The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent public health measures were shown to impact negatively on people’s mental health. In particular, women were reported to be at higher risk than men of developing symptoms of stress/anxiety/depression, and resilience was considered a key factor for positive mental health outcomes. In the present study, a sample of Italian female teachers (n = 66, age: 51.5 ± 7.9 years) was assessed with self-report instruments one month before and one month after the start of the Covid-19 lockdown: mindfulness skills, empathy, personality profiles, interoceptive awareness, psychological well-being, emotional distress and burnout levels were measured. Meanwhile, they received an 8-week Mindfulness-Oriented Meditation (MOM) course, through two group meetings and six individual video-lessons. Based on baseline personality profiles, analyses of variance were performed in a low-resilience (LR, n = 32) and a high-resilience (HR, n = 26) group. The LR and HR groups differed at baseline in most of the self-report measures. Pre–post MOM significant improvements were found in both groups in anxiety, depression, affective empathy, emotional exhaustion, psychological well-being, interoceptive awareness, character traits and mindfulness levels. Improvements in depression and psychological well-being were higher in the LR vs. HR group. We conclude that mindfulness-based training can effectively mitigate the psychological negative consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak, helping in particular to restore well-being in the most vulnerable individuals.

The Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent lockdown have profoundly impacted families’ daily life, challenging their psychological resilience. Our study aimed to investigate the immediate psychological consequences of the pandemic on Italian parents and children focusing on internalizing and post-traumatic symptoms. We also wanted to explore the impact of possible risk and resilience factors, e.g., lifestyle and behaviors, emotional and cognitive beliefs, on parents and children’s reaction to the emergency distress. An online survey was administered during the country’s nationwide lockdown to 721 Italian parents of at least one child aged between 6 and 18 years. The respondent completed the survey for himself/herself and his/her child. The survey included socio-demographic items and validated questionnaires on parents’ post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression and anxiety levels, and on children’s internalizing problems. Parents were asked to fill the questionnaires twice: once referring to the current emergency condition and once recalling how they and their child felt a few months before Covid-19 outbreak. Multiple regression analyses showed that specific demographic characteristics (i.e., sex and age) and psychological factors of children and parents, such as fear of contagion and the opportunity to think about possible secondary positive effects of the pandemic, had a predictive value on the presence of internalizing symptoms of both parents and children. Moreover, parents’ behaviors during the lockdown period (i.e., employment status and sport practiced) were significantly related to their own internalizing symptoms; these symptoms, in turn, had a strong and positive predictive value on children’s internalizing problems. Besides, analyses of variance showed that internalizing symptoms of parents and children were significantly higher during the Covid-19 pandemic than before it started. In addition to showing a direct effect of the pandemic on the psychological health of parents and children, the present results also give a series of important information on how parents perceive, and therefore influence, their children in this period of emergency. Our findings thus highlight the urgent need to provide parents with adequate support to take care of their own psychological wellbeing and to help their children coping with the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic.

It is increasingly recognized that interoceptive ability, the capacity to detect, interpret, and consciously integrate signals related to the physiological condition of the body, is central to emotion experience and regulation. Interoceptive ability can be trained and improved through mind–body interventions. This article attempts to provide an integrative review of the link between interoceptive ability and emotion regulation in mind–body interventions. To this aim, (1) we address the constructs of interoceptive ability and mind–body interventions in relation to the double pathway of emotion regulation, and (2) we include a review of selected empirical and qualitative studies. These show that mindfulness meditation affects the brain–body axis through top-down processing, improving both interoceptive ability and emotion regulation. Interventions based on bottom-up processing through body movement and emotional expression are illustrated, but it is argued that they are still under-investigated. In light of the literature reviewed, we contend that interoceptive ability is a crucial aspect associated with the effects of mind–body interventions on emotion regulation. Additionally, we suggest that if studied through both quantitative and qualitative methods, interoceptive ability may serve as a general construct that allows a more integrated view of the polarities related to the spectrum of embodied experience: top-down and bottom-up emotion processing, observational and non-observational body awareness, conscious and unconscious level of interoception.

Dissociation is an involuntary defensive mechanism to protect oneself by avoiding unbearable internal conflicts or overwhelming emotions. Cultivating mindful awareness could allow the development of voluntary processes that can offer part of the self-protective function of dissociation while favoring internal integration processes. The aim of the present study was to explore the effects of a 7-week Mindfulness Oriented Meditation (MOM) training on healthy individuals’ self-reported dissociative experience, mindfulness skills and interoceptive awareness. After the training, in comparison to a waiting-list control group (N = 102), the MOM group (N = 110) showed reduced dissociative tendencies (p < .05), increased dispositional mindfulness (p < .001) and increased interoceptive awareness (in the aspects of not-worrying, self-regulation and body listening; p < .001). Moreover, correlational evidence showed that the more MOM participants increased in mindfulness skills after the training the more they reported increased interoceptive awareness and decreased dissociative functioning (p < .05). Mindfulness skills also improved with more home meditation practice executed by MOM participants (p < .05). These findings were attributed to a possible role of mindfulness meditation in enabling the development of volitional processes that afford psychological safety and integration, in contrast with the involuntary nature of dissociation.

Background: Varied evidence shows that mindfulness-oriented meditation improves individuals' mental health, positively influencing practitioners' personality profiles as well. A limited number of studies are beginning to show that this type of meditation may also be a helpful therapeutic option for persons with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: We evaluated the effects of an 8-week mindfulness-oriented meditation training on the personality profiles, anxiety and depression symptoms, and mindfulness skills of a group of patients with MS. A control group of patients with MS not enrolled in any training was also tested. Results: After mindfulness-oriented meditation training, participants in this group (n = 15) showed an increase in character traits reflecting the maturity of the self at the intrapersonal (self-directedness) and interpersonal (cooperativeness) levels. Moreover, increased mindfulness and conscientiousness and decreased trait anxiety were observed in participants after the training. Conclusions: These data support the utility for patients with MS of therapeutic interventions based on mindfulness meditation that may lead to enhanced character and self-maturity.