something new and interesting from Ron Crouch

"...clinical mindfulness focuses on relaxation and gentleness (but not samadhi) and points the person to watch thinking and emotional reactions. I would argue that these differences are a very good thing because, despite popular opinion, traditional vipassana would be terrible medicine for a person who is emotionally distraught, unstable, and unable to cope."

alohadharma.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/the...ent-with-meditation/

I didn't understand the distinction he made between what he called hard vipassana and soft vipassana. Both involve awareness of emotions and thoughts.

jackhat1 wrote: I didn't understand the distinction he made between what he called hard vipassana and soft vipassana. Both involve awareness of emotions and thoughts.

I too had a hard time figuring this out. When I went back, I found this: "I call mindfulness meditation a “soft” version of vipassana because it stops short of instructing the person to see that everything in awareness [rather than only thoughts and feelings] is coming and going and is not owned. It also does not emphasize the kind of intense or rapid momentary concentration that marks some vipassana techniques. Instead, clinical mindfulness focuses on relaxation and gentleness (but not samadhi) and points the person to watch thinking and emotional reactions. "

I think he is saying that soft vipassana is closer to "therapeutic mindfulness", mostly to reduce resistance to everyday life experiences.
Hard vipassana is fundementally destructive -- it includes and deconstructs the sense of identity, intention, and control.

If someone is in the midst of a big life change, adding in hard vipassana may be more traumatic than liberating. Of course each circumstance needs to be judged case by case.