While mindfulness is touted by many physicians as an effective pain management technique that provides an alternative to opioids, some — like Champlain College instructor Sarah Yahm — argue this treatment discriminates against female patients' legitimate pain, according to an op-ed in Slate.
Here are three reasons why Ms. Yahm says mindfulness treatments undermine female pain.
1. Ms. Yahm argues that mindfulness is often "disempowerment framed as empowerment," and it is a way for physicians to place the burden of pain treatment on patients.
2. Because women underreport pain, Ms. Yahm said their pain is often not taken seriously. If patients say the mindfulness exercises do not work, they are often blamed.
"This circular logic permeates the way mindfulness is currently being prescribed in medical settings: If it doesn't work for you, it's because you're too anxious and too invested in your pain, which is in fact more evidence that you need to practice mindfulness. And we're back to the trope of the hysterical female pain patient," Ms. Yahm writes.
3. Ms. Yahm questions why mindfulness is so popular among physicians, who are not always quick to adopt alternative treatment methods. Her threefold explanation involves its affordability, the rising unpopularity of traditional pain medication amid the opioid epidemic and the responsibility it places on patients, a concept that is usually absent in the American healthcare system.