Much of cognitive therapy has implicitly been focused on thoughts that are judged by others—particularly your therapist—to be irrational, erroneous, overly emotive, or inappropriate in some way. Clients are more likely to com- plain of diffi culties tolerating certain thoughts and feelings. But the stream of consciousness, or the stream of experience, need not be dominated by negative thoughts, worrying thoughts, or rumination on what is wrong with your life. If your attention can be focused on positive external experiences, as well as inter- nal feelings such as the pleasure of sexual satisfaction or feeling replete after a wonderful meal, then the psychological emphasis is more on enjoying pleasur- able sensations than on tolerating negative ones.
Th is phenomenon of conscious attention to the experience of pleasure has recently been described in the literature as savoring (Bryant & Veroff , 2007). It is the perfect word for what we mean, psychologically. It is about concentrating on the enjoyment of the rich mouthful of a full-bodied Australian shiraz rather than gulping down a beer, or, since I have nothing against beer drinkers, actively feeling the pleasure of a cool beer on a hot summer day and admiring the conden- sation on a cold glass. Savoring involves a temporal sequence: you can anticipate
an imminent pleasurable event (“we’ve got a 2003 Barossa Valley shiraz in the cellar that will go perfectly with the steak”), be in the moment while it is hap- pening, and recapture some of the enjoyment by positive reminiscing (“wow, wasn’t that a fantastic shiraz we had last night? I can still taste those blackberry and cherry fl avors”). Not surprisingly, savoring has become a major concept in positive psychology. People who habitually savor life experiences are more con- tented, more optimistic, and less depressed than those who do not.
One of the very useful things about positive psychology as a movement is that when applied to the change we are trying to accomplish in psychotherapy it makes it possible to focus on benefi cial outcomes far beyond simply surviving the negative (Seligman, 2002). We can return to a much earlier chapter in which I was examining the sorts of outcomes we expect with therapy: surely it is some- thing more than symptom reduction, coping with negative feelings, or manag- ing emotions? Positive change that results from truly eff ective therapy should mean something more than minimizing the negatives in life.
Savoring can, of course, be taught. It would be a very useful strategy to add to whatever other therapy you are doing. It is hard to know if people who are depressed, unhappy, and anxious are that way because they do not savor life’s marvelous experiences, or whether having these predominant emotions makes it hard to savor anything. Part of what we mean by these conditions as clinical entities is that the person emphasizes the parched thirst and not the cool beer. After a suffi cient period of time, however, it seems likely that many clients have stopped even trying to savor, or do not enjoy access to the social interactions that can facilitate it. Sharing the shiraz with your lover is going to bring greater pleasure than drinking it alone—as long as it is not your last bottle. In my past practice, I always noticed that as clients showed improve- ment they began to describe positive experiences, using sensory language and rich descriptions of positive sensations. Now, because the topic of savoring has become much better understood and studied, I personally would not wait until it begins to happen, but would try to start clients with exercises designed to get them to attend to and focus their concentration on pleasurable life events. Th is is slightly diff erent from mindfulness and is carried out for a diff erent purpose.
Although the cognitive processes relating to both meditation and mindfulness might be quite similar, the use of these two in planful therapeutic change is quite diff erent. Th ey have both recently become extremely popular ideas in therapy, especially cognitive–behavioral therapy, despite being very ancient practices of Buddhism and other Eastern psychologies. As therapeutic methods they really belong in the following chapter on self-infl uence, as the therapist can teach the principles and encourage clients to practice these cognitive skills, but for them to be eff ective they have to be utilized in situ by the client. As far as we know, they are not like the types of cognitive revelations—insights, for example—that happen in the course of therapy as an intense interpersonal interaction.
I said earlier that it is not literally possible to do nothing and so too it is liter- ally impossible, when awake, not to engage in thought, and if those thoughts are upsetting, distress continues. However, it is very possible to focus attention on abstractions so completely that the troubled internal dialogue and vigilance toward negative events can be suspended. Meditation can achieve this. It brings attention to objects, internal sensations, and ideation so as to observe them with- out analyzing them. Buttle (2011) invokes the importance of working memory, which is hypothesized to have a central attentional system assisted by two slave systems, one verbal and one visual/spatial. Meditation can involve concentrated attention on a visual stimulus (object), but more often involves the repetition of a word or sound that allows for the prevention of intruding thoughts.
Th e recent resurgence of interest in mindfulness has a slightly diff erent pur- pose (Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002). Within ACT, the purpose of mindful- ness training for clients is to disrupt the connection between a thought and an action or a thought and a feeling (Baer, 2010). Whereas in conventional cognitive therapy the goal is to change thoughts, the goal in ACT is to allow thoughts of any kind, but to make them irrelevant to how we feel and behave. Th ere is an equal purpose in focusing attention on a feeling state, such as anxiety, and in a sense savoring it as a feeling rather than resisting it and trying to suppress it or get rid of it. Th e rationale for this is based on the importance that ACT theory places on the presence of experiential avoidance (intolerance of distressing feel- ings: anxiety sensitivity, for example). We might argue that experiential avoid- ance is characteristic of only some clients’ personalities. But for those for whom it is a major component of what is maintaining distress, the strategy is logical.