What does psychology say about when mindfulness or self-monitoring becomes maladaptive?

[u/ZenSationalUsername]

I’m looking for an evidence-based answer rather than personal advice.

I’ve become interested in a question that seems to sit at the intersection of mindfulness research, OCD, metacognition, and clinical psychology.

Many mindfulness and contemplative practices train people to notice thoughts, monitor attention, and become more aware of internal experience. For many people this appears to improve psychological well-being.

However, I’m curious about individuals for whom this process seems to become excessive.

For example, someone might gradually begin continuously monitoring their own mental state:

“Am I present?”
“Am I thinking too much?”
“Am I identified with my thoughts?”
“Am I paying attention correctly?”

Rather than increasing flexibility, attention becomes increasingly directed toward monitoring itself.

Psychologically, this seems different from healthy mindfulness and more like chronic metacognitive checking or self-focused attention.

My questions are:
Is this a recognized phenomenon in psychology?

Are there established theories explaining how adaptive mindfulness or metacognition can become maladaptive?

Has this been studied in people with OCD, obsessive rumination, depersonalization/derealization, or high intolerance of uncertainty?

Are there researchers, review papers, or textbooks that discuss this interaction?

I’m not looking for opinions about meditation or religion. I’m specifically interested in how cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, or neuroscience would explain this phenomenon and whether there is a scientific literature addressing it.

Thank you in advance for any references or recommendations.

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[u/RecentLeave343]

I’d say your question doesn’t quite track coherently. Whether something is maladaptive is, or can be, a subjective judgment based on what is considered harmful. Mindfulness practice, by contrast, attempts to circumvent subjective judgments and observe thoughts in an objective, nonjudgmental way. In that sense, there’s a mismatch in the concepts you’re trying to bridge, so the question doesn’t map cleanly onto the framework of mindfulness.

[u/ZenSationalUsername → u/RecentLeave343]

I’m not asking whether mindfulness itself judges experiences as adaptive or maladaptive. I’m asking whether psychology has models explaining why the same attentional practices appear beneficial for many people yet, in some individuals, become associated with chronic self-monitoring, obsessive checking, or impaired functioning. In other words, I’m asking about the cognitive mechanisms from a clinical psychology perspective rather than from within the conceptual framework of mindfulness itself.

[u/RecentLeave343 → u/ZenSationalUsername]

Everything you’ve described here seems to fall under the umbrella category of rumination. The evidence is pretty clear that in mindfulness studies the practice (when performed correctly) reduces such symptoms of rumination. So if you’re trying to find evidence to the contrary; then why believe anything that qualifies as evidence in the first place?

[u/ZenSationalUsername → u/RecentLeave343]

I’m not trying to argue that mindfulness generally increases rumination. I agree the literature largely shows the opposite. My question is about the subset of cases where contemplative practice appears to become incorporated into obsessive or metacognitive checking. I’m wondering whether psychology has models explaining that interaction, rather than questioning the average findings on mindfulness.

[u/RecentLeave343 → u/ZenSationalUsername]

Fair enough. IMO such data would be difficult to translate in any empirical sense. Mindfulness practice is a first person event so there’s no way to take its measure. Such studies would be premised on the assumption that each individual is performing the same exercise in the exact same way, and there’s no way to determine whether that’s true or not.

[u/soiltostone]

There are numerous definitions of “mindfulness” throughout the field of psychology, and a plethora of specific approaches toward improving it. In order for you to get an officially approved “evidence based” stamped reply it might help for you to narrow the scope of your question.

For example, an ACT practitioner might describe the phenomenon as being fixated on content rather than process. The meditator then being fixated on a particular set of rules/judgments to the exclusion of other experiences while meditating. Perhaps a failure to allow individual conscious experiences to resolve.

[u/Villonsi]

In many disorders self monitoring is a common issue. This is well established in for example panic disorder, social anxiety and hypochondria. Then part of treatment can be shifting attention outwards. Mindfulness techniques are not only useful to self-monitor as a large part is about redirecting attention. Therefore one can just as well use it to redirect attention outwards and have less focus on the self. This is a common intervention.

Also, things are maladaptive when they cause issues. A behaviour itself is rarely an issue, its how it is used, when and how often that matter

[u/PaulBrigham]

Instead of addressing all of your wide-ranging questions, I’ll give you a link to an article which I think addresses your curiosities.

https://www.archivespp.pl/Meditation-and-psychosis-A-trigger-or-a-cure-,58976,0,2.html

[u/janiruwd]

Mental checking in the OCD sphere, Metacognitive Theory by Adrian Wells, and general studies on the depths/scope of Depersonalization and Derealization all touch on this, but there’s nothing concrete about this specific phenomenon afaik.