Mindfulness Is Not Mental Health Care

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By Mo Edjlali, Founder and CEO, Mindful Leader; Author, Open MBSR

May is Mental Health Awareness Month—a perfect time to confront the question we've been avoiding:

What is mindfulness actually for, and where does it truly belong?

Headspace recently launched therapy services. Calm has been creeping toward clinical offerings for years. These platforms that once sold simple guided meditations now position themselves as mental health providers.

The evolution makes business sense. Therapy is regulated, reimbursable, and easier to market. Mindfulness? Not so straightforward.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: Mindfulness isn't therapy. And it was never designed to be.

The Silent Migration

I've witnessed a troubling pattern: skilled mindfulness teachers quietly becoming licensed therapists—not because they wanted to change careers, but because they were being forced into therapeutic roles without proper training.

These practitioners found themselves:

• Expected to treat trauma
• Holding space for people in crisis
• Managing clinical issues beyond their scope
• Working without appropriate supervision or boundaries

Why this shift? Because organizations found mindfulness cheaper and more scalable than actual mental health support. Because it fits neatly into wellness initiatives. Because funding a meditation app costs less than addressing toxic work cultures, chronic overwork, or investing in comprehensive mental health services.

Drawing Essential Boundaries

Let's be clear: Mindfulness can support mental wellbeing—but it is not mental health care.

Mindfulness excels at:

• Cultivating present-moment awareness
• Developing a healthier relationship with experience
• Reducing stress responses
• Building attention skills

What it is not designed to do:

• Diagnose psychological conditions
• Treat clinical disorders
• Process complex trauma
• Replace therapeutic interventions

When we blur these lines, we create danger—not just disappointment—for both practitioners and participants.

Finding Its Rightful Place

If mindfulness isn't therapy, then what is it? Where does it belong?

Should it be categorized within:

• Leadership development?
• Emotional intelligence training?
• Secular contemplative education?
• Personal growth practices?
• Organizational culture initiatives?

Or perhaps we need to ask the more pragmatic question: What classification system accurately captures mindfulness?

The challenge is that we haven't defined these boundaries ourselves. So the marketplace is doing it for us—reshaping mindfulness to fit whatever business model generates profit.

Reclaiming Authentic Practice

This identity crisis prompted me to write Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness. The book explores how mindfulness becomes distorted when absorbed by the very systems it aims to transform—whether capitalism, therapy culture, or spiritual marketplaces.

Open MBSR calls for a return to clarity. To ground mindfulness in practice rather than product. To create space where it can serve authentically without being misappropriated.

Your Voice Matters

If you work in this field as a teacher, therapist, coach, or organizational leader, I want to hear your perspective:

• Where do you believe mindfulness should be situated?
• Does it belong primarily in leadership, education, wellbeing, or spiritual contexts?
• Should it have its own distinct classification?
• What risks come with leaving it undefined?
• What environment would allow mindfulness to truly flourish?

If we don't make these defining decisions as a community of practitioners, others—venture-backed apps, HR departments, content marketers—will continue making them for us.

The time has come to stop letting mindfulness drift. Let's collectively determine what it is, what it isn't, and where it goes from here.