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Abstract
In 2020, 5.6% of American adults were determined to have a serious mental illness (SMI). Diagnoses including psychotic disorders and bipolar disorders are archetypal of SMI status. These disorders are chronically disabling and include symptoms such as delusions, hallucination, anhedonia, avolition, asociality, blunted affect, conceptual and behavioral disorganization, and extreme mood episodes. The “first-line” treatment for SMI is psychotropic medication; however, such medication is frequently poorly tolerated and medication adherence can be poor. To address this, there has been growing interest in psychosocial treatments, including those based on mindfulness. Mindfulness is the process of attending to the present moment with an orientation of openness, curiosity, and acceptance; mindfulness-based treatments show efficacy for improving symptoms and functioning in people with SMI. However, there is a dearth of basic research on the characteristics of mindfulness in SMI including differences relative to nonpsychiatric controls and associated clinical outcomes. Further, the temporally dynamic effects of mindfulness on clinical correlates remain to be explored. In a series of three papers, I demonstrate that baseline characteristics of mindfulness vary by clinical presentation. However, the clinical correlates of mindfulness are generally consistent across presentations. Greater mindfulness was associated with improved mood and reduced negative symptoms, although results varied based on components of mindfulness (monitoring and acceptance). These results can be used to direct ongoing basic research and improve and personalize mindfulness-based treatments for different SMI populations.