OPEN.MIND | Can MINDfulness help vulnerable youngsters to ride a challenging emotional tandem? OPENing up to positivity while simultaneously accepting negative feelings.

The epidemiological data are alarming. Emotional distress, and depression in particular, is highly prevalent in adolescents, it has multiple problematic consequences and it is on the rise. These emotional problems often stem from the suppression and non-acceptance of negative emotions. Furthermore, present-day social norms emphasizing positive emotions push vulnerable youngsters to suppress their negative emotions even more, making them feel sad and distressed more often. Furthermore, emotional distress not only stems from heightened levels of negative emotions, but also from a lack of positive emotions (anhedonia), likely caused by a dampening thinking style in response to positive emotions (“I shouldn’t be enjoying this too much, as I have to work out some issues first”). Vulnerable youngsters typically do not accept their negative emotions (which paradoxically further increases negative emotions) and also dampen positive emotions as long as they are still experiencing negative emotions: a toxic catch-22.

The OPEN.MIND project sets out to test whether Mindfulness Training (MT) can ‘unlock’ this catch-22 and, that way, reduces depressed (sad) mood, anxiety and stress and promotes protective positive emotions. On top, MT is expected to foster a healthier emotional discourse among youngsters as an alternative to society’s malignant discourse that denounces negative emotions and over-focuses on the pursuit of happiness, which now backfires on vulnerable youngsters.