The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA): A Plain-English Review
Interoception is often described simply as our ability to notice what is happening inside our body. But this influential 2012 study by Mehling and colleagues showed that body awareness is considerably more complex than simply noticing bodily sensations.
The researchers developed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), a questionnaire designed to measure different ways in which people experience and relate to sensations within their bodies.
Rather than treating body awareness as one single ability, the researchers identified several distinct aspects of interoceptive awareness.
What did the research find?
The researchers identified eight different dimensions of body awareness. These included noticing bodily sensations, the way we respond to uncomfortable sensations, our ability to direct and sustain attention toward the body, awareness of connections between bodily sensations and emotions, and the ability to use bodily awareness to help regulate distress.
The questionnaire also explored whether people listen to their bodies for insight and whether they experience their bodies as generally safe and trustworthy.
This is important because two people might both be highly aware of sensations within their bodies while having very different experiences of them.
One person might notice sensations with curiosity and feel able to remain with them. Another might notice bodily sensations very strongly but experience them as frightening or overwhelming.
What does this mean in practice?
This research offers a useful way of thinking about body awareness in therapeutic work.
Simply encouraging someone to “notice what you feel in your body” may not tell us very much about their relationship with those sensations.
It may also be important to consider whether someone can remain with a sensation without immediately becoming overwhelmed, whether they can move their attention toward and away from bodily experience, whether they recognise connections between sensations and emotions, and whether their body feels like somewhere they can safely place their attention.
For body-oriented approaches such as Somatic Experiencing, these distinctions are particularly interesting because therapeutic work often involves gradually developing a greater capacity to notice and stay with bodily experience while maintaining a sense of safety and choice.
A note of caution
This study did not test a therapy or demonstrate that increasing body awareness treats trauma or mental-health difficulties.
Its primary purpose was to develop and validate a questionnaire capable of measuring different dimensions of interoceptive body awareness.
The MAIA has subsequently become widely used in research, but—as with any self-report questionnaire—it measures how people report their own experience rather than providing a direct biological measurement of interoception.
Its value here is in showing that body awareness is multidimensional and that how we relate to bodily sensations may be just as important as whether we notice them.
The original research
Mehling, W. E., Price, C., Daubenmier, J. J., Acree, M., Bartmess, E. & Stewart, A. (2012). The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA). PLOS ONE, 7(11), e48230.
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