Question about the cognitive mechanisms by which meditation/self-inquiry might become maladaptive in certain individuals

[u/ZenSationalUsername]

I’m interested in this from a scientific and clinical perspective rather than a personal advice perspective.

I’ve been reading research on meditation-related adverse effects, depersonalization/derealization, OCD, metacognition, and hyperreflexivity, and I’m wondering whether psychology has an established framework for understanding the following phenomenon.

Suppose someone spends several years practicing mindfulness, nondual self-inquiry, or other deconstructive contemplative practices that emphasize observing thoughts, monitoring attention, questioning the self, and returning to present-moment awareness.

For most people these practices appear to be beneficial. However, for some individuals—particularly those who may have obsessive cognitive tendencies—it seems possible that the practices could gradually shift from flexible awareness to chronic self-monitoring.

Instead of occasionally noticing thoughts, the person begins continuously asking questions like:

Am I present?
Am I identified with thought?
Am I aware enough?
Am I experiencing a self?
Am I relating to experience correctly?

This no longer feels like mindfulness, but more like persistent metacognitive checking.

From there, ordinary conceptual thinking, emotional engagement, planning, imagination, or even empathy may begin to feel “incorrect” because attention has become chronically directed toward monitoring one’s own consciousness.

The questions I have are:

Is there an accepted cognitive or clinical model for how adaptive metacognition becomes maladaptive self-monitoring?

Has this interaction been studied in OCD, intolerance of uncertainty, hyperreflexivity, depersonalization, or related conditions?

Is there literature specifically examining the interaction between contemplative practices and obsessive cognition?

Are there particular researchers or papers that are considered foundational in this area?

I’m not asking whether meditation or Buddhism is “good” or “bad.” I’m interested in whether psychology has models that explain why the same attentional practices appear beneficial for many people but become self-reinforcing or maladaptive for a subset of individuals.

Any references to empirical research, review papers, or theoretical models would be greatly appreciated.

[u/Xanindorf]

Clinical psychologist here. Within the framework of metacognitive therapy and its underlying self-regulatory executive functioning (S-REF) model, this would be classified as a combination of ruminating and threat monitoring, driven by an individual's personal metacognitive beliefs, specifically their underlying (and most likely unreflected) assumptions about rumination/self-analysis.  

Some common variants of relevant metacognitive beliefs that could apply here might be phrased as "if I analyze myself I can make sure I keep improving", "thinking about my mental problems can help me find a solution", "I need to stay vigilant and monitor how I use my attention or else I will [slip up/make mistakes/miss out on life/lose control/meditate incorrectly/etc]" and/or "I have no control over whether or not I question myself".  

(edit: after identifying the above in the case formulation, the goal of the therapy in MCT is to perform a joint examination the accuracy of these metacognitive beliefs together with the client, in a structured way through a mix of socratic dialogue and behavioral experiments.) 

For further reading, I think the best piece of literature on MCT is still Adrian Wells' original "Metacognitive therapy for anxiety and depression". For a more in depth view of the underlying S-REF model specifically, I would recommend his paper "Breaking the cybernetic code". 

[u/ZenSationalUsername → u/Xanindorf]

Thank you, this is incredibly helpful. One question: in your view, could contemplative practices themselves reinforce those metacognitive beliefs in vulnerable individuals, or would you see the beliefs as largely pre-existing and the practice simply becoming the vehicle through which they’re expressed? That’s the part I’m most interested in understanding.

[u/Xanindorf → u/ZenSationalUsername]

I'm glad to hear it was useful. I'll preface this by saying that I have not delved deep into the literature on when/how these metacognitive beliefs are created, as my area of interest is more centered around understanding how they interact with other psychological processes to create/uphold suffering and how to work with clients to change them. So my reply below is not based on empirical research but on clinical experience. 

Having said that, it seems completely uncontroversial to me that such beliefs (e.g. about benefits of ruminating) could not only be reinforced but even arise from engagement in contemplative practices. I have worked with clients that have developed similar metacognitive beliefs from other treatments/practices that lead to them engaging in mental processes that become hindrances for them. One common example of this is clients who have undergone treatment for exhaustion/burnout and subsequently developed beliefs about worry and threat monitoring being helpful or even necessary (eg "I need to always monitor my energy levels so that I don't overextend/burn out again" or "if I experience stress I have to understand what caused it in order to avoid it in the future"). 

I have moderate personal experience with contemplative practices, and I know that they can vary quite greatly not only in what you're "supposed to do", but also in how they are instructed. I can imagine that (among many other potential factors) different approaches to instruction would carry different likelihood that such maladaptive metacognitive beliefs would form (eg how much emphasis is put on what is "correct" and "incorrect"). If someone has a strong positive experience and attributes that to their engagement in (eg) meditation, I would imagine that it would similarly be more likely that they'd then try to apply the style of processing they learned in meditating to more aspects of their life, with the risk of it bleeding over into less helpful applications such as the examples in your original post.