We sat down with Dr. Wolf Mehling, M.D., physician, psychotherapist, and one of the originators of the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) scale, to explore a question at the heart of body-based healing: how do we actually measure body awareness, and why does that measurement matter for clinical outcomes?

In this exclusive interview, Dr. Mehling shares how his own experience of chronic pain and breathwork led him to develop the MAIA—a tool now used by researchers worldwide to assess not just whether clients notice body sensations, but whether they can regulate their attention, resist catastrophising, and develop trust in their body’s signals. For clients with trauma, chronic pain, anxiety, or depression, these dimensions of interoceptive awareness aren’t abstract concepts—they’re measurable capacities that predict how well body-based interventions will work.