) than novices after two days of training. Across all participants, pain catastrophizing and cognitive defusion were strongly and specifically linked, and only cognitive defusion uniquely predicted pain unpleasantness after accounting for other factors. This suggests that cultivating cognitive defusion, rather than other mindfulness-related processes, may be key to reducing the distressing experience of pain.